Chapter 1

On our golden anniversary, I accidentally discovered my celebrity wife's private photo collection in her cloud drive.

In the photos, she was incredibly provocative, showing a level of intimacy that was staggering.

The man behind the camera was none other than Ewan, her exclusive photographer, who was exactly thirty years her junior.

Attached to the photos was a caption: "I will never let my husband touch me again! My body exists only for my darling Ewan's eyes!"

Thirty years of my devotion and hard work felt like a total joke in the face of those words.

I poured out the expensive organic collagen tonic I had woken up at 4:00 AM to brew for her and booked a one-way ticket out of the country.

1.

Vivienne's call came through with its usual aggressive, commanding tone.

"Arthur! Why hasn't my collagen tonic been delivered yet? I've been waiting at the film set for five minutes!"

In the past, I would have been terrified by her authoritative and impatient voice.

I used to apologize submissively, over and over, while she met me with endless verbal abuse.

Feeling my subconscious urge to apologize even now, I realized with a shock that she had practically trained me to be her servant over the years.

I suppressed the apology that was at the tip of my tongue and replied flatly.

"I'm not bringing it. I already poured it down the drain."

She erupted into a furious roar before abruptly hanging up on me.

A moment later, my daughter's phone call came through.

For a split second, I felt a spark of excitement because Jillian hadn't contacted me in nearly a month.

But then, the same roar as Vivienne's came through the speaker.

The joy vanished instantly, and my heart sank into a sea of coldness.

"Dad! Are you getting senile in your old age? You know Mom has to drink that tonic every day! You're almost sixty, stop acting out. The reason I hate coming home is because of how pathetic you are!"

I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it, a bitter taste filling my throat.

The moment the call ended, a strange sense of relief washed over me, as if I had finally reached a long-awaited breaking point.

Vivienne was a legendary A-list actress, and we had been together since college, spanning thirty years of marriage.

In our second year of marriage, she broke into the industry thanks to her stunning looks and talent.

When she was blacklisted by her agency for five years, I was the one who stayed by her side through the darkest times.

Seven years later, she broke her contract and started her own studio.

She came to me then, begging with tears in her eyes.

"Honey, I don't trust anyone else but you. Can you please be my manager?"

Because of that one sentence―that she only trusted me―I quit my high-paying corporate job and learned the ropes of the entertainment industry.

Under my management and through her hard work, we climbed to the top together and won numerous awards, becoming the envy of the industry.

I was her supposed pillar of strength, and I did everything for her.

What pleased her most was that I never missed a day of brewing that specific tonic for her.

I specifically set my alarm for 4:00 AM every single morning for thirty years to prepare it.

Every time she drank it, her eyes would well up, and she would tell me how much she loved me.

That changed ten years ago when Ewan entered her life, and even my daughter started to despise me.

Ewan was her exclusive photographer, thirty years younger than her.

I suppose there's some truth to the saying that younger is better.

At first, Vivienne was just flirtatious with him, but once I caught on, she became even more brazen.

Eventually, she fired me as her manager and told me to stay home and never visit her, except to deliver that damn tonic.

If I hadn't accidentally stumbled upon those files on her laptop, I would never have believed it.

I never would have guessed they had been maintaining this secret relationship for ten whole years.

For thirty years, I revolved my life around the kitchen and her needs, only to receive insults and ridicule from my wife and daughter.

They would berate me for the smallest mistakes, over and over again.

When they finally admitted how much they loathed me, I felt truly, deeply exhausted.