There was an open secret among the glittering upper crust of New York City.

If you saw a man driving a Maybach with the license plate 8888, you did not mess with him.

Ethan was the man who drove that Maybach.

Rumor had it that he loved his wife to distraction, yet he constantly sought fresh, fleeting thrills outside.

He played a wild game, but he operated under a single, absolute taboo:

Nothing was ever allowed to blow up in front of his little wife.

Everyone knew that the woman who had stood by his side for seven years was his only weakness.

If his little wife vanished for even a single hour, it was enough to drive him completely insane.

This time, however, the truth was slipping beyond his control.

The latest girl had grown unruly, emboldened by his indulgence, and in her reckless arrogance, she had marched herself straight into Clara's life.

But Clara was harboring a secret of her own.

She was done playing her part in his elaborate theater; she was going to vanish from his world forever.

Chapter 1

At two in the morning, Ethan pushed the door open and stepped inside.

He wrapped his arms around Clara through the thick layers of the comforter, pressing a soft kiss to her skin as he murmured a gentle apology. "I'm so sorry, Clara. The flight was delayed, that's why I'm so late. I promise I’ll make it up to you on our anniversary next year. Don't be mad at me, okay?"

But Clara wasn't listening. Her gaze was locked entirely on the collar of his white dress shirt.

The fabric was slightly undone, and the moment he leaned his head down, she caught a stark, undeniable glimpse of bruised hickeys and raw scratch marks clawing beneath his neckline.

Every single mark spoke volumes of the wild indulgence and breathless passion he had just shared with someone else—someone who was distinctly not Clara.

Ethan, utterly oblivious, noticed nothing amiss.

The moment he disappeared into the bathroom to wash up, Clara picked up his phone and unlocked it.

Everything appeared perfectly normal. His personal messages were spotless, clean enough to make her question if she was simply losing her mind to paranoia.

Until she checked his corporate messaging app.

A notification suddenly flashed across the screen.

[Master, do you still have enough energy left to pay your dues at home tonight?]

Clara's fingers trembled as she tapped on the avatar. It belonged to his secretary, Sasha.

Their chat history unspooled right before her eyes.

[Do you really have to go back?]

[Yes. Tonight is our wedding anniversary. Be good. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.]

She pulled up Sasha's public social media account.

The most recent post was a video set against a sun-drenched coastline. The girl's eyes were bright and sparkling as she held tightly onto the hand of the person behind the camera, flashing a radiant, youthful smile at the lens.

But Clara’s gaze drifted past the smile, freezing entirely on the hand holding the girl's.

With just one look, she recognized it instantly. It was Ethan's left hand.

She knew that hand intimately—the long, elegant fingers, the sharp definition of the knuckles. Every line of it had been traced by her fingertips and etched into her memory.

And right there, though the wedding band was missing from his ring finger, a distinct, pale tan line remained exactly where the ring usually sat.

Clara stared blankly at the screen, her mind turning into a hollow, echoing void while her fingers tightened instinctively around her own wedding ring.

Slowly, she scrolled down.

With another soft tap, another post from the girl surfaced.

It was a picture showcasing an extravagant array of luxury cosmetics.

High-end lipsticks, foundations, eyeshadow palettes, and designer perfumes were piled together in a lavish display. The caption at the top pierced straight through Clara's heart: "What’s it like having a husband who buys you everything without a second thought?!"

The words, wrapped in a thin veil of complaints, were nothing short of a blatant boast. It made the blood drain entirely from Clara's face.

She knew with absolute certainty that the "husband" the girl spoke of was Ethan.

Once, Ethan used to shower her with everything she fancied. Now, that exact same indulgence had been handed over to someone else.

Staring at those expensive cosmetics and thinking of how deeply he spoiled that girl, a wave of profound bitterness rushed into her chest.

Her fingers shaking, Clara opened Ethan's shopping app.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to force her erratic pulse to steady, but the agonizing tempest in her chest refused to settle.

When the page finally loaded, a long, unbroken string of recent purchases filled the screen.

It was an endless catalog of high-end makeup and skincare products—lipsticks in every imaginable shade, various brands of foundation, luxury face creams, and designer fragrances. It was an exhaustive list.

Clara's heart felt as though it were being crushed by a massive, invisible fist, the pain sharpening with every item she scrolled past.

Forcing herself through the ache, she tapped into the individual order details one by one.

As the receipts expanded, a single, recurring shipping address filled the screen—it was the private estate Ethan had lived in before their marriage.

And under the recipient column, the name printed in clear, cold letters read: Sasha.

Chapter 2

Steeling her nerves, Clara quietly activated the screen-recording function on her phone. Her fingers moved with practiced efficiency, capturing every line of their exchange.

Their messages weren't actually long; they mostly consisted of Ethan arranging times to meet the girl.

The girl's responses were filled with breathless anticipation and suggestive pouting, constantly demanding to know exactly when he would come to her.

Scattered between the scheduling were crude, explicit lines of flirtation.

Clara quickly transferred the recorded video file directly to her own device, then deleted the clip from his sent history without a shred of hesitation.

Next, she opened his photo gallery, found the screen recording in his recently generated media, and deleted it once more.

To leave absolutely nothing to chance, she entered the phone's trash folder and permanently purged the file from existence. Every movement was seamless and unhurried, executed with the cold precision of a woman completing a mission that required absolute perfection.

When it was over, Clara sat in the heavy silence, the phone still gripped in her palm, her eyes hollow as if her very soul had detached from her body.

The sudden, sharp click of the bathroom door unlocking snapped her violently back to reality.

Inhaling deeply, she smoothed her expression into a mask of perfect calm and gently set the phone back exactly where it belonged.

A moment later, Ethan stepped out from the steam.

His damp, dark hair fell loosely across his forehead in soft, messy curls, lending him an effortless, sultry air of relaxation.

Stray droplets of water rolled slowly from the tips of his hair, tracing the sharp, rigid contours of his jawline like a scattering of brilliant crystals, shifting the heavy air into something intensely intimate.

Towel-drying his hair, Ethan looked up to meet Clara’s gaze.

In that brief second, his eyes inadvertently dropped to her left hand—specifically, to her bare ring finger.

The casual indifference in his expression shattered into an instant flicker of shock.

"Where is your ring?" he asked.

"I put it away," Clara replied evenly. "Where is yours?"

"I left it at the office. That way, every time I'm working, I'm reminded of you."

Ethan's voice filled the quiet bedroom, dripping with the familiar tone of easy devotion, sounding entirely as though his words were born from the purest affection.

Yet Clara knew exactly what it was: just another lie to add to the pile.

She merely looked at him, offering no attempt to tear down his facade, her eyes carrying nothing but a deep, crushing exhaustion. Once upon a time, she might have fought him on a lie like this, demanding the truth.

But now, she couldn't bring herself to waste the energy on a meaningless struggle.

She lay back down on the mattress, her hand drifting instinctively down to rest over her lower abdomen.

There, pale silver stretch marks patterned her skin like tiny, winding serpents—stark, permanent reminders of a body torn apart by grief.

Ethan slid into bed and pulled her into his embrace.

Reaching down, he rested his palm gently over her stomach.

The heat of his hand seeped through the thin fabric of her nightgown, but Clara felt no warmth from his touch. To her, that hand felt like a freezing shackle, locking her down into a marriage built entirely on deception.

A sudden tremor ran through her, an urge to twist away from his touch flaring up before she forcefully suppressed it. She remained perfectly still, letting his hand linger over her stomach.

"Are you missing our little angel again?"

"Angel" was the name they had given the child who had left them before ever seeing the light of day.