Chapter 1

Seven years since it happened, I threw up again during intimacy.

Asher, who had been by my side through every grueling therapy session, finally snapped.

“If you hadn’t insisted on saving Seraphina from that rapist, you wouldn’t have been targeted in retaliation! You’re a damn psychologist, Iris! Why can’t you fix yourself?”

As he cleaned up my vomit, he scrubbed my skin raw with the brush.

“You’re the one who’s been defiled and broken, I haven’t even called you disgusting, why are you always throwing up?”

I had prepared a surprise for Asher, wanting to explain everything.

But then I saw him working hard on Seraphina’s bed.

“You both went through the same thing, so how can you make such beautiful sounds in bed?”

“Do you think that woman is faking it?”

The pregnancy test report slipped from my hand and fell to the floor. The explanation I never got to say lodged in my throat.

I wasn’t faking it. I was just pregnant.

As his brush tore at my skin, leaving me raw and bleeding, I didn’t flinch.

When I felt warm liquid splash onto my back, I reached out and clutched Asher’s trembling hand.

My voice was raw and hoarse, burned by stomach acid.

“I’m sorry.”

Asher suddenly snapped back to reality, tossing the brush far away.

His fingers trembled as he tended to my wounds.

He had prepared for this moment of intimacy for a long time.

Everything had been going smoothly, and we were both starting to get lost in it.

But my vomiting reaction was more violent than ever before.

After applying the antiseptic, he instinctively reached out to comfort me, then suddenly remembered something.

He pulled his hand back, abruptly leaving without touching me.

“I’m sorry, I need to cool off.”

Watching him walk away.

I wondered if Asher ever regretted saving me from the kidnappers, even if it meant taking three knife wounds himself.

Because of the severe PTSD I developed, I resisted all forms of intimacy.

Asher had put his entire career on hold, painstakingly guiding me through desensitization therapy, step by agonizing step.

His family detested me to their very core because of it.

“If it weren’t for that woman, Asher would have taken the company to another level by now.”

“Asher’s prime years are being completely wasted on this woman. And it looks like she can’t even have a child. All because she bought into that woman’s misguided kindness.”

“Refusing to be a lady of leisure, choosing to be a damn psychologist, going around saving others from rapists – she deserved what she got!”

The girl I saved was Seraphina.

I never imagined that one day, they would end up in the same bed.

I stood outside the room, feeling like I was being ripped in two, alive.

One half was a raw, bleeding pain; the other half suspected this was a nightmare, not reality.

They finally noticed the movement at the door.

Asher’s face went white.

“Iris, what are you doing here…?”

The heavy, cloying scent of their infidelity hung in the air, and I started dry-heaving uncontrollably.

Asher panicked, expertly pouring water, offering me medication, and cleaning up the vomit.

Seraphina knocked the water from Asher’s hand, her eyes red as she demanded,

“Iris, I don’t understand. I was abused for longer than you, so how come I can be intimate with Asher, and you can’t?”

“Asher is a human being, he has desires and emotions, and he gets hurt when he’s rejected. Iris, you haven’t recovered for so long, do you even care about his feelings?”

Listening to her indignant questions, I remembered that terrifying memory.

My stomach spasmed as if trying to expel every last drop of acid.

The pregnancy test results, which I’d meant as a surprise, were now on the floor, soiled and illegible.

Seraphina reached out and covered Asher’s eyes, preventing him from looking at the mess.

“Don’t look. You’re human too, you’ll get disgusted.”

“She doesn’t care about you, but I do.”

Asher looked at my pale face, opening his mouth several times, trying to explain something.

But his body was still marked with the messy aftermath of their encounter.

He simply gave up, a bitter smile twisting his lips.

“You already find me disgusting, so what’s one more time?”

Asher grabbed his jacket and left, his back slumped in despair.

He was right. I wasn’t a good wife.

I had no right to question Asher’s infidelity.

How many more seven-year cycles of his life would I consume?

I dialed my lawyer.

“Draw up the divorce papers for me. I’m willing to walk away with nothing.”

I needed to give Asher back the vibrant life he deserved.