Chapter 1
I blinked back tears that had welled and swirled three times behind my eyes, forcing them down before they could fall.
I asked my supervisor to leave, grabbed my bag, and headed home.
I got home as the sun was fading into evening.
I kicked off my shoes, didn't bother turning on any lights, and collapsed heavily onto the living room sofa.
Exhausted, I unlocked my phone and tapped into a profile page on an unfamiliar website.
The thumbnail of the pinned video showed a hand holding a spoon, a red, pierced tongue lapping cream off the spoon's surface.
The view count was already over fifty thousand.
This was the one my coworker had shown me.
I kept scrolling down.
The second video was of a bath.
A naked woman curled up in the bathtub, her body covered in soap suds.
Felix held the shower head, rinsing her off while his hands roamed her body.
"That's my good girl, Mia," he crooned. "I am going to get you all squeaky clean."
The third was an interaction clip.
He threw a ball, and the woman crawled after it on all fours, picked it up with her mouth, then crawled back and set it down at his feet.
He smiled, leaned down, and kissed her forehead.
Fourth, fifth, sixth...
Hundreds of videos in total.
I lifted my head, and our wedding photo hanging on the opposite wall caught my eye.
In the photo, he wore a black suit. His arms were wrapped around my waist, smiling that soft, deeply affectionate smile.
I thought back to the year when he was courting me.
Every single morning, he showed up right on time at the restaurant entrance, holding a bouquet of my favorite tulips.
When I worked overtime until midnight, he waited for me outside the back door of the kitchen, holding a container of still-warm late-night snack.
I offhandedly mentioned I liked the sea once, and he booked plane tickets to the coast the very next day.
On the day he proposed, he hid the ring inside a cake.
He made it himself, and it was the ugliest dessert I had ever seen.
But when I ate it back then, it tasted like the best thing in the world to me.
I dropped my gaze back down to my phone, and that was when I noticed my hands were shaking.
Silent tears rolled down my cheeks, one after another, splattering across my phone screen.
In the comment section of those videos, I found a Felix I didn't recognize at all.
Vile, vulgar, and full of filthy, disgusting talk.
One comment even said that mentioning me during their live streams got this messed-up master-and-pet pair even more worked up.
Felix had replied right there: [Of course she does! I picked my wife after tons of searching. She gives me the best f**k I've ever had!]
I stared at those words for a long time.
Then I lifted my phone, scrolled through my contacts until I found the number I'd been ignoring this whole time.
The call connected.
"Mr. Harrison, I'll take that cooking variety show spot you offered me last time."
"Oh, so you finally came to your senses?"
"Yeah. Please save me a spot on the live episode in three days."
"No problem at all! The theme for that episode is a birthday special, do you—"
I cut him off mid-sentence.
"It works out perfectly. I'm going to make a birthday cake.
"I'm bringing it live for my ex-husband... and his dog."
After a beat of stunned silence on the other end, a knowing chuckle crackled through the speaker.
I hung up and lifted my gaze back to the wedding photo on the wall.
In the photo, my arm was looped through Felix's, my eyes blazing with love.
I could never have imagined back then.
Three years later, with the whole world watching, I'd craft the most unforgettable birthday surprise just for him.
