"Don't torture yourself," he murmured softly. "It just wasn't meant to be."

"Ethan, let's try for another baby."

"Clara, I want that too. But your body... let's just wait a little longer."

Clara knew the truth. He didn't want to.

A man's physical aversion could not be faked.

Chapter 3

"Your mother texted me today. She asked why I haven't conceived yet and wants to take me to a fertility specialist," Clara said, resting her head against his shoulder. "Why don't we try tonight?"

Ethan’s entire frame went rigid for a split second.

"Clara, honestly, we should consider IVF instead. I’ve done some research. Going through a clinic guarantees the healthiest embryo, and we can choose the timing, the number, and even the gender."

A heavy frost settled deep into Clara’s chest. Though she had fully anticipated this exact response from him, the sheer icy reality of it still crashed over her like a tidal wave, drowning her in cold clarity.

To avoid the simple intimacy of sharing a bed with his own wife, he would rather subject her to the grueling pain and unpredictable hazards of fertility treatments.

Making love was supposed to be the most natural expression of intimacy between a husband and wife, a coming together of love. But to Ethan, it had become a chore he desperately sought to avoid.

He was entirely willing to let her endure the physical agony, the psychological torment, and the exhausting stress of the IVF process, all so he wouldn't have to touch her.

"Alright. We can look into it when the time comes," Clara said, her voice eerily calm. "Ethan, I'm craving some green onion noodles. Could you go out and buy some for me?"

The moment Ethan went downstairs, Clara quietly got out of bed and made her way down to the underground garage.

She walked straight to his Maybach, and after ensuring the garage was entirely deserted, she slipped the door open. With swift, silent movements, she tucked a pre-prepared voice-activated recording pen deep into the hidden crevices of the car.

The night stretched out in absolute silence as Ethan held Clara tightly against him, drifted into sleep.

After a while, Clara shifted her weight with agonizing slowness, keeping her movements light so as not to wake him.

Using the motion, she subtly pulled her hand free from his sleeping grip.

Once detached, she kept her back turned to him, her eyes tightly shut, but her mind was a chaotic, spinning storm that banished any hope of sleep.

Hours seemed to pass in the dense dark until the sudden, sharp ring of his phone shattered the quiet. Within half a second, he slammed the call shut, the movement so frantic it was obvious he was terrified the noise would disturb the room.

"Clara..."

He whispered her name, his voice laced with careful anxiety.

Clara kept her eyes closed, offering no response, lying completely still as though she were buried in a deep slumber.

Seeing no movement from her, Ethan nudged her shoulder gently, his voice thick with rehearsed guilt. "There's an emergency at the office; I have to run in. If things go quickly, I should be back by morning."

Clara let out a muffled, sleepy groan in response, turning over as if drifting right back to sleep.

Ethan leaned down, pressing a tender kiss to her temple before hurriedly slipping out of bed. He dressed efficiently and slid out of the bedroom without making a sound.

As the bedroom door clicked shut, the room plunged right back into a suffocating silence.

And Clara, sitting up in the dark, found herself entirely wide awake.

She dressed quickly, hurried downstairs, and hailed a passing taxi.

The cab pulled up beside her, the driver rolling down the window with a warm smile. "Where to, miss?"

Without a single moment of hesitation, Clara spoke the address. "The Manhattan Penthouse Apartments."

It was the exact location she had found listed in Ethan's shopping history—the luxury building where his secretary, Sasha, lived.

Sitting in the cramped backseat of the taxi, Clara watched the city lights blur past the window, her heart heavy and chaotic.

Taking a long breath to steady her nerves, she opened a short-video app on her phone.

Her fingers hovered over the search bar before typing in the girl's username with absolute determination: Sasha_Moonlit_Paths.

The name had burned itself into her mind the moment she saw it, remaining there like a jagged shard of glass.

As the profile loaded, the girl's page filled the screen.

Clara's vision blurred slightly as memories of Ethan's actions over the past weeks flooded her mind.

Chapter 4

During that exact time, Ethan had actually changed his own social media nickname to Ethan_Bamboo_Springs.

Back then, he had looked at her with an expression of pure, unadulterated devotion and said, "The 'Spring' in my name represents the absolute joy you bring into my life, Clarie. It’s a little romantic secret meant just for the two of us."

He had played the part so perfectly, looking for all the world like a man utterly consumed by his love for his wife.

But now, the mask had been completely ripped away.

That so-called deep affection was nothing more than a calculated, thorough lie.

Every single thing Ethan had done was a deliberate attempt to carry on a sordid, secret affair with his female secretary behind her back.

The sheer thought of it sent a violent shiver of cold through Clara’s veins. Tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to spill over, but she stubbornly forced them back, refusing to let them fall.

The secretary seemed to be the type of person who lived to broadcast every minor detail of her life online. From luxury items scored during shopping sprees to scenic photos from her various vacations, celebratory dinners with friends, and snapshots of her gaming achievements, she updated her profile multiple times a day.

Clara’s fingers moved mechanically across the screen, eventually tapping into a post showcasing a game settlement screen.

The image clearly displayed various performance statistics, and the girl’s gaming ID, "Little_Sasha," slammed instantly into her eyes.

The moment she saw that ID, a specific memory from a past gaming session flashed vividly through Clara's mind.

Some time ago, Clara had asked Ethan to invite her to play an online game with him. After joining the lobby and entering the match, a player named "Little_Sasha" had been part of their squad.

During the game, Clara had already sensed that something was deeply wrong.

The character she was playing kept drawing aggression from the monsters, causing her health bar to plunge continuously, yet the squad healer, "Little_Sasha," whose sole responsibility was to restore health and protect teammates, did absolutely nothing.

When the match finally ended, Clara checked the post-game statistics, only to find that she hadn't received a single drop of healing from the girl—not even the passive, residual healing from nearby area-of-effect spells.

Clara had found the entire situation incredibly baffling. Though a heavy wave of annoyance washed over her, she maintained her politeness and typed into the team chat: "Why wasn't the healer casting any heals?"

After sending the message, she waited quietly for a response. It took nearly a full minute before a reply finally popped up on the screen: "So sorry, I just bought this account and I don't really know how to play yet."

Clara had felt incredibly uncomfortable with the excuse, but assuming the girl might truly be a complete novice, she chose not to press the matter further.

Instead, she turned to ask Ethan what had happened. Ethan had merely brushed it off with an air of complete indifference, saying carelessly, "She’s just a clueless little newbie who doesn't know what she's doing. I won't invite her next time."

But looking back at it now, none of it had been an accident.

From the very beginning, she had been nothing more than an unwitting prop in their twisted, cruel game of romance.

A bitter, crushing frost enveloped Clara’s heart. All of her past trust, all of her lingering expectations for Ethan, shattered into nothingness in this exact moment, leaving behind only the rancid taste of betrayal and a burning, righteous fury.

Perhaps noticing Clara's frantic urgency, the taxi driver slammed his foot onto the accelerator, sending the car tearing through the streets.

By the time the vehicle finally screeched to a halt near the entrance of the luxury complex, Clara swept a quick glance across her surroundings and realized that Ethan's Maybach had not yet arrived.

The moment she stepped out of the car and before she could even steady her footing, the already dark, oppressive sky grew intensely heavier. Thick, black storm clouds rolled violently across the horizon like a horde of dark stallions charging into battle, pressing down mercilessly toward the earth.

Immediately after, heavy, low rumbles of thunder exploded across the sky, sounding like war drums beating to intensify the suffocating atmosphere.

Before Clara could even process the noise, raindrops the size of pebbles began slamming down fiercely. The downpour came so fast and with such brute force that the impact actually stung against her skin.