Chapter 3

The phone screen went dark automatically.

Olivia paid it no mind and gently patted Joshua's back. "Don't be upset, okay? It's all my fault. I shouldn't have brought you here to be disrespected like that. She might be my mother, but you don't owe it to me to take her toxic behavior. Yell at me if you need to, just as long as it makes you feel better."

All the way back, Olivia kept trying to soothe him.

Joshua simply closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

Notifications chimed in the background every so often. For the second half of the drive, Olivia was constantly replying to text messages.

When they pulled up to the house, Olivia looked at him with an apologetic expression. "Honey, something urgent came up at the office. Wait for me at home, okay? I'll make sure to get back early tonight."

Joshua got out of the car in silence.

Once Olivia drove off, he accepted Damien's follow request. Then, he tapped straight into his profile.

Pinned at the very top was a post with two photos.

The first was a picture of Olivia from behind as she planted roses. The second was a sprawling field of vibrant blue roses.

The caption read, "Since someone planted my absolute favorite blue roses, I'll forgive you just this once. Now come over and make it up to me."

Joshua felt a suffocating tightness in his chest.

So it was Damien who loved blue. Even the rose garden hadn't been planted for him.

He hailed a cab and went straight to the estate.

The moment he arrived, Joshua spotted Olivia's red supercar.

Not far away, right in front of the sea of roses, Olivia stood with her back to Joshua, completely unaware of his presence.

"If Joshua weren't infertile, I wouldn't have come looking for you in the first place. He's my bottom line. You showed up in front of him, and now you're throwing a tantrum?"

Damien's eyes welled up with tears. "Then why did you come to see me? Why don't you just leave me alone?"

"Stop crying." Olivia softened her tone. "As long as you behave, I'll take care of you for the rest of your life."

Damien pulled her into an embrace with a smile. "I can be even more well-behaved, if that's what you like."

"I cleared out my whole afternoon. Do you really need to ask what I want?"

Olivia let out a bright smile. Damien leaned down to kiss her before scooping her up into his arms and carrying her inside the villa with desperate urgency.

As he pulled the front door shut, he cast a provocative smirk toward Joshua. He had actually noticed him long ago.

Through the window, tangled silhouettes swayed and shifted.

Standing by the roadside, Joshua watched with a self-torturing intensity. Even his breath turned icy cold.

It felt as though a barbed hook was ripping through his heart, dragging out bloody gashes with every single beat.

"You're here to check out the place too, right? Ms. Peterson and her husband have been together for so many years and still love each other this much. It's truly enviable."

A woman taking pictures nearby struck up a conversation with a smile. "Mr. Bennett must have saved the universe in his past life. Every man would want a wife like Ms. Peterson."

Joshua smiled until tears welled in his eyes. "Except he doesn't want her anymore."

Olivia had gifted him an estate that was supposed to prove her exclusive love for him, only to mess around with another man right here.

The woman looked closer at Joshua and froze. It was no surprise others could mistake them.

Damien looked eerily like Joshua when he was 26, back when he first met Olivia.

"I guess no matter if it's a man or a woman, money changes people the same way." The woman seemed to realize something, her expression dimming.

"Honestly, Ms. Peterson is still pretty decent compared to most. Even her side piece was chosen to look just like you. She's probably just looking for a little temporary excitement. Why not just let it go? Pretend you don't know anything, go back home, and keep living your life like normal."

"It's not the same." Joshua's voice was barely a whisper.

The fact that Olivia found a man who looked like him didn't make him feel grateful. It only made him feel utterly disgusted.

Leaving the rose garden behind, Joshua went straight to the hospital. He walked through the process according to the fake death agreement, picked up his antidepressant preion, and went home.

He set the pills on the coffee table and stared at them in a daze for a long time, practically drowned in bitterness.

The front door suddenly burst open. Olivia rushed in disheveled and frantic, stumbling so hard she knocked over a chair.

She scanned him up and down, her face pale as a sheet. "Honey, why did you go to the hospital?"