Chapter 4

Waking up in the morning, he was tightly hugging my waist, his long-absent breath tickling my neck.

I shifted an inch towards the edge of the bed, and he followed an inch.

Ethan really wanted to win me back, he was proving it with actions.

He turned down a lot of work, making time to accompany me and the child.

In the nursery, he shook a little bell to soothe the crying baby.

"Baby, say dad, come on."

Mentioning the word dad, he deliberately turned his head to look at me leaning against the doorway.

But the moment our eyes met, I coldly turned away without a glance.

The bell sound behind me stopped.

Ethan thought I was angry, but I was just afraid.

Afraid of indulging in this sweetness again, afraid of falling back into this terrible marriage.

Until late at night I heard him on the phone with his secretary by the window.

"How's the project going? It needs to be fast."

That moment I finally woke up, Ethan was proud.

His concessions were rarely for love, mostly for profit.

So all his kindness now was just because he couldn't bear to part with these hard-earned achievements.

From that day on, all his gentleness seemed laughable to me.

I was determined not to give him another chance, but he still refused to give up.

Until one day, Sophie burst in again.

She had only a few scraps of cloth left on her body, her neck covered in red marks, her skin full of bruises.

Ethan immediately dropped the milk bottle and rushed out, taking her into his arms.

The usually gentle girl now seemed to have gone mad, pounding his chest.

"It's all your fault! It's all your fault! If you hadn't dumped me for your career back then, how could I have ended up like this!"

"They... they were angry I ran away from the marriage, they found a group of people to humiliate me... I, I don't want to live anymore!"

Saying this, she shoved him away, crashing into the doorpost, blood flowing freely.

Ethan frantically picked her up and rushed towards the door.

As he stepped over the threshold, I reminded him:

"Do you know what you'll lose if you leave?"

Wife, child, and years of hard work.

But Ethan didn't pause for even a step this time, going straight to the car.

I stood in the wind and rain, feeling like the biggest joke in the world.

From that day on, Ethan stayed by her side day and night.

Three months flew by, and I sent him a time, reminding him to go get the divorce certificate.

The message quickly showed as read, but there was no reply.

Later, he only hurried over when the civil affairs bureau was about to close.

After not seeing him for days, he looked much more haggard, with dark circles under his eyes.

I looked at the two divorce certificates in my hand, finally feeling relieved.

When I looked up at Ethan, he was lowering his eyes, clearly depressed.

The sky suddenly began pouring rain, I turned back to look at him:

"Did you bring an umbrella? I'll walk you out?"

We were husband and wife after all, might as well part on good terms.

But Ethan shook his head, his gaze fixed on a woman running towards him in the distance.

Sophie held her slightly swollen belly, her eyes full of smugness.

They walked arm in arm back into the civil affairs bureau.

Only after their silhouettes had completely disappeared did I turn back to find the umbrella above my head had somehow tilted off course.

I took off my soaked outer coat and called my father, asking him to arrange for me to go abroad to clear my head.

Soon WeChat pushed a contact who said he would take me traveling the world.

Before boarding the plane, a message from Ethan popped up on my phone.

[I'm sorry, but I owe her too much.]

After reading this, I blocked him.

Hugging the child tightly in my arms, I looked out the window at my freedom.