Chapter 2

Audrey POV

The bathroom door opened, and Julian walked out, drying his hands.

He put on his usual gentle mask, came up to me, and naturally pulled me into his arms, his chin gently brushing against my neck.

"What's wrong? You're trembling. Are you cold?"

His tone was so caring, his movements so gentle. If I hadn't just heard those words with my own ears, I would never have believed that beneath this warm body lay a heart so cruel towards me.

I suppressed the churning nausea in my stomach, subtly stepping back half a pace from his embrace, my voice calm.

"No, I'm just a little tired."

Julian didn't notice anything amiss, just dotingly ruffled my hair.

"Then we won't go try on wedding dresses today. You rest well at home. Tonight, I'll cook your favorite dishes myself."

Looking into his deeply affectionate eyes, an image from five years ago flashed uncontrollably in my mind.

At that time, I had just started as a nude model, and uncensored photos of me were maliciously leaked by the media.

My biological parents, ashamed of me, locked me out of the house.

My fiancé, Brandon Scott, even threw my photos in my face, calling me "low-class" and "disgusting."

It was Julian who descended like a god, blocking all the garbage and hateful camera flashes thrown at me.

With the hands that had sculpted countless masterpieces, he gently wiped away the dirt from my face and declared to the world,

"Art itself is innocent; it's your eyes that are dirty. Audrey is my lifelong inspiration."

Back then, I thought I had found salvation.

I took out my battered heart, carefully mended it, and gave it to him wholeheartedly.

But now, it seemed it was nothing but a carefully planned hunt.

His so-called "inspiration" was just to make me willingly give up Brandon.

A special notification sound suddenly rang out in the quiet art studio, interrupting my thoughts.

Julian picked up his phone, and his expression instantly changed with just one glance.

His usually gentle brows tightened, and a hint of undisguised panic flashed in his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

I asked, feigning ignorance.

Julian hastily grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, not even sparing me a glance.

"There's a sudden emergency at the company. A multi-million dollar project has a glitch, and I have to go deal with it immediately. You wait patiently at home for me. Dinner might have to wait until tomorrow."

He spoke flawlessly, but as he turned away, I clearly saw the chat interface still lit up on his phone screen.

It was a SnapChat message from Lyla, with an accompanying picture of a slender finger, with an extremely faint scratch on the fingertip, so shallow it hadn't even bled.

The caption read: "Julian, I accidentally scratched myself with a violin string while practicing. It hurts so much!"

Because of such a trivial message, barely even a scratch, the man who constantly declared me his only inspiration, abandoned me without hesitation.

The studio door was shut with a heavy thud.

I stood there, looking at the empty room, and suddenly felt a strange sense of amusement.

I once believed Julian was the man who loved me most in the world.

But it turned out that in the face of a single scratch on Lyla's finger, I, his "fiancée" who was about to marry him, wasn't even worth an excuse.

I didn't cry. My tears had dried up during those long nights of being cursed by my parents and scorned by Brandon.

I simply walked calmly to the easel, looking at the oil painting Julian had just finished.

The woman in the painting was nude, her eyes pure and melancholic, breathtakingly beautiful.

I picked up a paintbrush stained with black paint and, without the slightest hesitation, drew a huge, ugly 'X' across the woman's face in the painting.

Then, I turned and walked back to the bedroom, pulled out a black suitcase, and began to pack my belongings, one by one.

Since I decided to leave, I would leave cleanly, without a trace.