Chapter 3

I picked up a piece of foie gras with my fork. Claire smiled at the sight.

“You were going to eat it anyway. Why bother making everyone uncomfortable?”

She turned to go back to her seat, but I suddenly stood and caught her wrist.

Claire looked back at me in surprise.

I pushed the foie gras straight into her mouth.

The instant it touched her tongue, she gagged and spat it out.

“Ethan, are you out of your mind?”

“We’ve worked together for years. Don’t you know I don’t eat organ meat, just like you?”

Worked together. Not been married.

Even now, she was determined to hide the fact that she had a husband.

“Oh, really? So you do know I don’t eat it. I thought you’d forgotten.”

Claire went pale.

She hadn’t always been like this. She used to defend me. She used to care about my feelings.

I first met her in our campus art club’s studio.

I’d just turned down a girl who’d asked me out. After leaving, I realized I’d forgotten my backpack. When I came back, I reached the door and heard that girl talking trash about me to another student.

“I don’t know why Ethan acts like he’s so special. So what if he gets good grades and has a pretty face?”

“Everyone knows his family is dirt-poor. He has to scrape and save and work just to pay tuition.”

“He should be grateful I was interested in him, but he had the nerve to turn me down.”

“Does he realize one of my handbags could pay several years of his tuition?”

Her words grew nastier. I was about to walk in when Claire suddenly stepped into view.

She looked at the girl like she was a piece of trash.

“Do you know why our campus heartthrob doesn’t like you?”

The girl asked why, looking curious.

“Have you ever met anyone who’s attracted to a total piece of shit?”

“You!”

The girl flushed with anger and raised her hand to slap Claire, but I stopped her.

I picked up my backpack, took Claire’s hand, and led her out.

Before we left, I made sure to say, “I guess I was too polite when I turned you down. She’s right. I can’t stand trash.”

Claire burst out laughing.

We gradually became friends. Later, I asked why she’d stood up for me.

She said she simply couldn’t stand watching those girls tear someone down for no reason.

Back in college, Claire was bright as sunshine. She felt like a beam of light pulling me out of the pit of my own insecurity.

The more I got to know her, the harder I fell.

One weekend, I enlisted her roommate’s help to get her off campus so I could tell her how I felt.

I spent ages researching online, chose the most romantic spot I could find, and filled it with her favorite flowers.

I waited from morning until night, but she never came.

When I returned to campus, news about her was everywhere.

She was dating rich boy Lucas Reed.

His family hadn’t gone bankrupt yet. Back then, his parents’ money had made him something of a campus celebrity.

I was miserable for a long time, but in the end, I wished them well.

Loving someone didn’t mean selfishly insisting that she belonged to me.

What I hadn’t expected was how quickly things would fall apart. Something apparently went wrong with Lucas’s family, and they all moved overseas.

He didn’t even bother breaking up with her.

After that, Claire became a different person. Her brightness vanished. Every day, she looked miserable.

I tried to comfort her, but she cried and snapped at me. “Go away! Do you know the kind of food Lucas used to buy me? Now you’re bringing me these disgusting breakfast sandwiches? Are you feeding a beggar? A dog wouldn’t eat this!”

I didn’t understand. Before she and Lucas got together, we’d eaten breakfast together all the time and talked about our dreams.

Now everything seemed different.

I started working harder to make money so I could take her to nice restaurants, take her out, and buy her pretty clothes. Little by little, she began to emerge from Lucas’s shadow.

Eventually, we got together.

She didn’t want to work for anyone, so I used every penny I had to start a company for her.

As the company grew, Claire smiled more and more.

I thought I could stay by her side forever—until Lucas came back a month ago.

The look in her eyes changed the instant she saw him.

She arranged his job and his place to stay. She personally handled almost everything for him.

It was as if he hadn’t been the one who’d broken her heart.

In Claire’s eyes, I would never be worth even a fraction of Lucas.

“Ethan, how could you treat Claire like that? The whole company is here. You’ve completely humiliated her.”

Lucas’s voice pulled me out of my memories.

I should have understood long ago. I wasn’t the man Claire truly loved.

“Ethan, you owe me an apology!”

“Why should I apologize? I told you I wouldn’t eat it. You were the one who forced me!”

Her eyes reddened with anger. Life had gone smoothly for her ever since we’d gotten together. After she became Horizon Group’s CEO, everyone treated her with deference. It had probably been years since anyone dared speak to her like this.

“If you get on your knees, apologize, and make it up to me, I’ll forget you forced that disgusting stuff into my mouth.”

“Otherwise…” She paused, stepped closer, and whispered in my ear, “Otherwise, we’re getting a divorce!”