Undercover Mate

[Frank, I know this must be painful for you. But what Agnes and I have is real. I hope you can find it in yourself to let her be happy.]

The message lit up my phone. It was from Nicholas Morgan, Agnes Grey's assistant.

Aside from that message, the rest were videos and photos.

An impassioned embrace beneath the famed Tower of Love.

Whispers of affection before the murals of one of the most famous museums in the world.

Naked bodies tangled on the sands of a tropical paradise.

And even images of their unrestrained pleasure against a floor-to-ceiling window.

Only in that moment did I fully understand that Agnes was no longer the woman I had once loved.

We had met when we had nothing. For the sake of her acting career, I worked day and night, pouring every cent into her performances and running errands for her film crews.

For seven long years, I toiled until I slept on subway rides home, drank so hard at business parties that my stomach bled. Piece by piece, I built a company from nothing.

And in those same years, Agnes rose to fame, her name celebrated across the nation.

Everything we once dreamed of achieving together—she chose, in the end, to share with her assistant.

I didn't hesitate. I drafted the divorce papers.

Just as I was about to sign my name, a sudden voice echoed at my ear.

"Frank, don't! You promised me, remember? You said you'd give me three chances."

The familiar voice struck me like lightning. My body trembled.

I turned… and there stood Agnes at nineteen, delicate and ethereal, wearing the 30-dollar dress I once bought her with money from a part-time job.

In that dress, she had always been the most beautiful in my memory.

I stared blankly at her apparition, then unexpectedly, I laughed.

"All right. Three chances it is."

At that very moment, my phone rang again.

"Frank! How many times have I told you? Stop picking on Nicholas! He's only my assistant. He's exhausted every day, running around with me from place to place! If you keep this up, forget about that seaside trip I promised you!"

I put the call on speaker. Her furious voice filled the room.

I glanced at the nineteen-year-old Agnes, offering her a gentle smile. Anger flared on her youthful face.

"How can she talk to you like that? How dare she speak to you this way!"

Nineteen-year-old Agnes trembled with fury. But the twenty-seven-year-old version of her was cold as ice.

"Frank, looks like you've grown bold—keeping another woman at your side now. I'll give you half an hour to get to Marlen Tower. If you're not here by then…"

She hung up without finishing.

I muttered, "That's the first chance, Agnes."

Even I wasn't sure if I was speaking to the nineteen-year-old before me, or to myself.

By the time I drove to Marlen Tower, forty minutes had already passed.