Chapter 3

Alexander really had cheated on me, and he'd brought his mistress into our home.

My hands trembled as I put away my phone and walked out of the bedroom.

Looking at the food spread before me, my heart ached.

Alexander remembered all my preferences. He remembered that I got heart palpitations and trembling hands when hungry. He remembered I loved his goodbye kisses.

But he forgot that I despised betrayal above all else.

How ironic.

A person could express such deep love for me while bringing another woman into our home.

At that moment, I found myself curious.

How much of the love I'd once been so proud of was real, and how much was fake?

And when did things start between him and that woman?

I sat at the dining table, trying to compose myself for a long time. Then suddenly remembered something.

The thought made me immediately call my parents and ask them to come over.

Sensing my urgency, my parents arrived as quickly as possible.

"What's wrong, Grace? What's so urgent that you called us over?"

I didn't hide anything. I told them everything about Alexander's affair in one breath.

After hearing it, my dad couldn't believe it:

"Grace, could there be some misunderstanding? Everyone can see how good Alexander is to you."

"Plus, you know his job—he's a surgeon, on call 24/7. Maybe he really does have an emergency surgery?"

"That post—could it just be a coincidence?"

But my mom slammed her hand on the table:

"Impossible! There's no such thing as this big a coincidence!"

"The post says park horizontally, and he parks horizontally."

"Grace doesn't call and walks straight in, and the post describes the exact same situation."

"The post says he slipped out to take his mistress home, and Alexander made up an excuse to leave."

"Plus there's a strange earring in the house. How could this possibly be a coincidence?"

My dad frowned. "But Alexander has always valued Grace more than his own life all these years!"

My mom scoffed. "So what?"

"Just because he's been good to Grace means he couldn't be cheating now?"

"Every man who keeps a mistress acts perfectly fine at home."

"The better they act, the more convincing their performance."

My dad had no response.

My mom grew angrier: "That Alexander!"

"When he was pursuing Grace, he knelt at our door for three days and nights, swearing he'd treat her well. That's when I agreed to let Grace marry him."

"And what happened?"

"It's only been two years of marriage and he's already bringing his mistress home? This is outrageous!"

My mom was furious. But I felt more confused than anything.

As my dad said, Alexander had been very good to me all these years.

He was young, accomplished, handsome—never short of young women throwing themselves at him.

Even the hospital director's daughter had openly pursued him.

She'd even publicly stated that if Alexander would be with her, she could give him the entire hospital.

But Alexander remained unmoved.

He even offended her over it and nearly got blacklisted from the medical field.

Despite all that, he stayed firmly devoted, telling me:

"I can lose the whole world, but I can't be without you."

Precisely because I'd genuinely felt how good he was to me, I couldn't understand.

What kind of woman could make someone like Alexander, who treated loyalty as his faith, change his heart?