Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
I married Ethan Sterling when I was twenty-three.
He was a cold man by nature, and the only reason he married me was because I was obedient enough.
I could help him deal with his family.
Everyone knew he already had someone else in his heart.
The moment she came back, I would have to step aside and give up my place as Mrs. Sterling.
And in the end, she did come back. I took the hint and asked for a divorce.
He only smiled, unconcerned. “Fine. Then let’s get divorced.”
After that day, we didn’t speak for a long time.
Not until news of my engagement got out.
That same night, he called me thirteen times.
The first time, he said only two words: “Congratulations.”
By the thirteenth call, I had lost all patience. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
There was a cigarette between his lips, his voice blurred and low. “Is he richer than me? Does he treat you better than I did? Is that why you want to marry him?”
The moment I saw the news of Vivian Ashford’s divorce on Instagram, I knew Ethan and I were finished.
Not just me, either.
Everyone thought so.
Under that post, I saw comment after comment.
Ethan’s friends, old classmates, business partners.
They all wrote things like:
Vivian, congratulations on being single again! When are you coming back?
Yeah, seriously. Someone’s been waiting for you for a long time.
Those same people were always distant with me.
Whenever I went to gatherings with Ethan, they would politely call me “Mrs. Sterling,” and then, the second the courtesy was out of the way, they would look elsewhere, refusing to say another word.
But every now and then, when our eyes met, I could see it clearly.
There was pity in the way they looked at me.
And honestly, it made sense. In movies, in novels—who doesn’t want to see the perfect couple end up together? Real life already has enough disappointment, enough unfinished stories.
Ethan Sterling and Vivian Ashford were exactly that kind of couple.
They had grown up together, gone to school together, then naturally fallen in love. Everyone around them had said they would definitely get married one day—
if Vivian hadn’t married someone else first.
Once, at Ethan’s mother’s house, I saw a photo of the two of them together.
Vivian was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that made people go quiet for a second. Her skin was pale and luminous like porcelain, and she stood beside Ethan with bright, smiling eyes, sweet and perfectly at ease. Anyone who looked at them would have said the same thing.
They matched.
Mrs. Sterling had sighed when she showed me the picture.
“I still don’t know what Vivian was thinking. She went abroad, and next thing anyone knew, she married someone over there. Poor Ethan…”
That was where she stopped.
But I knew what she meant.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Poor Ethan, losing the love of his life—only to marry me in a haze afterward.
To him, Vivian was the woman from his past, an old wound that had already scarred over.
He wouldn’t bring her up on purpose, and remembering her didn’t seem to hurt anymore. But every time she crossed his mind, he still drifted for a moment.
The people around him had seen him fight for her, get jealous over her, ache because of her, only for it all to end in nothing.
After that, how could anyone look at Ethan and me and not feel that something was missing?
It wasn’t that Ethan treated me badly.
He was a very proper man. No matter where we were, he always gave me all the respect due to me as his wife.
When I went with him to family dinners at the Sterling estate, he would take my hand after the meal and walk with me through the garden. Once, when I twisted my ankle, he crouched down in front of me, turning his back, tilting his head slightly. Under the moonlight, there was almost something gentle about him.
He clicked his tongue. “Get on.”
I often stayed up late working. He would wait nearby with a glass of milk in his hand, leaning against the wall like he didn’t have a single bone in his body, then lightly tap on my desk.
“Drink it already. I still need to wash the glass.”
In front of me, he never once lost composure.
He was always at ease, always in control.
Even in bed, even in our most intimate moments, with the corners of his eyes flushed red, he would only smile faintly and say my name as if he were making a concession, his tone cool to the very end.
“Claire.”
“We’ll just go on like this from now on, hm?”
His first love had married someone else.
And he had married me.
So that was what he said to me.
Let’s just go on like this.
I read through the comments one by one.
Then I saw someone mention me by accident:
“Wait, isn’t Ethan getting ready for his third anniversary lately? Didn’t he say he was planning to surprise her?”
Less than a minute after it was posted, the comment disappeared. Whoever wrote it had probably realized it was inappropriate and deleted it right away.
Aside from me, probably no one else had seen it.
My finger froze against the screen of my phone.
Three years already.
Ethan Sterling was actually planning a surprise for me?
The thought had barely crossed my mind when I saw that Ethan had liked the post.
He didn’t say a word. But somehow, saying nothing at all left even more room for interpretation.
I opened my own Instagram stories archive.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
I’m the kind of person who likes sharing bits of life online. Every few days, I’ll post something small—food, weather, random daily moments.
I scrolled all the way from the beginning to the end.
There wasn’t a single trace of Ethan in any of it.
He hated trouble, and he’d never cared about this kind of thing.
I let out a quiet sigh.
It felt like the dust had finally settled.
Love and not love—sometimes the difference is painfully obvious.
But there was nothing I could do about it. Back when Ethan and I had first met through our families, we’d made the terms clear. He would help save the Carter family when we were on the verge of bankruptcy, and I would marry him.
A transaction. Each of us getting what we needed.
Now Vivian Ashford was coming back. Maybe it was time for me to ask him honestly what he wanted. If he wanted a divorce, I had no objections.
Even if I really did love him.
Once I made that decision, I felt strangely calm. I found Ethan’s number and called him.
He picked up almost immediately.
Before I could speak, he gave a soft laugh, open and unguarded.
“Claire.”
He always liked saying my full name like that.
“Did you get home?”
“I’m heading back now. Do you want me to bring you anything?”
I tightened my hand in my lap.
Then I answered evenly, “No.”
“There’s just something I want to talk to you about.”
Maybe my tone was too serious. His voice paused, and the trace of laughter faded.
“Is it important?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Very.”
After that call, I sat in the living room and waited for Ethan.
In those brief ten-odd minutes, I thought of a great many things.
I thought about the day after our wedding, when I got a friend request from Vivian Ashford.
She said she was Ethan’s childhood friend, like a younger sister to him, and that she was overseas and hadn’t been able to attend our wedding. So she could only congratulate me this way and wish us a happy marriage.
She said she was sorry.
At the time, I had no idea she was the first love Ethan had never truly forgotten.
I thanked her politely.
It wasn’t until later, after I learned who she really was, that I understood. Sometimes I could be painfully slow.
But for some reason, I never removed her.
I never told anyone about it, either.
Maybe because back then, I wasn’t in love with Ethan yet. Deep down, people are all a little drawn to drama. I watched it all with cool detachment, curious to see what Vivian would do next.
But disappointingly, she did nothing at all.
Instead, Ethan and I gradually grew closer.
A lot of the time, I thought Ethan probably liked me because I was obedient and quiet.
But beyond that, there was nothing.
He was no longer young, and he would never love me the way he had loved Vivian.
That night, Ethan never came home.
There was no text. No call.