Chapter 1

My wife and I are both liars.

She lied to me ninety-nine times, saying she'd forget her first love, but she never did.

And I only lied to her once—tricking her into signing the divorce papers.

Today is the last day of our divorce waiting period.

Three hours left on the countdown, I packed all my belongings and bought a plane ticket out of the country.

Two hours left, I cut up all our photos together, leaving only myself in the albums.

One hour remaining, I recorded one final video for her.

"Clara, this is my tenth year loving you, and my first day leaving you."

Later, when she saw the recording, she lost her mind.

"Why is the wedding contract so thick?"

Clara frowned, flipping through page after page, yet never putting pen to paper.

After all, she was a renowned CEO in this city—not someone easily deceived.

And on the second-to-last page was the divorce agreement I'd secretly inserted.

I kept my head down, feeling surprisingly calm.

"There are a bunch of liability clauses. If you have time, take your time reading through it."

She wouldn't have time.

Today was the day her first love, Adrian Cross, returned to the country.

Years ago, when Adrian got engaged, she married me in a fit of spite.

Now that Adrian was divorced, she got drunk and, after sobering up, asked me to hold a proper wedding ceremony.

It was all just to provoke Adrian into coming back.

My marriage was nothing more than a game piece in their emotional chess match.

Sure enough.

The impatience on Clara's face was visible to the naked eye.

"I need to leave now to pick someone up. I don't have time for all this."

A flicker of joy crossed her eyes.

The impatience was for me.

That flash of joy was reserved only for Adrian Cross.

After hastily signing, Clara left me nothing but her retreating back.

Three days ago, Clara suddenly brought up holding a proper wedding.

We'd been married five years without a grand ceremony or any public announcement.

Apart from both sets of parents and our closest friends, no one knew.

Even in news coverage about her, she was always listed as "unmarried."

The occasional tabloid stories were all about her tragic romance with Adrian Cross.

As for me, her actual secret husband, I had no right to have my name mentioned.

Truth is, I've known all along.

Clara had a first love, a man she loved desperately.

Five years of marriage, and the woman showed me some tenderness, just not much.

I tried to use love to make her get used to having me around.

But in our home, Clara's face never showed a single smile.

Until that day when Clara—who never touched alcohol—got completely wasted, her face covered in nothing but smiles.

I quietly asked around and, sure enough, Adrian Cross had gotten divorced.

I took care of her until midnight, then unlocked her phone using Adrian's birthday.

Opening her photo album, the pictures nearly filled her storage.

Nothing but Adrian.

Not a single photo of me.

The cover of her digital album was our wedding photo.

Except she'd photoshopped my face out and replaced it with Adrian's.

I still remember how, on the day we registered our marriage, Clara refused to hold a wedding but insisted on taking wedding photos.

Now I understood why.

It was at that moment I knew.

This five-year marriage was coming to an end.

All that remained was the divorce cooling-off period.

Countdown.

One month.

Coincidentally, the wedding Clara promised to hold with me also had one month left.