It was early spring, and the unheated room was bone-chillingly cold.
"Come home tonight, I have something to tell you," Chloe said, tears welling up in her eyes, yet she managed to keep her voice steady.
"I have to work overtime, no time," the man on the other end of the phone replied with clear annoyance.
"I..." Chloes words were interrupted by a womans coquettish moans from the other end of the line.
The air seemed to solidify.
"Ill hang up if theres nothing," Jason said, not even bothering to feign interest, and he ended the call abruptly.
Chloe clutched her phone tightly, willing the tears not to fall.
The medical report on the table seemed like a silent mockery, ridiculing her foolishness and naivety.
Stomach cancer, late stage.
On their third wedding anniversary, she returned from the hospital with the physical examination report from the day before when she had fainted, yet he was out with another woman, not even coming home.
The anger in her heart was like a fire, burning her heart with pain.
Jason, how could you be so cruel to me?
After applying makeup to hide her pale complexion, Chloe drove straight to the company and pushed open the CEOs office door forcefully.
"Jason! You..." Chloes words of accusation stopped abruptly as she stood there, her face drained of color.
"Who let her in!" Jasons face showed no embarrassment at being caught in an affair, only displeasure.
Jasons assistant left with his head down, closing the door behind him, and the woman nestled in Jasons arms also raised her head.
Chloe never expected that Jasons affair partner would be her stepsister, Julie.
"Sister, youre here?" Julies face showed no embarrassment or guilt, as if she had been waiting for this moment, with a triumphant smile on her face.
"Yueer, you go out for a while," Jason, who had always been cold to Chloe, looked at Julie with a dazzlingly gentle smile.
In an instant, Chloe recalled the constant fawning and encouragement from Julie and her stepmother, Hannah, as well as Jasons indifferent attitude over the years. A terrible thought flashed through her mind, too fast to grasp.
"Why is she here?" As Julie passed by her, Chloe only looked coldly at Jason, her fingernails digging painfully into her palm.
Jason looked at the woman at the door, who was furious but would not lose her composure, and a slight smile played on his lips, provocative and mocking: "Why not?"
"Jason, I am your wife, she is my sister," Chloe endured the chill spreading from every corner of her body, feeling like she had never seen the man in front of her clearly. "Do you have any sense of decency left?"
"Wife?" Jason seemed to have heard something funny, his tone cold and thin: "Do you really think you still have the qualifications to be my wife?"
"What do you mean?" Chloes throat tightened, her clenched fingers turning pale.
"Why pretend not to understand?" Jason looked at Chloes usual noble and aloof appearance, and the disgust welled up inside him.
He was fed up with her condescending affection.
As if he was always the illegitimate child of the Jenkins Family, the one who could never be brought to the table, the waste.
"Ill be straight, Ive had the divorce agreement drafted by the lawyer. Lets part ways amicably."
Chloe looked at Jason in disbelief, her heart aching in waves, so painful that she almost suffocated.
"Why?"
Chloes heartbroken expression only brought satisfaction to Jason.
"Because I despise you."
Chloe looked at him, her misty eyes filled with water, yet she stubbornly refused to let the tears fall.
She wanted to see a hint of lying unease and guilt in Jasons eyes.
But there was none.
There was none at all.
His eyes, just like his words, were filled with disdain and weariness for her, as if he was reluctant to even look at her.
"If you despise me so much, why did you marry me in the first place?"