Chapter 3
Noah replied within seconds, agreeing to this absurd wedding plan.
I’d originally intended to avoid seeing James altogether after this. But the very next day, Mom asked me to drop off James’s jacket that he’d left behind.
When the door opened, Sophia stood there inside his house.
She had clearly spent the night, with obvious hickeys trailing down her neck and disappearing
beneath her red slip dress.
୪
She looked me up and down, then deliberately tied her hair up, exposing even more marks.
“James is still asleep–he was absolutely exhausted last night,” she said with a smirk. “Emma, why don’t you come in and wait for a bit?”
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Before Sophia came along, I’d lived here for three years. Since our
secret marriage, I’d moved in and even designed all the decor throughout the house.
My eyes drifted to the wind chime hanging by the door.
Whether intentional or not, Sophia noticed my interest in it. When she closed the door, she used just enough force to send it crashing to the floor, shattering into pieces.
The engraving inside was now exposed.
It had James and Sophia’s initials engraved inside, with several little hearts between their names.
I silently lowered my head, a cold feeling washing over me.
I’d spent two months handcrafting that wind chime. When I finished it, James took it from me, saying he wanted to engrave our names on it to make our love last forever.
We’d been married less than a year then, and I naturally assumed he meant our love–his and mine. I’d even made sure to hang it in a prominent place.
But all this time…
For three years, every time I rang that chime, I’d actually been ringing a bell celebrating James and
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Chapter 3
Sophia’s love.
The loud crash brought James out of the bedroom. He immediately spotted the broken pieces with
the engraving exposed on the floor.
His expression changed instantly as he took several quick steps to stand in front of me, blocking my
view.
Behind him, the master bedroom door was wide open.
Several used condoms littered the floor among scattered clothing, leaving little doubt about how
intense their night had been.
Under James’s guilty gaze, I smiled thinly.
“Your birthday’s coming up next week, Uncle James. I’ll be sure to send you a few boxes of condoms.‘
“Since you love Sophia so much but aren’t ready to force her into marriage, you’ll need to keep up with birth control, right?”
I set down his jacket and turned to leave.
James started to follow me, but just then, Sophia cried out in pain behind him–she’d cut her hand on
one of the glass shards.
Without a second thought, James abandoned any thought of following me.
He swept Sophia up into his arms and, as he rushed past me, snatched my car keys from my hand.
“Emma, you can walk home!” he called over his shoulder, not even looking back. “Sophia’s hand can’t scar–I need to get her to the hospital right away!”
James’s figure disappeared down the stairwell.
The door remained wide open, the draft making me shiver.
I bowed my head, mentally preparing the divorce papers, and took one last look at the place I’d called home for three years.
I almost wanted to play the melodramatic TV show heroine–throwing out everything of mine and making a scene. But looking around, I realized we’d never even taken wedding photos together.
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Chapter 3
I couldn’t dramatically throw my wedding ring in his face either, because we never bothered to buy rings when we got married.
Finally, I called a cab and went home.
On the way, I sent James the divorce papers.
Within seconds, he sent back a voice message, tearing into me:
“Emma! Are you fucking kidding me?!!”
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