He'd always kept a backup phone.
I opened it.
I scrolled down through the contacts.
His women weren't just me and Lucy Fox.
My hand shook as I dragged my finger down the screen.
Lowell Gilbert watched me from the side, unhurried, in no rush at all.
Three hundred and eighty-five of them.
And Lucy and I, it turned out, were the two who'd lasted longest with him.
So many girls.
Three days for some.
Five for others.
He swapped them out fast.
The ones who clung on and made a scene either ended up disgraced.
Or simply vanished from the city, no explanation.
When you added it all up,
there was only me, and Lucy Fox.
And all we'd earned for it was the title of fake wife.
“My phone's been sitting right out in the open, silly wife. How is it you only noticed today?”
He kissed a strand of my hair.
“Now you know everything.
“Be a good girl and play my kept bird. Everything else, don't ask.”
“Lowell Gilbert, you're nothing but a…… mmph!!”
He pinned me down the way he always did.
All night, biting his lip until it bled changed nothing.
When I woke the next morning,
my whole body ached.
Lowell had already knotted his tie.
He pressed a light kiss to my forehead.
“Behave, and you won't get any less than you have now.”
Furious, I hurled my clothes at his back as he walked away.
He gave a low laugh and didn't turn around.
That left me alone in the bed, seething.
I fired off updates to Lucy Fox, one after another.
【*He's a scumbag! You and I are basically the two he treated best, and the rest he played with for a few days and threw away!*
【*This man fakes devotion to every single one of them!*】
【*No. He only fakes it with everyone except that one girl. Us included.*】
Lucy's words froze me where I sat.
A moment later, she sent over a few screenshots.
【*I had someone pull a few strings yesterday and crack part of his data.*
【*This girl, he's hidden her very well.*】
I stared at the girl in the photos, unable to believe it.
She was beautiful, no question.
Lovely.
Lowell had refused to let a single beautiful moment of her slip past uncaptured.
From the girl in a clean white dress under the magnolia trees in college,
to the tears of joy on the day he married her.
There were even vlogs shot from Lowell's own point of view.
He'd never force his love on her.
Just the opposite.
He was gentle, careful, undone by a single one of her tears.
They'd raised a kitten together.
As adorable as the girl herself.
【*I checked. Lowell Gilbert's legal wife is this girl.*
【*You know how all of Lowell's passwords have those four digits, 0603?*
【*That's her birthday.*】
I went rigid where I sat.
I'd asked him once what 0603 meant.
He'd said it was just a number the password system generated at random.
That he only kept it because it was easy to remember.
If…… all his passwords had 0603 in them,
then,
the computer he kept in his study,
could I open that too?
As if something had taken hold of me,
I sat down at his desk.
I tried the digits.
It opened.
The wallpaper filled the screen.
The girl's smile, radiant.
The payment app was still open.
It was an account I'd never seen before.
Just one chat pinned to the top: 【*Wife*】.
And right now, the girl saved as Wife was typing messages.
【*For our eighth anniversary I want to go to the Bahamas, and I want my darling husband to plan the whole trip~*】
【*Guess what surprise I've got waiting for you tonight? Guess right and I'll let you have it!*】
【*Oh, and tonight I want the braised barbecue ribs you make, so don't forget to pick up the groceries, my big-shot CEO~*】
