Chapter 7

Chapter 7

POV: Lyra

The screech of tires as a car came to a stop in the front driveway made my heart race. Hurried footsteps from downstairs shattered the silence of the house. Before I could even think of somewhere to hide, the study door was pushed wide open.

Casian stood in the doorway, breathing slightly heavily. His gray shirt was a little wrinkled around the sleeves from rushing back in his car. He stared at me, standing stiffly beside his desk, with only a few steps separating us.

"Darling? What are you doing in my study?" Casian asked. His voice sounded surprised, but his tone remained gentle, without the slightest hint of suspicion.

My mind raced for a split second, summoning every last bit of my sanity and acting ability to keep myself from looking panicked. I immediately forced an awkward smile, raised the dust cloth in my hand, and pointed toward the bookshelf behind his desk.

"Oh... this, sweetheart. I was going to tidy up the books on the upper shelves because they've gathered so much dust. I thought I'd clean this room while you were at the office," I replied in a deliberately softened, affectionate tone, hiding my palm, which was growing damp with cold sweat. "Then I noticed your desk and got curious. I tried to organize the messy pile of papers on top of it."

Casian let out a relieved sigh. The suspicious look that had briefly narrowed his eyes immediately softened. He stepped closer, took the dust cloth from my hand, and casually placed it on the nearest sofa. Then he wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me against his chest.

"You really are something else. Don't exhaust yourself cleaning the house, sweetheart. Let the servants handle it," Casian said gently, giving the top of my head a brief kiss. "I only came back home for a moment because I left an important contract document in the bedside drawer in our bedroom. I need to hand it over to a client this afternoon."

"Oh... I see," I managed to say, struggling to keep my voice from trembling.

After retrieving the documents from our master bedroom, Casian said goodbye again. He kissed my cheek affectionately, as though he were the most devoted husband in the world, then left the house.

I stood alone in the study, holding my chest as my heart continued to pound violently. I had almost blown my cover. My search for the asset documents in the locked drawer would have to wait, but one thing was certain: Casian had absolutely no suspicions about me. His mask was still intact, and I had to wait for a much better opportunity to tear it off.

Time crept by slowly, bringing with it the thick darkness of night that enveloped the city. The wall clock downstairs showed two in the morning when the entire house had finally fallen into complete silence. In the master bedroom, the only source of light was a dim yellow bedside lamp, casting a soft glow over our king-size bed.

Beside me, Casian was fast asleep. His breathing was steady, occasionally accompanied by a faint snore escaping his slightly parted lips. Exhausted after spending the entire day managing the company, he slept like the dead, immersed in a carefree dream.

I lay on my side, facing him, watching my husband's sleeping face in the dimness of the night. For ten years, I had slept beside this man. For ten years, I had believed that his face represented sincerity and security in my life. Who would have thought that behind that seemingly peaceful expression lay the soul of a cold-blooded traitor plotting my destruction?

With extremely slow and cautious movements, holding my breath to avoid making even the slightest sound, I reached my right hand toward the bedside table where Casian's smartphone lay beside his wristwatch. My fingers grasped the slim device with its dark screen.

The phone lit up, displaying its security lock. My heart pounded so violently that it felt as though it might burst out of my chest. I glanced at Casian once more to make sure he hadn't moved, then carefully brought the phone closer to his sleeping face. Gently lifting his limp index finger, I pressed it against the fingerprint sensor on the screen.

Ding!

The phone's home screen unlocked.

Success.

My hands began trembling even more violently. I immediately swiped through the app menu and opened a secret messaging application hidden inside a double-layered folder—a private messaging app whose existence I had never known about. The contact at the top of the list, with the most active message history, was a name that made me feel sick to my stomach:

Kaila Lovely.

Without hesitation, my fingers began scrolling upward as I read through the endless stream of text messages and listened to the short voice recordings stored in the chat. The farther back I scrolled, the more shattered the pieces of my soul became.

Those messages were no longer simple good-morning greetings or casual discussions about boutique business matters. They were a sea of filthy words, disgusting terms of endearment, and vulgar conversations detailing what they did together in the beds of luxurious hotels whenever Casian claimed to be leaving on business trips.

"Baby, I miss your touch so much after last night. You're so much wilder and more passionate than your fat, stiff wife. When can we rent another hotel room?" Kaila had written in a text message sent three days earlier.

And Casian's reply—my husband, who had spent all this time praising me in public—made every drop of blood in my body freeze instantly, turning to ice that pierced my very bones.

"Be patient, sweetheart. I'll arrange another out-of-town trip under the excuse of a board meeting soon. You know how it is. I have no choice but to go home and pretend to be the perfect husband in front of that woman. It's exhausting having to deal with such a boring woman whose only hobbies are complaining about being tired, getting exhausted so easily, smelling like medicated oil, and having absolutely no passion in bed. You're the only one who knows how to satisfy and pleasure your husband until he's completely worn out."

The words were perfectly clear before my eyes, replaying in my mind over and over like a sledgehammer smashing a rock into countless pieces.

I clamped my palm tightly over my mouth to suppress the sobs threatening to escape. Tears streamed down my cheeks, dripping onto the phone screen. So this was the real reason? It wasn't because of work, nor was it the pressure of life. Casian had cheated on me and betrayed me simply because he had grown tired and bored with our monotonous married life.

In my husband's eyes, I was nothing more than a fat, boring woman who didn't take care of herself, became exhausted easily, and couldn't satisfy him in bed. Ten years of devotion, ten years of hiding my true identity behind my hard work, ten years of pouring funds from the Alpa Stevans Foundation into financing his entire success—all of it had been repaid with degrading insults that reduced me to nothing more than worthless trash.

My hands trembled so violently that the phone nearly slipped from my grasp and fell to the floor. Pain, disgust, rage, and utter emotional devastation collided, forming a tremendous storm inside my chest.

Suddenly, amid my suppressed sobs that shook my entire body, Casian's heavy arm moved in his sleep and instinctively wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer into his embrace. At the same time, his hoarse voice murmured lazily beside my ear.

"Darling... you're still awake? Why are you trembling like this...?"