Chapter 2

Hugo finally looked up and frowned. He was about to respond when his phone rang.

He took one look at the caller ID, smiled, and answered the call. "What is it, Ms. Foster? I'm stewing the soup for you. If you're bored, go play with our son."

Just then, he paused, gave me a meaningful look, and responded, "Don't worry. She doesn't know."

After hanging up, he shifted his gaze toward me. "Freda doesn't know I've told you everything. So, pretend as if you're unaware because she doesn't want to lose you as a friend."

With that, he poured the soup into a thermos and hurried out.

I stopped him and repeated, "I want a divorce."

He looked over his shoulder, confused. "We just received our marriage certificate. Why would we get a divorce? Do you want everyone in our circle to laugh at us? Be reasonable and stop kicking a fuss."

I grabbed the vase beside me and smashed it in front of him. "I'm kicking a fuss? While I was mourning my dad, you two were fooling around in bed behind my back. Did I ever cross your mind then?

"Both of you even have a child together now. Why should I be reasonable?" To my dismay, tears rolled down my cheeks before I could stop them.

Hugo knitted his brows and snorted. "You're insane!" Then, he slammed the door and left.

I watched his figure disappear into the distance and collapsed onto the floor. A moment later, my phone started buzzing with messages from Freda.

"Tee, why didn't you wait for me before you left? Have you met your godson yet? When are you and Hugo going on your honeymoon?

"Hugo's so mean! He just had to drag you off to get married while I was giving birth. Now, you can't even stay and keep me company.

"But you don't have to worry about me. The baby daddy is here to take care of me."

Then, she sent me a photo. In it, a man with long, slender fingers was holding a baby bottle, and he was wearing a wedding band identical to mine on his ring finger.

My entire body trembled so violently that I could barely even hold onto my phone. Hugo and Freda couldn't even be bothered to hide it anymore; he hadn't even taken off the ring.

Freda posted on X at the same time. "If I ask you to stay this time, will you?"

The very next second, I received a message from Hugo. "Go on the honeymoon by yourself first."

My chest tightened sharply. I was breathing hard, and my whole body was shaking.

I forced myself to comment under Freda's post. "Why bother sneaking around? I'll give you two what you want."

Right after that, I dragged myself upstairs to pack. I couldn't stay in this house, which I had put together bit by bit, not for another second.

However, before I left, I found an old phone hidden deep in the closet. Instinctively, I entered Freda's birth date, and it unlocked. The screensaver was a photo of Hugo and Freda smooching.

The notes were all about Freda. Her period, her dietary restrictions, and her prenatal checkups.

The photo album was also filled with pictures of Freda—her sleeping face, her silly smile, the way she pouted when she wanted something, her flushed face in intimate moments, and her tearful eyes as she was wheeled into the delivery room.

Photo after photo, from the age of 12 until yesterday, Hugo had documented everything about Freda.

The funniest part was that I was also visible in the background of the photos he had secretly taken of Freda. My fingers trembled violently, and no matter what I did, I couldn't make them stop.

A lifetime was only about 30 thousand days, yet Hugo had taken almost 40 thousand photos of Freda. We had been together for three years, and apart from our wedding portraits, we couldn't even scrape together a single photo of us.

Whenever I reached for my phone to take a picture of us, he would always frown and come up with excuses. "You're in showbiz. If the photo gets out, it'll cause a huge scandal."

He had never once visited me on set, yet he had never missed a single one of Freda's concerts.

The honeymoon I had planned would have taken us no farther than the dam. But the two of them had traveled across the entire country, chasing the northern lights all the way to a secluded village.

Hugo and Freda had gone to a theme park 27 times. No wonder every time I suggested spending our anniversary there, he said it was boring. If it was really boring, why had he gone there with her 27 times?

I went through all the photos as though I was punishing myself. When I finally looked up, I realized that my tears had already dried.

I put the phone back where it was and messaged my manager, Rachel Linden. "I'll take the Luminara film project. Arrange for Paul to pick me up."

Rachel replied, "I'm so glad that you're making a comeback, Tione!"

After replying to Rachel, I dragged my suitcase out. However, the moment I was about to get into the cab, someone grabbed me tightly from behind.