Chapter 1

1

As professors at the nation's top research university, Selene and I were hailed as the Golden Couple of Academia.

Our research breakthroughs ranked among the very best in the country.

Everyone envied our picture-perfect marriage, praising us as a match made in heaven.

Nobody could have imagined things would end in such an ugly, public disaster.

The snow fell early this winter, heavy and freezing cold.

The campus forum exploded with a leaked video showing Selene passionately kissing Rhett, a fellow professor in our department.

When I finally turned on my phone after keeping it off for hours, over a hundred missed calls and a flood of frantic messages blew up my screen.

Most people were desperately asking what was going on.

No one wanted to believe that the elegant, brilliant Dr. Selene Howard could ever do something so scandalous.

A close colleague of mine rushed straight into my office, out of breath.

"Professor Mercer, something terrible happened! Have you seen the forum?"

I forced a stiff, hollow smile. My frozen finger tapped the screen, pausing right on the frame where their lips met.

"Yeah," I replied flatly.

"This has to be a rumor!" he blurted out. "There is no way Dr. Howard would cheat. Who even filmed this…"

"It is not a rumor."

I spoke calmly, as if it had nothing to do with me.

"I filmed it."

The office fell dead silent. My colleague stood frozen, too terrified to utter a single word.

I had nothing left to say, so I gripped my phone and walked out the door.

The camera had been set up just to monitor my late-night lab data.

I never expected it to capture the brutal truth of my marriage.

The video kept looping on my screen.

Surrounded by complex scientific equipment, the two of them leaned close under the dim laboratory lights.

"Selene, this is the first time I have kissed you in a sacred place like this," Rhett whispered. "I am so happy."

As Selene gazed at him in a daze, Rhett slowly leaned down and pressed his lips against hers.

"Stop it, someone might see us," she murmured, leaning into his chest with flushed cheeks and total surrender.

Knowing there were no official security cameras pointed at that corner, Rhett held her tight and smirked.

"I wish the whole world could see how much I love you."

What a fiery, passionate love.

Even someone like me, who had spent a lifetime buried in cold research, once craved that kind of burning romance.

I had dreamed of moments like that with her countless times.

Too bad the man in my wife's passionate romance was never me.