Chapter 3

"Spit it out."

"When Kael was with me, he never sighed. But during these three years with you, I heard him sigh so many times over the phone," she looked down, her voice soft. "Maybe you two just weren't meant to be."

I looked at her.

Kael sighed because his trading post's cash flow was blocked, his business partners broke their contracts, and creditors almost cornered him at the territory's border.

Every single crisis was quietly settled by me behind his back. After he finished sighing and went to sleep, the problem would be resolved the next morning. He always smiled and said he was just lucky.

"You're right," I bent down to tighten my boot laces. "We weren't meant to be."

The moment the door shut, Lila's voice drifted out from inside.

"Kael, let's change the door passcode. I want to set it to our anniversary."

I moved into a small, three-hundred-dollar-a-month single room near the market.

It was next to a barbecue shop. The smell of grease and cheap tobacco smoke drifted in through the window cracks.

I sat on the hard wooden bed and stared at the pregnancy report for a long time.

Two clear bloodline runes on the paper indicated a healthy Alpha pup.

My phone rang. It was Kael.

"Elara, you haven't cancelled your access to my secondary card yet."

"I'll do it tomorrow when we go to the Pack Council."

"Fine."

Just as I was about to hang up, Lila's voice came from his end.

"Kael, does she still have the keys to the villa? I saw them in her bag last time."

Kael paused. "Bring the keys, too."

"Anything else?"

"That's all for now."

The call disconnected.

My screen was still lit, showing three years of chat history between Kael and me.

The very first message he sent was: Elara, thank you for helping me out today.

That day, he was negotiating with a mine owner who suddenly raised the price, leaving Kael sweating with anxiety.

I happened to be there. I casually pointed out a flaw in the ore's grade, and the owner signed the contract on the spot.

Kael didn't know that the mine owner was actually a subordinate merchant under the Thorne Pack.

He only knew that his Omega wife worked as a cashier at a grocery store in the market, making thirty-five hundred dollars a month, barely getting by.

For three years of marriage, I had maintained this persona.

The next morning, Kael's mother called.

"Elara, have you packed your trash yet?"

"I'm in the middle of it."

"Don't bother bringing those cheap clothes of yours. Oh, by the way, Lila said that cured venison jerky you made before tasted pretty good. She wants the recipe."

I had made cured venison jerky for three years, and Kael took it to work every day. His mother had never praised it once.

"No."

"Why are you being so difficult?" my former mother-in-law's voice instantly sharpened. "You two are already divorced, and you're still being so petty? Do you know who Lila is? Asking for your recipe is doing you a favor."

"Who is she then?"

"Her parents run a cross-continental trading business in Europe. Do you think everyone is like you, working as a cashier in a market?"

She lowered her voice. "To be honest, I wasn't happy when Kael married you. You were hardworking these past three years, but people climb higher. Kael's business is taking off now. You can't keep up with him."

"Lila and Kael were classmates at a European business school. They belong together. Now that she's back, stop blocking her path."

Last year, Kael almost went bankrupt because of a bad debt and couldn't even pay his workers' wages.

It was me who used my family's channels to recover that debt.

Kael thought the other party had found their conscience and paid it back voluntarily. He came back, held me tight, and happily said we were so lucky.

"I'm not giving her the recipe. Anything else?"

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