Chapter 2

Claire worked in sales, so she genuinely had to entertain a lot of clients. Coming home drunk had become routine.

I couldn’t directly investigate who she’d been seeing, so I decided to use the dumbest method possible.

I staked out her workplace.

I waited outside the restaurant for three hours, but Claire behaved perfectly normally. She followed her department manager around, greeting clients and making small talk.

Watching her rush around, I began to question myself for the first time.

Was I being too suspicious? Was I wrongly accusing the woman I’d loved for years?

But the box in her bag and her reaction were undeniably strange. With no other options, I had to use the one connection I least wanted to involve.

My cousin Ryan worked at the same company as Claire. They were in different departments and barely interacted. And I really didn’t want to tell a relative that I suspected my girlfriend was cheating and needed help catching her.

As I looked at Ryan sitting across from me, another thought crept into my mind.

What if he was the one cheating with her?

That was the kind of twist that happened in trashy romance novels. At that point, I suspected everyone. Still, I had no choice but to try.

Ryan and I weren’t especially close. He stared at me in shock when he heard what I wanted, but eventually agreed to help me investigate.

Waiting for his call felt like waiting for a verdict.

Claire stayed out drinking until dawn. I waited for her to come home and for Ryan to contact me.

His call came late at night. I stared at the screen for a few seconds before answering.

“Daniel, about what you asked me to look into…”

Ryan lowered his voice.

“Claire’s been getting close to the vice president of sales, Adam Hayes. Apparently, he claims he owns two condos downtown and drives a Porsche.”

My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles turned white.

“Adam Hayes?”

“Yeah. He took her home in his car after the company retreat last month. Someone saw them.”

Ryan sent me Adam’s information.

Adam Hayes. Male. Claire’s department’s vice president of sales.

Unmarried, but constantly bragging about his wealthy family.

Ryan had also checked Claire’s recent pay stubs and discovered that her spending had increased in a way that made no sense.

Everything lined up.

I opened my brokerage account. The seven-digit balance glowed in the darkness.

For the past six months, I’d been heavily invested in renewable energy stocks. The account had already climbed past twenty million dollars.

I’d planned to propose once it reached thirty million.

Now, that thought felt like a joke.

Furious, I called Claire again and again.

She finally answered, completely drunk.

But there were two people on the other end of the line.

The man was almost certainly Adam. He was sleeping with someone else’s girlfriend and still found time to insult me.

“If you ask me, Claire, your boyfriend probably maxed out every credit card he owns just to afford that bag.”

Claire was barely coherent, but she still mumbled in agreement.

“Yeah. He’s a grown man who stays home playing video games and lives off my paycheck. The fact that I haven’t brought him home to meet my parents is already me showing him respect.”

The two of them laughed and kissed.

The phone filled with wet, obscene sounds.

The longer I listened, the more my heart hurt—and the angrier I became.

I lived off Claire’s paycheck?

What an unbelievable liar.

I might not have been working, but I paid every household expense.

Claire spent every dollar she earned. I was the one who transferred money into her account and sent her spending money every month.

So she had seen me quit my job and assumed I could no longer make money. She wanted to squeeze as much as possible out of me before kicking me aside.

Even drunk, Claire remembered to ask Adam when he planned to marry her.

The man, caught up in the moment, immediately promised her.

Then he added, “Don’t worry, Claire. As long as my father approves, I’ll take you home as my wife.”

I almost laughed from the other end of the phone.

Adam really thought he was the hero of some billionaire romance novel.

And Claire was already dreaming of marrying into a wealthy family.