Chapter 3

I looked at her back then, my voice cracking with desperation.

"Nicole, I gave up everything for you. Why can't you see that?"

"You call that giving up everything?" Nicole had scoffed. "Look at yourself—broke, useless, drowning in debt. I should've listened to Marcus and stayed far away from a failure like you."

"Marcus, Marcus, Marcus! That's all you ever talk about!"

I couldn't help raising my voice. "If you loved him so much, why did you choose to be with me in the first place?"

"Because you wouldn't stop chasing me! I was young and stupid, and you tricked me!"

Nicole's eyes flared with anger.

"It was only after being with you that I realized you couldn't give me the life I deserved!

Look at Marcus—young, wildly successful, driving supercars, living in penthouses! And you? You can't even buy me a damn designer bag!"

"So you regret being with me?"

A wave of bitter cold had washed over my chest.

"Then why didn't you just reject me from the start? Why let me do all those things for you?"

"Hah! You did all that willingly! How is that my problem?"

Nicole had curled her lip in disgust.

"Besides, I wanted to see how far you'd go for me. Who knew you'd be so pathetic that you couldn't even manage a simple real estate project?"

"I tried my best! I threw away my passion for tech and jumped into an unfamiliar industry just for you! Do you have any idea how hard that was?"

I had shaken my head in sheer exhaustion.

Nicole sneered.

"One word of advice from Marcus is worth a hundred of your pathetic attempts. If I had listened to him back then, I wouldn't be stuck living like this.

You simply can't give me what I want. I regret ever touching you. You wasted my best years!"

Four years together—one year of dating and three years of marriage.

Throughout all that time, she used her germaphobia as an excuse to keep me at arm's length. We never once shared genuine physical intimacy.

Over time, I had accepted our sexless marriage, genuinely believing she suffered from an uncontrollable psychological aversion to touch. Heartbroken as I was, I chose to endure it in silence.

Until that fateful afternoon, when my phone buzzed with an anonymous text.

The moment I read the message, my brain went completely numb.

My hands trembled violently as my eyes locked onto the screen. It was an address for a luxury hotel, complete with a room number.

Dread coiled in my gut, but a naive part of me desperately prayed it was just a sick prank.

I rushed to the hotel. Standing outside the room door, my heart pounded against my ribs.

Before I could even raise my hand to knock, muffled, breathless moans leaked through the door.

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

All that remained in the world was that sickening, unmistakable sound.