That evening, Ethan was unusually attentive. He cooked her favorite pasta, poured her a glass of wine, and even put on her favorite record.
“Sophia, once we’re engaged, let’s go abroad for a while,” he said with that familiar warm smile. “We’ve been so busy these past years, you deserve a good vacation. Italy, maybe? Venice, Rome…”
His voice was honeyed, his gaze affectionate. If she hadn’t overheard that conversation at her birthday party, she might have melted into his words, imagining herself walking hand in hand with him across Europe.
But now, every sentence he spoke felt like a carefully rehearsed line, meant only to keep her blind and compliant.
Sophia forced herself to smile. “That sounds wonderful.”
Inside, her heart twisted painfully.
Later that night, when Ethan went to take a call on the balcony, Sophia moved quickly.
She padded into his study, her hands trembling as she walked to the heavy oak desk. In the corner sat a black safe. Her heart pounded. This had to be it.
Her fingers hovered over the keypad. She recalled the numbers she had seen him enter a few nights ago—3, 6, 0, 1… but the last two digits had been blocked from view.
She tried a guess. 360123.
Error.
1.
Error.
She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. One more try—360199.
The red light flashed again, and the safe locked her out. A loud beep echoed through the quiet room.
“Beep—beep—beep—”
Her blood ran cold.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
“Sophia?” Ethan’s voice carried in.
She snapped out of her panic, slammed the drawer shut, and quickly grabbed a random magazine from the shelf. By the time he pushed the door open, she was sitting in the chair, pretending to flip through glossy pages.
Ethan’s brows drew together. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Sophia replied evenly, keeping her tone casual. “I thought I’d read something to tire my eyes out.”
He studied her for a long moment, as if weighing her words. Then he relaxed and smiled.
“You should’ve called me. I’d read to you.” He stepped forward, bending down to kiss her hair. The movement made her stomach churn, but she forced herself to stay still.
“Come on,” he said gently. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed.”
Sophia followed him out of the study, her palms damp with sweat. She had almost been caught.
The next day, Sophia was on her way home when she received a message. Unknown number.
“Meet me. Now. Café on 6th Avenue.”
She hesitated. Then another text came.
“Or would you rather Ethan know what you were doing last night?”
Her breath caught. She hurried to the café.
Seated by the window, dressed in a flowing pale-pink dress, was Lillian Reed. She looked up with a sweet smile as Sophia approached, her tone gentle but cutting.
“Sophia. You’ve lost weight. Has Ethan not been taking good care of you?”
Sophia sat opposite her, expression calm. “What do you want?”
Lillian stirred her coffee lazily, eyes glinting. “Nothing, really. Just thought you should know—Ethan belongs to me. Always has.”
Sophia’s chest tightened, but her face remained expressionless. “If that were true, you wouldn’t be sitting here telling me. You’d be with him.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Lillian’s perfect face. She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re running out of time. Do yourself a favor—walk away. Or I promise, you’ll regret it.”
Sophia met her gaze, unflinching. Her voice was steady. “We’ll see who regrets it.”
evening.
The box was noisy. Ethan's friends were playing finger-guessing games around the table, and the smell of cigarettes and alcohol filled the air.
Sophia sat in the corner, her eyes quietly sweeping across the inner pocket of Ethan's suit, which was resting on the back of the chair, and then across his friend's phone on the table . She had to find those photos and videos, even if it was just a clue.
"Sophia, why don't you drink? Are you feeling unwell?" Ethan came over with a glass of red wine, and gently touched her forehead with his fingers. The "concern" in his tone was so sweet that it sounded fake. "I warmed this glass for you. It's not cold. Drink some to warm yourself up."
Sophia looked at the wine swaying in the glass, and her throat tightened as she recalled what she had heard yesterday .
Her fingertips touched the bottom of the cup, but she didn't take it. Instead, she smiled and said, "I just took stomach medicine. I'm afraid it will conflict with the wine."
Ethan's face darkened, but he quickly smiled and handed the wine glass to her: "Just take a sip, it's okay, everyone is watching, don't spoil the fun."
The friends around also started to make a fuss. Sophia knew she couldn't escape it, so she pretended to accidentally loosen her fingers .
With a "crash", the glass fell to the ground, the red wine spilled on the carpet, and the fragments splashed on her ankles.
"Oh, Sophia, why are you so careless?" Lillian suddenly came over, her tone full of hypocritical concern, but her hand pushed Sophia hard from behind.
Sophia's body lunged forward uncontrollably, slamming hard into the long table filled with high-heeled glasses. With a loud crash, the glasses shattered all over the floor. She fell heavily to the ground, her palms pressing on the broken glass, and a sharp pain instantly shot up to her heart.
"Sophia!" Ethan walked over quickly and reached out to help her .
Lillian suddenly cried out in pain.
The wine splashed onto her skirt. Ethan nervously put his suit jacket on Lillian and carried her away, fearing that others would see her slender white legs. He completely ignored Sophia, who was soaked by the wine and scratched by the glass.
Didn't even ask "Are you okay?"
Sophia lost his support and fell heavily on the broken glass again. The back of his hand was scraped and blood oozed out from the palm of his hand, mixed with wine stains and glass shards. He looked so miserable that he looked like a joke.
The whispers around her drifted into her ears—"Ethan is too nervous about Miss Lillian," "Sophia is so miserable, he didn't even care after she fell like this," "If you ask me, Ethan doesn't love her at all, and I don't know why she's clinging to him ." Sophia lay on the ground, digging her fingers into the carpet, tears finally welling up in her eyes, not because of the pain, but because the sincerity of five years had only resulted in a complete betrayal.
