Chapter 1

When I walked out of the police station, my steps felt unsteady, as if I were walking on cotton.

My phone vibrated again. Natalie had sent me a message.

Natalie: [Honey, I'm finally done with my postpartum recovery today. Can you come pick me up later?]

The word "Honey" almost made me laugh.

Throughout all the years we'd been married, Natalie had called me that every day.

She always told me when she went out and hugged me whenever she came home. All those thoughtful gestures and little displays of affection now felt like layers upon layers of bitter irony.

Most wealthy couples had their own agendas, but I'd once believed Natalie was the exception.

The incident that had left the deepest impression on me happened during one of my physicals.

A nurse had accidentally handed me the wrong report and told me I had kidney failure.

Natalie's eyes reddened on the spot. She grabbed the doctor by the coat and screamed, "Take my kidney and give it to him! Take both of them if you have to! If he's gone, I won't live either!"

Later, when they discovered the reports had been mixed up, this pampered heiress had crouched in the hospital hallway and cried like a child.

People around me had always warned me that as Natalie's business grew, there would inevitably be men who developed feelings for her.

But she'd treated me so well that I'd never been able to bring myself to doubt her.

So why did it have to be Marcus?

Natalie had once looked down on him more than anyone. He used to be Fielder family's personal driver, and once, he'd deliberately tried to seduce her.

She hadn't even spared him a glance.

"I'll only ever love Matthew. Don't let a piece of trash like you show your face in front of me again."

Marcus had packed his things and left that very day.

Later, when Natalie hired him as her personal assistant, she explained, "Matthew, after he lost his job, his creditors were going to sell him to some criminal operation overseas. I figured I'd do a good deed and pray for blessings for our future baby."

I had believed her then. But now that I thought about it, she'd spent an entire year overseas on a business trip before we got married.

Maybe that was when she'd secretly had a child with Marcus.

I sat in the car with a dull ache cutting through my chest, then drove home in a daze.

…

That night, I pretended nothing had happened and went to the postpartum recovery center to pick Natalie up.

Her eyes lit up as soon as she saw me. "Honey, was it tiring taking care of our baby today?"

I casually shifted away from her. "About registering our daughter's birth—"

"I'll take care of it another day. Don't worry about it!" Natalie's tone abruptly turned stern.

When she noticed my expression, she immediately softened her voice. "Honey, we haven't really had a chance to be intimate. Tonight..."