Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Prologue: When the Wedding Ring Fell
The cold light of the crystal chandelier cut through the silence of the living room. On the gilded coffee table, the platinum wedding ring lay motionless. Eight years had worn a soft sheen into the inside of the band, but now it felt cold enough to burn.
Chloe Bennett’s fingertips hovered over the divorce papers. She did not hesitate for even a second. Her pen moved across the page, and the name “Chloe Bennett” landed in firm, decisive strokes, utterly unlike the act of ending a marriage that had consumed her entire youth.
Ethan Sterling’s fingers tightened around his cigarette. Sparks spilled from the burning tip, dropping onto the expensive carpet and leaving behind a faint scorch mark. He raised an eyebrow as he studied the woman in front of him, his voice carrying its usual careless mockery.
“Well, this is a surprise. You’re not making a scene today?”
“The last few times I threatened you with divorce, I acted like a trapped animal—hysterical and desperate.” Chloe lifted her eyes. They were as still as a midwinter lake, without a ripple, without anything left but desolate silence. “But I’ve finally figured it out. The longer I cling to this marriage, the more humiliating it becomes.”
She pushed the signed papers toward him, deliberately avoiding the wedding ring. Ethan had bought it when he was nineteen, spending three months of hard-earned wages on it. She had once treasured it as if it were priceless. Now all it held was the bitter mockery of rust.
Ethan stared at her unruffled profile, irritation rising for no reason he could name. He had expected her to cry, to rage, to fall to her knees and beg him to take her back like she had before.
But she didn’t.
Her calm unsettled him more than any hysterical accusation ever could.
“There’s no need to rush the paperwork,” he said. He crushed out his cigarette, and the butt hissed softly in the ashtray. “Vivian is trying to win Best Actress. The publicity wouldn’t look good.”
“You keep showing up outside her studio and blocking her way,” he added, impatience pricking through every word. “It’s getting annoying.”
Chloe said nothing. She simply bent down and picked up the suitcase beside her feet. The zipper was pulled tight. Inside were the only personal things she had left: a few changes of clothes, photographs of her mother, and a yellowed diary.
“Don’t worry. I won’t do it anymore.” Her voice was soft, but every word carried absolute certainty.
Ethan’s body went rigid for a moment. A flicker of surprise crossed his dark eyes before irritation smothered it.
“See that you don’t.”
“Otherwise…” His gaze sharpened. “You know what I’m capable of.”
Chloe’s body trembled instinctively.
Of course she knew.
Chapter 2
The last time she had posted photos of Vivian Sinclair wearing Chloe’s silk robe and her anniversary necklace, Ethan had turned around and sued her for defamation. A coordinated wave of online abuse had swallowed her whole. Her personal information had been exposed, childhood photographs had been edited into humiliating images, and in the end, she had been forced to apologize publicly in front of the media.
Ethan had stood beside Vivian with an arm around her, playing the devoted victim.
On the day the court handed down its ruling, he had stood in front of Chloe exactly as he was standing now, raising an eyebrow with a faint smile.
“Chloe Bennett, this is what happens when you go against me.”
Looking back, the pain that had once torn her apart now seemed like a faded old film. All that remained was the barren absurdity of it.
When she pushed open the doors of the Sterling Family Estate, the midday sun was so bright she could barely keep her eyes open. She raised a hand to shield her face. In her palm was the one-way ticket to Australia, and her fingers brushed over the rough paper.
Suddenly, she let out a breath of relief.
The relationship that had consumed eight years of her youth and crushed every bit of sincerity in her heart was finally coming to an end.
And everything they owed her, she would reclaim piece by piece—with interest.
Chapter 1: Betrayal by an Old Love
On the LED screen outside a roadside shopping center, Vivian Sinclair smiled coyly into the camera as a luxury lipstick advertisement played on a loop. She wore a champagne-colored mermaid gown, and the diamond necklace around her throat glittered beneath the lights. The smug satisfaction in her eyes was impossible to hide.
Chloe stared at the necklace, the corner of her mouth lifting in a mocking smile.
It was the birthday gift Ethan Sterling had given Chloe the year before, one of only three in the world. She had worn it once before Vivian Sinclair had “borrowed” it, claiming she needed it for a magazine shoot. Yet somehow, it had ended up displayed brazenly around Vivian’s neck in a social-media post captioned:
“Real devotion never needs to hide.”
The smug woman on the screen gradually merged with the vicious one who had taunted Chloe through private messages.
Ethan had been right about one thing. Vivian’s career really was taking off.
The scandal over those explicit photographs hadn’t hurt her in the slightest. Her publicity team had spun it into the story of “an independent woman who refuses to be shamed by malicious rumors,” winning her a wave of fans who hailed her as a fearless feminist icon.
Only Chloe knew that Vivian herself had orchestrated the entire scandal.
After all, Chloe had first discovered Ethan’s affair because Vivian had deliberately wanted her to know.
Chapter 3
Three years earlier, late one night, Chloe had just settled her sick mother to sleep when a photograph arrived on her phone.
Vivian lay nestled in Ethan’s arms. Behind them was the master bedroom of Chloe’s own marital home. Vivian wore Chloe Bennett’s silk robe, while the anniversary necklace Ethan had given Chloe rested against her throat.
The message beneath the photograph read:
“Chloe, Ethan says he stopped loving you a long time ago. Have some dignity and let him go.”
In that moment, it felt as though someone had poured a bucket of ice water over Chloe’s head. The cold seeped all the way into her bones.
She raced to Sterling Group headquarters. Ignoring the secretary who tried to stop her, she stormed straight into Ethan’s office and slammed her phone onto his mahogany desk.
Her voice trembled. “Ethan Sterling, tell me what the hell this is.”
By the end of that day, everyone at Sterling Group knew that the family heir had been caught cheating on his wife.
The wealthy society wives who normally pretended to be Chloe’s friends called one after another to “talk sense into her.”
“Men stray sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything. Look the other way, and soon enough it’ll pass.”
“You and Ethan have been together for years, and your families are such a good match.” They had apparently forgotten Chloe’s ordinary background. “Why destroy your marriage over some actress?”
“At the very least, you should endure it for the Sterling fortune.”
But Chloe couldn’t.
She hated Ethan for betraying her.
She hated that he had forgotten how, in high school, he had shielded her from a gang of boys and taken a beating that left his entire back bruised. She hated that he had forgotten how, when he first started his company, she had given him the money her mother had saved for retirement. She hated that he had forgotten the vow he had made on their wedding day, promising to love no one but her for the rest of his life.
Most of all, she hated that he had turned her from a bright, confident girl who loved fiercely and lived without fear into the hysterical, broken woman she barely recognized in the mirror.
She couldn’t accept it.
She refused to surrender.
Then paparazzi photographed Ethan and Vivian entering a hotel together late at night. The pictures shot to the top of the trending lists, and the hashtag #SterlingHeirSecretlyDatingActress dominated social media for three straight days.
To protect Vivian’s career, Ethan publicly confirmed their relationship.