Ficorpio
Chapter 1
I married Adrian Sterling when I was twenty-three.
He had always been cool and detached. He married me only because I was obedient enough to make his life easy and help him satisfy his family’s expectations.
Everyone knew there had already been someone else in his heart. The one who got away.
Once she returned, sooner or later, I would have to give up my place as Mrs. Sterling.
At last, she came back, and I had the good sense to ask for a divorce.
Adrian gave an indifferent laugh. “Fine. Let’s get divorced.”
After that day, we didn’t speak for a long time.
Not until word spread that I was engaged.
That night, he called me thirteen times.
On the first call, he said only two words.
“Congratulations.”
By the thirteenth, I couldn’t take it anymore. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
A cigarette rested between his teeth, making his voice low and indistinct. “Is he richer than I am? Does he treat you better than I did? Is that why you want to marry him?”
The moment I saw the news of Vivienne Sinclair’s divorce on my social media feed, I knew my marriage to Adrian was over.
And I wasn’t the only one.
Everyone thought the same thing.
There were dozens of comments beneath her post, left by Adrian’s friends, former classmates, and business partners.
“Vivienne, congratulations on being single again! When are you coming home?”
“Exactly. Someone’s been waiting for you for a very long time.”
Those same people were always distant with me.
Whenever I attended a party with Adrian, they would politely call me Mrs. Sterling, then immediately look away, unwilling to say another word.
But on the rare occasions our eyes met, I understood their expressions perfectly.
They looked at me with regret.
Of course they did. In movies and stories, who didn’t want to see the brilliant, beautiful couple end up together? Real life already held more than enough disappointment and unhappy endings.
Adrian Sterling and Vivienne Sinclair were exactly that kind of perfect couple.
They had grown up together, attended school together, and naturally fallen in love. Everyone around them had assumed they would marry someday.
And they would have, if Vivienne hadn’t married someone else.
Once, while visiting Eleanor Sterling, I had seen an old photograph of Adrian and Vivienne.
Vivienne was beautiful, with porcelain-pale skin and a bright, charming smile. She stood beside Adrian with laughter shining in her eyes. Anyone who saw them together would have said they were made for each other.
Eleanor had sighed. “I still don’t know what Vivienne was thinking. She went abroad and married someone there. Poor Adrian…”
She stopped before finishing the sentence.
But I knew what she had meant.
Poor Adrian had lost the love of his life, then somehow ended up marrying me.
Chapter 2
Vivienne was the woman from his past, a scar that had long since healed over. He didn’t deliberately bring her up, and the wound no longer hurt, but whenever he remembered her, he still seemed to drift away.
His friends had seen him fight for her. They had watched him grow jealous over her, suffer because of her, and pour everything he had into a love that ultimately came to nothing.
After witnessing something so passionate, what Adrian and I had could only seem lacking by comparison.
That wasn’t to say he treated me badly.
Adrian was unfailingly proper. Wherever we went, he gave me all the respect due to Mrs. Sterling.
When we had dinner at the Sterling family estate, he would take my hand afterward and walk with me through the gardens. Once, when I twisted my ankle, he crouched in front of me and turned his back. He tilted his head slightly, and beneath the moonlight, he almost looked gentle.
He clicked his tongue. “Climb on.”
I often stayed up late working. He would bring me a glass of milk and wait nearby, leaning bonelessly against the wall as he tapped the edge of my desk.
“Hurry up and finish it. I still have to wash the glass.”
He never lost control in front of me.
Everything he did appeared effortless.
Even in bed, with the corners of his eyes flushed red, at the moment when we were closer than two people could be, he merely smiled. Then, as though conceding something, he said my name in a voice so cool it bordered on indifferent.
“Chloe Bennett.”
He paused.
“Let’s stay like this from now on, all right?”
His first love had become another man’s wife, and he had married me.
So Adrian told me we might as well stay like this.
I read through the comments one by one.
Then someone mentioned me almost in passing.
[Wait, isn’t Adrian planning something for his third wedding anniversary? I heard he wanted to surprise his wife.]
The comment disappeared less than a minute later. Whoever had posted it must have realized it was inappropriate and quickly deleted it.
Other than me, probably no one had seen it.
My finger froze against the screen.
Three years.
Had it really been that long?
Was Adrian actually planning a surprise for me?
The thought had barely crossed my mind when I saw Adrian like Vivienne’s post.
He didn’t leave a comment.
But his silence was precisely what made it so easy to imagine there was more behind that simple gesture.
I opened my own social media profile.
I had always loved sharing pieces of my life. Every few days, I would post some small, ordinary moment.
I scrolled through my entire feed.
There wasn’t a single trace of Adrian anywhere.
He hated anything that felt like a hassle, and he had never cared about social media.
I sighed.
Strangely, it felt as though the last piece had finally fallen into place.
The difference between loving someone and not loving them was painfully obvious.
Chapter 3
But there was nothing I could do about it. When our families first introduced us, Adrian and I had made an agreement: he would save the Bennett family business from the brink of bankruptcy, and I would marry him.
We had each gotten what we needed.
Now Vivienne was coming back.
Maybe it was time to ask him plainly what he wanted. If he wanted a divorce, I wouldn’t object.
Even if I truly did love him.
Once I made the decision, I calmly found Adrian’s number and called him.
He answered almost immediately.
Before I could speak, he gave a soft laugh and said with his usual easy candor, “Chloe Bennett. Are you home already? I’m heading back now. Do you want me to pick up anything?”
He liked calling me by my full name.
My fingers curled into my palm.
“No,” I replied evenly. “There’s just something I need to talk to you about.”
Perhaps my tone was too serious. He went quiet, and the amusement slowly faded from his voice.
“Is it important?” he asked.
“Yes.”
I paused.
“It’s very important.”
After the call ended, I sat in the living room and waited for him.
In those brief fifteen minutes, my mind wandered through countless memories.
I thought about the day after Adrian and I got married, when I received a friend request from Vivienne Sinclair.
She introduced herself as the girl who had grown up with Adrian, someone he had always treated like a younger sister. She was abroad and couldn’t attend our wedding, so this was the only way she could wish me a happy marriage.
She said she was sorry she couldn’t be there.
At the time, I had no idea she was Adrian’s unforgettable first love.
I politely thanked her.
Only after I learned who she really was did I realize just how painfully oblivious I could be.
For reasons I couldn’t quite explain, I never removed her from my social media. I never told anyone about her request, either.
Perhaps it was because I didn’t love Adrian yet. There was a part of me that wanted to watch the drama unfold. So I kept my distance and waited to see what Vivienne would do next.
Unfortunately, she did nothing.
Instead, Adrian and I gradually grew closer.
I often thought that what Adrian liked about me was how compliant and undemanding I was. I never argued. I never asked for more than he was willing to give.
But that was all.
He wasn’t young anymore, and he would never love me the way he had once loved Vivienne.
That night, Adrian didn’t come home.
There was no message. No phone call.
I called him several times, but he never answered.
Clutching my cell phone, I stared at his name in my contacts until tears nearly filled my eyes.
A terrible certainty came over me.
He wasn’t coming back.
Whenever two people found their way back to each other, someone else was bound to be left behind.
That was simply how unpredictable life could be.
I sat there in a daze for a long time before sending him a message.
[If you’re busy, don’t rush back. I’m going to bed.]