Chapter 4

“The smell of oil and smoke will affect my sense of smell. It’ll be far too easy to make mistakes when trying to decipher the smell of corpses.

“My hands are only for cutting open corpses. The arc of kitchen knives can easily damage the nerves at my fingertips. I can’t afford to make a mistake.”

I laughed bitterly as I recalled his words.

All of those had been just excuses. He simply did not love me.

But I thought his excuses were real and spent so much effort and energy thinking about new recipes for him. I had to make sure that they were tasty and nutritious and also had to worry about whether they would affect his sense of smell and taste.

I was such an idiot.

At that time, I did not know about Grace.

Besides, Jim was the one who tried to win my heart.

Then, half a year after we got married, he got drunk and mistook me for Grace.

It was then that I learned that he had a crush on her and had never gotten over it.

They were childhood friends, and they even went to the same university.

In the year they graduated, Grace dumped him because a rich man who lived somewhere along the Mediterranean coastline said that he would sponsor her to become a celebrity in Hollywood. She even changed all of her contact numbers.

Later, I got to know Jim at an academic exchange.

He claimed that he was attracted by my confidence and wanted to get to know me.

He pursued me for two years.

At that time, he was polite and took great care of me, and I could not help but be moved by it.

But on the day of our wedding, Grace showed up. With a graceful but dull smile, she wished us happiness.

Jim stared at her in a daze for a long time.

From that day on, our marriage veered off the course of what I had hoped for.

“Could you stop being so paranoid? You’re a researcher, but you’re acting like you’re crazy.

“I worked overtime before too, you know?

“Besides, there’s no law stating that we can’t be friends after a breakup.

“If you continue kicking up a fuss, I’m going to be really disappointed in you, Luna.”

But would friends go to a private theater to watch a movie together on Valentine’s Day?

What exactly was the definition of friendship?

Would a friend give her married male friend underwear as a gift for his birthday?

Would a friend cast aside his wife while he was being intimate with her in the bedroom after one phone call just to buy a packet of sanitary pads for his female friend?

Who exactly was supposed to be disappointed with whom?

Then, one time, I came back early from a business trip and heard him talking to someone on the phone in our bedroom.

“I’m sorry, Grace.

“If I weren’t married to Luna, I would definitely choose to be with you, but I’ve been with her for a long time, and she has helped me with many things. I can’t be cruel and push her away.”

So, to Jim, I was just a tool that he could use!

But he made it seem like I was his responsibility.

How utterly hypocritical!

He even asked me to pull some strings to have Grace join the research team because our fields were similar. He claimed that she could help me.

That led to our worst argument after our marriage.

I had been against it because I could not take the future of the nation’s scientific research and development lightly.

He stopped pretending to be nice from that moment on.

“Luna, I can’t believe you’re so petty! You’re just worried that Grace will get too close to me. Yet, you make it sound like your reasons are so high and moral. You just want to do whatever it takes to ruin Grace’s career!

“I was wrong about you!

“If you continue like this, I’m going to leave you!”

In the end, he set aside his principles and went to numerous business dinners and had to cozy up to plenty of people before he finally got Grace into the research team as my assistant.