Chapter 3

3

Garrett walked into the room, his eyes widening in surprise when he saw me awake.

He quickly realized I had heard everything.

Miller’s investigation had also just confirmed that the media leak had nothing to do with me.

“You were planning to fly to Italy?”

Garrett’s jaw tightened as his warm hand gently covered my cold knuckles.

“A change of scenery might be good for you. But wait until the blizzard passes. Rest here for the next few days.”

He slipped a black card into my palm, treating it as compensation for my trouble.

I quietly pulled my hand away. “Keep it. Just liquidate all the company shares under my name.”

Garrett frowned, suddenly remembering the divorce papers we had signed.

“Have you really thought this through?”

I looked at him in confusion.

Noticing my detachment, irritation flared in his chest.

“That’s not a small sum of money, Mara. The legal procedure will take time.”

“Don’t worry, it’s written in black and white. I won’t back out.”

He paused, clearly wanting to defend his actions.

“I don’t understand why you’re always targeting Sienna. Even if I had feelings for her in the past, that’s ancient history.”

“Since I married you, I never crossed the line with anyone. Haven’t I always tolerated your jealous tantrums?”

“She had a rough time abroad these past seven years. As an old friend, I just wanted to help her out.”

Garrett stared at me with dark eyes, searching my face for any sign of softening.

He genuinely believed I was just throwing another fit, convinced that a calm explanation would make me forgive him as always.

He forgot that even the most devoted heart eventually grows exhausted.

I was sick of seven years of cold detachment and unreciprocated effort.

In our marriage, I was always the one making conversation, reaching for his hand, and initiating intimacy in bed.

I handed him my heart, my resources, and my body on a silver platter.

Yet he stood high above me, casually deciding whether to accept my devotion with annoyance or reject it with cold indifference.

I used to lie to myself, thinking that a quiet life together was enough.

I tolerated his neglect.

I tolerated the fact that as an artist, he painted landscapes, painted Sienna, and even painted stray dogs, but never once painted me.

I endured the suffocating loneliness every time I reached out and caught only empty air.

Sienna’s return had finally shattered the pathetic illusion I lived in.

I was done pretending.

“Why are you telling me all this? Since we’re getting divorced, let’s just split the assets according to the agreement.”

I turned my head away, refusing to waste another breath on him.

Garrett’s temper flared.

“Mara! Can you stop being so unreasonable? The only reason I’m looking after Sienna is to make up for the wrong you did to her years ago!”

I froze, caught completely off guard. “The wrong I did? What are you talking about?”

Garrett clenched his fists, opening his mouth to reply when his phone started ringing loudly.

“Garrett, where are you? I’m so scared...”

Garrett’s expression shifted instantly. “Don’t be scared, I’m coming right now!”

He turned on his heel and rushed out, leaving only his hurried back in my sight.

I stared at the open doorway, lost in a heavy silence.

Late that evening, Garrett sent a text message.

His tone was unusually gentle, claiming that keeping me in the hospital was for my own safety.

I knew very well it was just a disguised house arrest.

With my phone confiscated and no way to reach the outside world, all I could do was wait.

Missing my flight to Italy, I wondered how that man in Florence would react.

Would he think I was playing tricks on him again?

A faint smile crossed my lips. Probably not.

Garrett had dragged my name through the mud online, so he would understand once he saw the news.

Waiting was pure agony.

Ever since developing claustrophobia three years ago, being alone in enclosed spaces filled me with dread.

Garrett had felt guilty about that night. Though he never said it out loud, he used to keep track of me whenever I was out of his sight for too long.

Like a protective beast guarding its territory, he needed to make sure I was safe before relaxing.

When he traveled for business, he stopped rejecting my video calls.

When I took a bath, he would stay in the bedroom, casually answering my silly chatter.

I had pieced together tiny shreds of his attention, convincing myself that he truly cared about me.

Sienna’s return had popped that fragile bubble, leaving me completely humiliated.

Trapped in this room, most of my waking hours were consumed by anxiety.

Still, a stubborn part of me wanted to test him.

I wanted to see just how heartless Garrett could truly be.

Would he remember my condition and drop by to check on me, or at least make a quick call?

Day after day, the only people entering my room were the cleaning staff and the nurses changing my IVs.

Through their casual gossip, I heard endless tales of Garrett’s devotion to Sienna.

When Sienna scratched her wrist, Garrett summoned the city’s top dermatologists to formulate a scar cream for her.

When Sienna lost her appetite, Garrett spent hours in the kitchen cooking eighteen different dishes for her to choose from.

Every conversation revolved around her.

The nurses sighed with envy, praising Sienna’s luck for earning such public, high-profile devotion from a man like Garrett.

Then they tossed disdainful glares my way, mocking me under their breath.

Garrett had clearly painted me as the villain to clear Sienna’s name.

And during those seven days, my existence hadn’t crossed his mind even once.

The dull ache in my heart slowly turned completely numb.

When a sympathetic nurse finally slipped my phone back to me, I opened an app to book the next flight out.

Before I could complete the purchase, an unfamiliar audio file popped up in my inbox.

“I still don’t believe you have zero feelings for Mara!” Sienna’s voice echoed through the static, followed by Garrett’s urgent reply.

“How else can I prove it to you? When she pursued me, everyone knew how much she annoyed me. Marrying her was just a business deal, no different from an arranged marriage.”

“You lived together for seven years. Are you telling me you never grew attached? Prove it to me.”

Garrett hesitated for several seconds before his voice came through the speaker.

“I would never have a child with a woman I don’t love.”

“She tried to trap me with a pregnancy before, but I couldn’t accept it. I had the doctor fabricate a developmental defect and terminate it. She cried for months.”

“She kept hoping for another baby afterward, and while I didn’t stop her, I never told her that I had a secret vasectomy.”

A violent ringing tore through my skull.

The room around me began to spin out of control.