Chapter 3

Beneath the shattered glass, the phone continued to stream the live feed.

Braxton leaned forward, pinning the woman in his arms against the couch. "You only want me? Then what about this? Do you want this?"

He raised his hand, letting a necklace dangle from his fingers.

Tamara's eyes widened. Braxton had given her an identical necklace before. But he had clearly told her that it was a one-of-a-kind piece, the only one in the world.

She immediately dug up an old photo of the necklace and sent it to a friend in the jewelry business. The reply came quickly.

"It's a fake."

A laugh escaped Tamara as she stared at those words.

The necklace she owned was just like her status as Mrs. Merrick—both fake. As expected, one heart could never truly love two people.

She gripped her phone tightly, watching as Annalise's eyes filled with tears. Batting her lashes, Annalise said, "I have one more wish…"

The next second, Braxton's call came through. "Tamara, something suddenly came up, and I have to go on a business trip for the next two days. Make sure to eat properly even when I'm not around. Okay?"

After hanging up, Tamara—almost as if possessed—drove to his office building, and just so happened to see Braxton's car pull out.

She followed it for a long while, and they eventually turned into a winding mountain road, finally stopping at the entrance to a shrine.

Mist and rain shrouded everything, and the path was slick and wet.

Braxton bent down and carried Annalise on his back as he climbed uphill.

This place wasn't unfamiliar to Tamara. At the end of a thousand stone steps stood a shrine where locals often came to pray for blessings.

After getting married, when Tamara had failed to conceive, Braxton's mother, Marjorie Langford, had brought her here.

"You have to kneel on each step and say a prayer. Only with true sincerity will you be granted a child."

That day had been a rainy one like this one too. At first, her knees were stained with green moss, then eventually, they were scraped raw until they were bleeding.

When she finally reached the final step, Braxton, who had hurried over, knelt down beside her. Later, he'd scolded his mother for her superstitious beliefs and refused to return to his parents' home for half a year.

Tamara still remembered that on that day, the two of them had even hung a love lock together on Lovers' Bridge, a bridge just outside the shrine.

She never imagined that when she'd return here again, it would be because she was tailing Braxton and another woman.

Braxton and Annalise finally stopped at Lovers' Bridge. Annalise searched through the dense cluster of locks before suddenly stretching her hand out to him.

He chuckled and pulled out a key. "I can't believe you actually found it."

Tamara, standing behind a tree, clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms.

Sure enough, the next second, Annalise unlocked one of the locks and tossed it off the mountainside, replacing it with a new one.

Looking smug, she said, "You promised me that if I found the lock you shared with Tamara, I could do whatever I wanted with it. Since she's your ex-wife now, that lock obviously can't be hung here anymore."

Ex-wife?

Tamara suddenly remembered that on the day they registered their marriage, Braxton had prepared a thick stack of documents, claiming that he was going to transfer properties and assets under her name.

She had signed them all without even giving them a second glance. Who could've guessed that buried among them was a divorce agreement?

In just seven seconds, the marriage she had dreamed of throughout her entire youth had come to an end.

And the only reason Braxton had married Annalise a year later was that he had to wait for her to reach the legal marriage age. He was willing to wait for her to grow up, yet he could spare Tamara only seven seconds before ending everything.

That was the "love" he kept harping on about.

…

When Braxton returned home, it was already two days later than what he'd originally said.

As soon as he walked in, Edna exclaimed, "What beautiful flowers. I've never seen anything like them."

He offered them to Tamara proudly.

They were a rare species that grew only on the sheer cliffs behind the shrine. Anyone could access them freely, but they had to risk their lives to pick them.

Tamara, however, only gave them a brief glance. "Put them in a vase, Edna."

"Don't you like them?" Braxton asked, noticing her indifference.

Pulling her into his embrace, he continued, "Don't be upset, babe. I didn't come home on time because a TV station invited both of us to appear on a show, and I went ahead to scout the location first.

"It's an outdoor interview with beautiful scenery. I'm sorry I've been too busy lately and neglected you. I thought I could use this chance to bring you along for some fresh air."

Before Tamara could even respond, he was already instructing Edna to prepare things for their trip.

Yet, Tamara had just seen Annalise's social media, which the latter had just updated.

In the photo, Annalise was holding the same bouquet of flowers, and the red marks on her neck were glaringly obvious. The caption read, "He just left, and I'm already starting to miss him."

Tamara clutched her chest. Her heart felt like a lone boat adrift at sea.

Over the past three years, the happiness she'd treasured so dearly had probably been replicated countless times in this same way. And what she'd received had been nothing but fakes.

The ache in her heart faded almost instantly, leaving only numbness behind.

"My condition must be worsening…" she thought to herself.