"Jasmine, are you there? Please help me open the door."
I clenched my teeth and shouted through the intercom.
The butler's cold voice crackled back. "Miss has just set a curfew. After ten o'clock, no one is allowed to enter or leave—including you. It's now 10:01. The curfew has passed. Sir, please don't make this difficult for us."
I touched the seventy dollars left in my pocket. A wave of bleakness washed over me.
I slowly lowered myself onto the front steps, clutching my stomach, hugging myself tight—trying to find some warmth.
But sitting there, I suddenly remembered my junior year of college. I'd finished my part-time job off-campus and rushed back, only to miss the dorm curfew. I was standing there, helpless, not knowing what to do—when Lily appeared like an angel descending from the sky. She brought me back to this villa and told me gently, "Matthew, the front door here is always open for you. This is your home. A place that belongs to you."
And now—I looked at what I'd once called home. It felt like a stranger's house.
I sat at the villa entrance all night. By the time Jasmine Lambert woke up and opened the door, my limbs had gone stiff and numb.
"Sir, why didn't you find somewhere to stay?" She rushed to help me up. "Hurry, come inside—you'll catch your death."
When her hand touched my frozen palm, she flinched. Something shifted in her eyes—pity, and something deeper.
She didn't say anything more. She hurried to the kitchen to make ginger soup.
These past three years, when everyone else despised me and cursed my name, only Jasmine believed in me. She'd told me once: "You're not the kind of man who's greedy for status. If you did what they say, you must have had no choice. I believe you."
Back then, we'd barely spent any time together—just the few visits I'd made before the wedding. But she was the one who chose to believe me. And Lily, who kept saying she loved me? She never did.
Funny, when you thought about it.
I finished the ginger soup and the breakfast Jasmine made, then went back to my room to wash up.
Just as I was about to rest, voices drifted through the door—a man's ingratiating tone, a woman's playful complaint.
"This is all your fault. Last night you didn't hold back at all—kept going and going. My waist is killing me."
"My fault. Want me to rub it for you?"
Lily's voice. That familiar, clear voice—except now it carried a happy, slightly hoarse lilt I barely recognized. When was the last time I'd heard her laugh like that?
My eyes landed on the divorce agreement sitting on the nightstand.
I got up, grabbed it, and walked out the door—only to find Lily and her lover, Simon Pruitt, locked in a passionate kiss in the hallway. His hand was sliding down her thigh.
"Sorry to interrupt," I said quietly. "I just need a few minutes."
The tenderness in Lily's eyes vanished the instant they landed on me, replaced by something sharp and cold. Simon stood beside her, arrogantly straightening his back, showing off the trail of red marks down his pale neck.
"Matthew—so you are home. I thought you missed curfew last night and had to sleep somewhere else."
I ignored his mockery.
I walked toward Lily.
