Chapter 1

I went home mid-day to grab some meeting documents, not expecting the projector in our living room to flick on automatically, displaying a single line of text.

"Today's mission: Pleasure yourself with my picture in front of your wife for one hour. Don't forget to send me the video once you're done, darling."

The next second, the projector shut off just as quickly.

I tried to rationalize it, thinking maybe it was just a hallucination from my late-night work sessions.

But that night, after my husband, Julian, the man I’d loved for ten years, fed me warm milk, I distinctly heard him growl a strange woman’s name under his breath.

My body, however, felt like my limbs were filled with lead, utterly unable to move.

Earlier that evening, when Julian fed me the milk, I’d been wary. I only took a symbolic tiny sip, then quietly poured the rest of the liquid into a potted plant as he turned to leave.

But even that tiny sip was enough to paralyze me completely.

I closed my eyes, but my hearing became unnaturally sharp.

I could feel his warm breath ghost across my ear, then his muffled, suppressed moans began.

"Scarlett… *Mmm*… *Ah*…"

Knowing exactly what was happening, a wave of unspeakable nausea churned in my stomach.

I couldn’t reconcile the man before me with the person I remembered, the one who’d walked with me from nothing to where we were today.

The boy who used to blush just from a harmless joke in front of his classmates.

The broke student who ate instant ramen for a month just to buy me a limited-edition lipstick.

The man who, during the early days of his startup, would hug me and say, "Anya, I promise I’ll give you a good life someday."

Now, he was a high-powered CEO, always so suave, so charming to outsiders.

But when I wasn't looking, this was what he truly was.

Time stretched, each second an agonizing eternity.

Finally, the suffocating sounds stopped.

I heard him sigh, a long, drawn-out breath, followed by the sound of water running in the bathroom.

After the water stopped, he returned to bed, a faint scent of dampness clinging to him, and gently pulled me into his arms from behind.

The familiar scent of his shower gel enveloped me, yet it only sent a cold shiver down my spine.

His warm lips pressed against my cheek, as if nothing had happened at all.

"I’ll always love you, Anya. Goodnight."

I froze, caught off guard.

Did he truly love me?

But the darkness was too quiet, and I couldn't fight off the exhaustion, eventually slipping into a deep sleep.

I woke up the next morning, and the spot beside me was already empty.

A sticky note, with Julian’s familiar handwriting, was on the bedside table.

"My dearest Anya, the project kicks off today, so I headed in early to prepare. Breakfast is on the table, don't forget to eat! (＾Ｕ＾)ノ~ＹＯ."

Looking at the note, I felt a moment of disorientation. Everything that happened last night seemed like an absurd nightmare.

But then I reached for the vase, pulling out the pinhole camera I'd secretly installed last night.

I connected it to my phone, and the video playback from last night reminded me: it wasn't a dream.

The humiliation, the disgust – it was all real.

My rationality screamed not to act rashly.

I forced myself to calm down, fast-forwarding through the surveillance footage.

Thankfully, the camera did capture a glimpse of the girl on his phone screen.

I paused the video, zoomed in.

The girl on the phone looked delicate, young, with a fragile, pitiful kind of beauty.

I recognized that face, though. Her name was Scarlett.

She was a professional mourner.

Three months ago, at Julian’s mother’s funeral, a funeral team was hired, and this girl had cried the hardest.

Anyone who didn’t know might have thought it was her own mother who had passed.

I was intrigued by her dedication at the time, so I looked her up.

Her parents were abusive, and to escape that home, she studied hard, working as a mourner to pay for her tuition and living expenses.

After the funeral, it was me who asked Julian to give that girl twenty thousand dollars.

Now, it seemed highly likely that's when they met.

I exited the video and called Julian.

But several attempts went straight to voicemail.