Chapter 3 The Foundation Beneath Her Feet

The light turned red, and the car slowed to a stop.

I turned to look at Regina, who was still asleep. Her features remained strikingly beautiful, though the years had left faint traces around her eyes.

Over the past year, she had still come home fairly often, but she had become increasingly quiet. Sometimes I would tell her about little things happening at home. She would listen absentmindedly before frowning and saying, "Chase, when did you become so boring? You used to be pretty funny."

She was not wrong.

I had once been a cheerful young man. But after more than a decade of struggling through life, I had changed.

To protect Regina's dream, I drank with clients until I vomited blood. To negotiate contracts for her, I endured being treated like a servant at drinking tables, swallowing my pride and smiling through it all. To save every penny for the equipment she needed, I had learned to pinch every cent, become shrewd and calculating, and fight for every last bit of profit.

I had become a silent foundation stone, carrying the towering building that was Regina's success.

Now she stood at the very top, enjoying her moment in the spotlight, only to find the foundation beneath her too rough, too dull. So she bent down and began carving another unpolished gem.

…

Over the next few days, I acted as though nothing was wrong. I handled the household accounts, arranged the company's post-holiday bonuses, and quietly observed Regina whenever I could.

However, she did not seem to be hiding anything from me. She never sneaked away to call Alex or sent him suggestive messages. Most of the time, she simply shut herself inside the study.

Through the half-open door, I saw her leaning back in her chair with noise-canceling headphones on, staring blankly at the computer screen.

The music app remained open. On the "Listen Together" screen, their two avatars sat side by side, almost touching. The playback indicator kept moving as the record slowly spun.

There was a tenderness on Regina's face that made my heart ache.

I could not accept it.

Who exactly was Alex Reed? How had he managed to captivate Regina without even saying a word—enough to stare at his profile picture in a daze and forget the twenty years we had shared.

I was the one who had been beside her for twenty years. I was the one who had been beside her for twenty years. We had argued. We had gone through cold wars and periods of silence. But neither of us had ever considered breaking up.

For the first time, jealousy filled my heart. So I used my shareholder access to pull up the company's personnel records—Alex Reed, 23 years old, fresh out of music school.

In his interview video, the young man wore a simple white T-shirt and jeans. When he smiled, he radiated an almost blinding kind of youthful energy.

"Ms. Lockwood, I may be an unknown right now, but my music has soul. Give me a chance, and I promise you won't regret betting on me."

He was confident, bright, like a ray of sunshine.

For a moment, I felt as though I were looking at myself ten years ago.

Back then, I had been just as young and full of ambition, just as convinced that nothing was beyond my reach. I had been reckless enough to confidently tell Regina, "Don't be afraid to chase your dreams. I'll take care of you. We're going to make a fortune someday!"

The price had been three part-time jobs on top of my studies, a voice worn raw from exhaustion, and palms roughened by hard labor. Now, in my thirties, the fatigue was impossible to hide.

Maybe I really had grown old. Maybe that was why Regina had fallen for someone else, someone young and vibrant.

Alex had not yet been crushed beneath the weight of life. Bills, groceries, and the endless grind of everyday existence had not worn him down. He still possessed boundless energy. Those were things the man I had become could no longer give her.

Those more than 2,600 hours had become a rejection of the twenty years I had given her.

Is this what Regina really wanted?

From our teenage years through all those years of our youth, did I not give her everything I had? Why, then, had she chosen to cheat on me emotionally?