Chapter 3

At seven the next morning, sunlight cut through the Seattle fog. The king-sized bed was already empty. From the garden below came the sound of Cody's shrill laughter and Julian's patient, gentle voice coaxing him—sounding every bit like a happy family of three.

Allie stood before the bathroom mirror and splashed freezing water onto her face. Drops rolled down her jawline, replacing the lingering exhaustion in her eyes with cold clarity. She dried her hands and walked into the private study attached to the master suite.

The outside world believed she had thrown away her future to marry into wealth, content to be a useless trophy wife living off a Montgomery trust fund. In reality, she was a top AI prodigy from Stanford University. Over the past three years, she had never stopped her research into frontier machine learning models.

Allie booted up her encrypted workstation. On the screen was a ten-thousand-word academic paper titled "Autonomous Agent Architecture Based on Deep Multimodal Reinforcement Learning"—the core algorithm prototype for her project, imitation. Having already swept top marks across three rounds of rigorous, anonymous peer reviews, the editor-in-chief had held the journal's prestigious special issue cover open, waiting only for her final benchmark convergence data. Only the concluding proofs remained. Once submitted under her pen name, Cathy Yan, this camera-ready manuscript would immediately trigger the locked publication queue of the Annals of AI Research, the highest global authority in artificial intelligence. Her slender fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, lines of code and mathematical proofs reflecting in her dark eyes.

Downstairs in the dining room, Julian was patiently feeding oatmeal to Cody in a high chair with a silver spoon. Across the table, Christa wore a fitted silk loungewear set. She glanced up toward the second-floor study, a mocking smirk tugging at her lips.

Julian set down the spoon and looked toward the kitchen.

"Maria, go upstairs and see why Madam hasn't come down for breakfast yet."

The sudden concern made Christa's smile freeze. A flash of jealousy darkened her eyes before she quickly put on a timid, guilty expression.

"Julian, is Miss Morrow still angry with me? Does she blame Cody and me for ruining your wedding night..."

Julian offered a warm, confident smile.

"No. Allie has always been gentle and generous. She wouldn't get angry over something so small."

Christa's eyes darted around as she spoke in an aggrieved tone.

"But if she isn't angry, why hasn't she come down yet? She clearly refuses to sit at the same table with me."

Julian's brow furrowed slightly, his voice dropping.

"Allie isn't that petty."

Under the table, Christa twisted her napkin so hard her knuckles turned white. Allie, Allie, Allie. Had that boring woman actually wormed her way into Julian's heart?

Upstairs in the study, Allie typed the final period, saved the encrypted file, and uploaded the manuscript under the name "Cathy Yan" to the journal's system. She pushed open the floor-to-ceiling window and breathed in the crisp morning air just as Maria knocked softly.

"Madam, breakfast is ready. Sir asked me to call you down."

Allie nodded, changed into tailored black trousers and a white silk blouse, and walked downstairs. As she reached the bottom landing, Julian was picking up his briefcase to leave for the office. Christa stood by the foyer like a devoted wife, holding his suit jacket and speaking in a sweet voice.

"Drive safely, Julian. Shall I fix your tie for you?"

"No need," Julian said, smiling politely.

Looking up, he saw Allie descending the stairs and beckoned to her with the casual authority of a husband.

"Allie, come fix my tie."

A cold glint flashed in Allie's eyes. Did he think she was a puppet on a string?

"Sorry, my stomach hurts. I feel nauseous right now."

Without sparing him a glance, Allie walked straight past him into the dining room and pulled out a chair. Maria quickly served her a warm bowl of pumpkin millet porridge. Allie lowered her head and ate in silence, treating the two people by the door like thin air.

Instead of getting angry, Julian shook his head with an indulgent chuckle, assuming his wife was just throwing a harmless tantrum. In his mind, Allie had been infatuated with him since high school; her jealousy only proved how deeply she loved and needed him. Pleased with that thought, Julian strode out the door.

Christa stood on the porch, staring hungrily as Julian climbed into his bespoke black Rolls-Royce Cullinan. He now held absolute power over the Montgomery empire. Christa bit her lip in regret—if she had known he would rise this high, she never would have chosen short-lived Liam over him back then!

"Enjoying the view?"

Allie's icy voice rang out right behind her, making Christa flinch violently.