Chapter 1

On my wife’s birthday, she lied that she had to go on a business trip and secretly went to her first love’s house.

Late that night, my wife’s first love, Ryan, sent me a video.

In the video, my wife Claire was sitting on the edge of a bed with her upper body completely bare.

I silently saved it. The vows of eternal love we had once made suddenly felt like a joke.

I picked up my phone and called home.

“Mom, I agree. I’ll come back and take over the family business.”

Three days later, my wife Claire finally contacted me.

“Ryan had something come up. Come pick me up from his place!”

In the past, no matter how urgent things were, I would drop everything and go get her whenever she called.

But this time, I stayed in bed, hung up immediately, switched my phone to silent, and went back to sleep.

When Claire returned home, her face was terrifyingly dark.

She stormed over to me, yanked off my blanket, and threw it onto the floor.

“Ethan, what the hell is wrong with you? You’d rather sleep at home than go pick me up?”

“Do you have any idea how busy I was entertaining clients? I barely had time to breathe!”

“I brought you into the company so you could learn, not so you could spend every day drinking at business dinners and come home to sleep like a useless lump!”

I put on my clothes and met Claire’s furious gaze.

She had no idea that I attended all those dinners to make her life at the company easier. Every major contract the company landed had been secured by me.

But for Claire’s future, I secretly handed every one of those contracts over to her.

After months of relentless networking, I had pushed someone as incompetent as Claire into a director’s position she never should have reached.

Yet Claire stubbornly believed she had gotten me into the company.

In her eyes, I was nothing more than a parasite feeding off her.

“Ethan, why do you always go silent whenever I bring this up?”

“Do you have any dignity as a man? Do you really plan to keep drifting around like a useless loser?”

“That won’t happen again,” I said calmly.

My answer eased her anger a little. Then, in the tone of a boss giving an order, she said, “I’m a little dizzy. Hurry up and make me some tea to sober me up. I’m going to take a shower.”

I watched her walk toward the bathroom, finished getting dressed, and sat down in the living room.

When Claire came out, drying her hair, she saw me sitting there without moving. Her suppressed anger exploded again.

“Ethan, I told you to make tea. Are you deaf? Or have you finally decided my words don’t matter?”

I simply looked at her and asked quietly, “Claire, were you really on a business trip these past three days?”

Her entire body stiffened. Then, overwhelming fury spread across her face.

“What exactly are you implying?”

“I didn’t even celebrate my own birthday. I spent three days away securing a major contract for the company, and you still have the nerve to doubt me?”

I took out my phone, unlocked the video, and held it out in front of her.

Under the dim light, she was sitting on the edge of the bed with her upper body bare.

Claire’s pupils widened. Even her rage froze for a moment.

Then, overcome with embarrassment, she shouted, “Ethan, how dare you spy on me? That’s disgusting!”

“Ryan sent it to me,” I replied calmly.