Chapter 1

The anniversary cake on the wall hadn’t even been cut when he pushed a divorce agreement toward me and said his first love was back, and he wanted me to spend her final six months with her.

“When she’s gone, we’ll remarry.”

I gripped that thin sheet of paper, my nails digging into my palm. “Ethan Whitmore, what do you take me for?”

He sneered. “You were never supposed to be Mrs. Whitmore in the first place.”

That night, I called him, curled up on the floor in pain as dark red blood spread beneath me.

“I’m bleeding… please come back…”

He only gave a mocking laugh. “Addicted to playing the victim now?”

Then he hung up.

I signed the surgical consent form alone, staring at the pale white ceiling and thinking—

So it turned out that even if I dug out my heart and held it in front of someone, in his eyes, it was nothing more than a clump of rotten mud blocking his path.

Later, when I stood at the United Nations podium, I heard he had gone mad, clutching an old sofa and calling my name.

But so what?

Mud belongs where it rots.