Chapter 2

That night, Ethan claimed he had something to deal with at the university and didn't come home.

Yet he calmly sent me all his social media usernames and passwords.

I logged in and found he had meticulously scrubbed everything related to Rosie.

But I still managed to trace a suspicious transaction from years ago and followed the trail to a couple's account.

The woman featured in the posts was Rosie. The man only appeared from the hands and waist down.

I recognized him instantly. That man was Ethan.

I scrolled through the posts one by one.

May 16, 2023—the night I was at the hotel preparing for our wedding.

Rosie was wearing my wedding dress, covered in red marks, leaning in Ethan's arms.

Caption: [The house, the bed, the dress—hers. The man—mine.]

April 19, 2025—the night I miscarried and sobbed in the hospital.

Rosie posted a photo of a positive pregnancy test and our ransacked nursery.

Caption: [He says it's most exciting doing it in here. And thanks to whoever came before me—I'll gladly take the clothes and toys you won't be needing~]

May 14, 2025—the night I was critically injured in a car accident, which triggered my grandfather's health crisis.

Rosie leaned against Ethan's chest, posing for a selfie with my grandfather—tubes running all over his frail body—her eyes full of mockery.

Caption: [I visited the old man on her behalf. Poor thing's half-blind—kept holding my hand and calling me "Chloe." Hilarious.]

After seeing this, I no longer had the strength to hold my phone steady.

So that's what happened. The lipstick stain on the collar of my wedding dress. The baby clothes and supplies that mysteriously vanished from the nursery. And...

What my grandfather kept saying to our family before he died, gripping everyone's hands with all the strength he had left.

"I saw Chloe... I saw she's doing well... I saw it..."

So none of it was me being paranoid. None of it was me overthinking. And it wasn't a dying man's hallucination.

I had been nothing but an extra in their script, a fool who thought she was the leading lady in her own love story.

My throat felt like it was being scalded shut. A dense, spreading ache radiated from my heart to every limb.

I couldn't hold it in anymore. I screamed, tearing through Ethan's study like a madwoman, smashing everything in sight.

But among the scattered papers, I found Rosie's PhD dissertation draft—the one she was preparing for her defense. The experimental data matched almost exactly with the academic paper I was about to publish in a top journal.

I bit down hard on my lower lip, forcing myself to stay calm.

I picked up the scattered documents and compared them piece by piece.

The papers didn't just "basically match." Apart from the introduction and acknowledgments, the core data charts, analytical logic, and conclusions were completely identical.

Beside them were Ethan's annotations in blue pen.

[Chloe's lab updated this data yesterday. Remember to revise accordingly.]

[What's hers is mine. We're married. Don't be afraid to copy.]

[She publishes papers every year. Your dissertation only happens once. Letting you have it should be her honor.]

............

I let out a cold laugh and hurled the draft to the floor.

So Ethan wasn't just cheating on me—he was planning to steal years of my team's research to pave the way for his precious mistress?

Over my dead body.

I immediately contacted the Dean, asking him to arrange for me to sit on tomorrow's dissertation defense committee.

But the moment the call connected, the Dean spoke first.

"Ethan gave you his spot for this year's Beijing research trip. Get ready—you're leading the team tomorrow."