Chapter 1

Right after my boyfriend Tyler's ice hockey championship game, I was on my way to the locker room to surprise him.

Instead, I walked right into him passionately kissing Scarlett Brooks, the captain of the cheerleading squad.

The bouquet of flowers in my hand slipped, crashing to the floor.

I stood there, frozen and speechless.

Scarlett, however, didn't look guilty at all. She wiped her lipstick and shrugged.

"Tyler and I have been hooking up for a month now."

"To make it fair, why don't we just swap boyfriends? I'll give you Ethan."

I turned my gaze to Ethan Carter, who was leaning against the doorway, watching the whole thing.

"So, you're on board with this?" I asked him.

Ethan shrugged, his expression nonchalant.

"Why not?"

From that day on, Ethan actually started pursuing me.

Just to spite Tyler, I agreed to go out with him.

To my surprise, Ethan and I vibed perfectly.

We shared the same hobbies, the same taste in music, and the same dry humor.

By the time we graduated from college, we were madly in love, and we got married.

But in our third year of marriage, Ethan cheated on me.

And of course, it was with Scarlett.

Ethan frowned, trying to hold my hand as he explained:

"Chloe, you know I love you. It's just... Scarlett is incredibly intoxicating in bed."

"My soul loves you, but my body loves her."

I slapped his hand away. The heavy scent of cheap women's perfume lingering on him made me sick to my stomach.

"Ethan, I want a divorce."

Panic flashed through Ethan's eyes, but his voice quickly turned cold and stern.

"Chloe, we are not getting divorced."

I fought back my tears, my voice trembling.

"When did this start? Every single weekend this past month, you said you were traveling for business. You were actually fucking her, weren't you?"

He lowered his head, sinking into silence.

Meanwhile, Scarlett was sitting on the edge of the bed, casually lighting a cigarette.

"Oh, Chloe, you're still taking things way too seriously."

"Ethan and I are just friends with benefits. He gets laid, and I get his money and connections."

"Relax, I have no intention of stealing your husband."

She playfully tapped Ethan's lower back, put on her leather jacket, and walked out of the room without looking back.

I turned around to leave too.

Ethan grabbed my wrist tightly, pulling me into his chest. His voice was hoarse and desperate.

"Stop making a scene, Chloe. I really couldn't control myself. For the past three years, our sex life has been dead. I'm a normal man. I have needs."

"So that's your excuse for cheating?"

My voice shook violently.

"When you were pursuing me, you said you despised women like Scarlett the most!"

He remained quiet for a long second.

"Chloe, my soul loves you, but my body just craves her."

"If you hadn't walked in and ruined this today, we could have kept living our perfect life."

My heart instantly turned to ice.

I remembered when Scarlett first suggested the "boyfriend swap" back in college.

Ethan, who had always been a quiet, reserved boy, had blushed with sheer embarrassment.

After we got together, I asked him if he ever missed Scarlett.

Right in front of my face, he burned all the love letters he had drafted for her and threw away every gift she had ever given him.

"Chloe, I love girls who respect themselves and are loyal, just like you," he had told me. "The moment Scarlett said those disgusting words in the locker room, I checked out completely."

So after we got married, when he wanted to start his own company, I sold my tech patent without hesitation to fund his startup.

When a bitter competitor tried to attack me with a knife during a corporate dispute, Ethan threw himself in front of me, spending three months in the hospital.

And during my first pregnancy, when I suffered from severe postpartum hemorrhaging, he had broken down in the hallway, grabbing the chief surgeon's scrubs, sobbing and begging them to save me at any cost.

Countless women had tried to slide into his DMs over the years.

But before they could even get close, he would show off his wedding ring and point to his Snapchat wallpaper, which had been our wedding photo for years.

Those feelings weren't fake.

I genuinely believed we shared the same values and were entirely honest with each other.

Even though our bedroom life was lukewarm, I never cared.

I had tried everything to please him in bed, but he was always passive, wrapping things up as quickly as possible.

"Chloe, maybe I just have a low sex drive. I'm sorry," he would say.

At the beginning of this year, he was so busy he barely slept, and we started sleeping in separate rooms.

He had promised me, "Chloe, once I close this venture capital round, I'll buy you that new car. I'm just so exhausted lately, please bear with me."

It wasn't until today, when I saw the dark hickeys covering Scarlett's body, that I finally got it.

He didn't have a low sex drive.

He just never desired me.

I looked down and continued packing my suitcase. My hand brushed against the cashmere sweater I had just finished knitting for him.

How pathetic. Every time he went on a "business trip," I would slip little love notes into his luggage, reminding him to stay warm and not overwork himself.

Now that I thought about it, every time Scarlett ripped his clothes off, she must have seen those notes.

She must have laughed her head off at how stupid I was.

I pulled my hand back, leaving the sweater behind.

"Ethan, if you had just been honest and admitted you still had feelings for Scarlett, I would have at least respected you a little."

His fingers stiffened.

He didn't try to hold me back this time. He only muttered, "I'll give you an explanation for this."