Back then, I was still high and mighty, too proud to spare Adrian even a glance.
That didn’t change until my father’s affair was exposed, until he ripped his mask off completely and tore our family apart.
I’ll never forget that night, the hysteria that swallowed our house.
I had never seen my mother look that broken, that desperate. With a knife pressed to her own throat, she threatened my father, screaming for him to cut off the woman outside and to send away that mistress and the illegitimate child.
But all her rage, her humiliation, her wounded heart, couldn’t buy her even the smallest scrap of decency from him.
After that night, my happy family collapsed into ruins.
The next morning, my father’s cheating scandal dominated the internet’s top headlines.
My mother chose the most extreme kind of revenge.
The company’s stock price plunged day after day, until everything finally slid into bankruptcy.
She thought doing that would win the man’s heart back.
But in the end, even with two hundred billion in debt hanging over him, my father still handed her a divorce agreement.
He would rather shoulder the debt himself than live with her for another day.
In the end, the divorce papers were never signed.
My mother jumped into the sea.
My father took his mistress and their illegitimate child and fled overseas.
And I, Brooke Ashford, became a joke that everyone in our world knew.
No one wanted to come near me.
The only ones who even bothered to look my way were the spoiled rich brats I’d once humiliated.
They waved a hundred yuan in my face, offering to “buy me for a night,” jeering that the current Brooke wasn’t even as good as a nightclub hostess.
My dignity was ground into dust.
And when I was on the verge of swallowing pills to follow my mother, Adrian appeared.
He threw everything he had into pursuing me, holding nothing back, paying any price, to show the world one thing.
That Brooke was still worth it.
In a hundred days of passionate love, he spent tens of millions.
The “pocket change” I’d once looked down on became the weapon that won me a stunning reversal.
He made our wedding grand and glorious, so extravagant it shook the circle.
In front of a hall full of guests, he knelt and swore, “In this life, Brooke is my life. I’ll spend the rest of my years protecting our home.”
The dignity he’d once picked up for me had been real.
Now, he was the one who had thrown it into the mud with his own hands.
...
Truthfully, the signs of his affair with Layla had been there for a long time.
I’d seen what he looked like when he loved me.
So when he started loving someone else, how could I not feel it?
He thought he’d hidden it flawlessly.
He didn’t realize the truth was simpler than that. I was the one going along with him, lying to myself little by little.
My fingers tightened around the wedding photo frame. I lifted it, ready to smash it to the ground, when my phone suddenly rang.
A message came in from an unfamiliar number. It was a bar location pin.
It was obvious who the "host" was, and I knew exactly what I was about to face.
And still, I went.
...
Outside a private room, I paused, and then I saw Adrian inside.
The man who was supposedly on a business trip was surrounded by friends, laughing and talking as if life couldn’t get better.
In his arms was Layla, dressed in a sexy little dress, curled up against him as she belonged there.
Scandals always spread fast.
One of his friends grinned and asked loudly, “So the Ashford family’s eldest miss had a miscarriage? If that’s true, why aren’t you by her side, taking care of her? How do you still have the mood to come drink with us?”
In the past, whenever Adrian talked about me, his eyes would soften with open adoration.
But now, impatience was the only thing on his face.
“Don’t bring it up,” he said, frowning. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. Every time I see Brooke, I feel awful.”
“I feel like I can’t communicate with her at all,” he went on, swirling his drink. “All it takes is one wrong sentence, and she starts suspecting me.”
“I go home to relax, not to make myself miserable. Honestly, these days, just thinking about going home makes my chest feel heavy, like there’s a rock stuck in it.”
“At this rate, if this keeps going, give it two years, and I’ll be a full-time spy!”
His friends burst out laughing.
One of them slapped the table. “You chased her as your life depended on it back then. And now you’ve changed your heart in just five years?”
Adrian leaned back, expression lazy. “Changed my heart? I wouldn’t call it that.”
After a brief pause, he said flatly, “Maybe it’s just… I’m tired of it.”
Someone else frowned, clearly confused. "They say a baby is the best thing to keep a marriage together. If you had a kid, wouldn’t all your problems disappear? So why the hell did you still insist on her miscarry?"
