Chapter 3

“I’m telling you, all my friends know you’re with me right now. You have to come even if you don’t want to! Otherwise it’ll be too embarrassing for me!”

Once her temper flared, she wouldn’t listen to anything I said, and she just turned the car around and took me there.

By the time we got to the gathering, half an hour had passed.

Maya greeted Mark very warmly as soon as she saw him.

Even though they saw each other every day, I had no idea what she was pretending for in front of me.

They acted like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years.

Soon, Mark’s eyes landed on me. “So this is Ethan, huh? Big and tall, but turns out you’re pretty petty. I knew Maya before you even knew where you were!”

“If I really had something with her, we’d already be married. Why would I wait until now?”

That didn’t sound like an explanation. It sounded more like he was staking his claim.

After that, he ignored me and pulled Maya over to the table.

Only after Maya sat down did I realize there wasn’t a seat for me.

“Oops, sorry. We didn’t know you were coming, so we didn’t prepare an extra seat.”

Didn’t prepare a seat for me?

Who knew who had asked Maya to bring me along.

I was almost embarrassed for them to hear such a weak excuse.

“Why don’t you just take a cab home? Anyway, you’re not interested in our little get-together.”

I stood there without moving, and the atmosphere grew awkward for a moment.

Seeing that, Lily immediately stood up. “Bro, you don’t look so good. Why don’t you just take my seat for now?”

I looked at Lily and suddenly remembered the night we got our marriage license, when she and Maya were chatting in the study.

Lily had asked Maya what she saw in me. I had no house, no car, and was worse than Mark in almost every way.

How had Maya answered back then?

She said, It’s all because that old man in my family stirred things up when Mark and I were fighting. I got mad and just married him!

“Honestly, once we got the license, I regretted it. But the old man kept refusing to let me divorce him, so I had no choice but to drag it out.”

When I saw her, all those memories came flooding back.

I took a breath and said quietly, “I don’t want to settle. Let’s get a divorce, Maya.”

Everyone present looked shocked. Back when I was pursuing Maya, it had been a huge, dramatic thing, and they had all seen it.

They had all assumed Maya would be the one to dump me first.

They never expected I would be the one to bring it up, and in front of so many people at that.

Maya shot up from her chair.

“Ethan, give you a little color and you’ll start showing off, huh! What kind of crazy talk is this?”

As Maya shouted, Lily and the others kept trying to smooth things over.

Mark, though, didn’t react much. Instead, he calmly pulled Maya behind him.

“Mr. Reed, as a man, making your woman lose face in public isn’t very classy, is it?”

“As far as I know, Maya’s dad not only helped you find your footing, he also saved your life. He just passed and you’re already biting the hand that fed you. That’s really not something a gentleman would do.”

After Mark said that, Maya’s face looked even worse.

“Ethan, have I been too nice to you lately? Is that why you keep talking about divorce every single day without stopping?”

“Do you think you can bully me just because my dad died and I have no one to rely on?”

“Have you forgotten how you knelt and begged me when I said I wanted a divorce while my dad was still alive?”

I ignored her and didn’t want to explain. I turned around and left.

The old me loved her so much that I had no self-respect. Not anymore.

After I left the clubhouse, I bought some fever medicine at a pharmacy and took a cab straight home.

After taking the medicine, I started packing my clothes.

Before I married Maya, I had my own small apartment, but in her friends’ eyes, that didn’t even count as a real home.

After I finished packing, the sky outside had already turned pale.

I contacted a lawyer and asked him to draft a divorce agreement.

Right after I hung up, Maya happened to come home. Looking at the piles of boxes on the floor, her tone softened. “I shouldn’t have taken a sick you to the gathering last night. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“If Dad were still here and saw us fighting like this, he’d definitely be upset too.”

“Besides, I can’t take all the blame for getting angry. Bringing up divorce in front of my friends, you didn’t give me any face at all.”

Maya wrapped her arm around mine and started acting coy.

In the three years since we got married, this was the first time she’d ever acted like this toward me.

“Can you go apologize to Mark, please?”

I frowned at her.

Last night, when I reached the door, Mark suddenly ran over and blocked me, insisting I go back inside and apologize to Maya.

I didn’t want to, and he got shoved to the ground by me.

Just then Maya rushed out from inside and shouted at me again.

I felt awful then. I had a fever and could barely stand, and even if I had reached out to push Mark, I wouldn’t have had much strength at all. There was no way I could have knocked him to the ground.

He only did it because he saw Maya running out and was putting on a show for her.

I couldn’t be bothered to explain, so I left.

Maya didn’t follow. She was probably comforting him there.

“Please?”

Maya’s words cut off my thoughts.

So she was softening up to me because of Mark.

But why should I?