He Cheated On Me, I End Our 3-Year Love

Chapter 4

When we walked through the front door back home, Zane's mom was already gone.

I watched Zane pull the front door shut, then let my face twist into a confused little pout and asked him, "Honey, why did Mom leave already? I am carrying your baby, isn't she supposed to stay here and take care of me?"

Zane did not even blink. His face stayed perfectly calm as he answered, "She just went home to take care of some stuff back there. She will be back in a few days. If you get tired these days, just hire a temp nanny to help out. Oh right, since you are pregnant, you should stay home from your design studio for a while, okay?"

Oh right. My design studio.

These past few days, my entire brain had been consumed by all this drama with Zane. I had not set foot in the studio at all.

I had been obsessed with design ever since I was a little girl. Once I was old enough and had the means, I went off to study fashion design professionally.

After years of grinding and hard work, I had even launched my own independent clothing brand.

Now that Zane had mentioned it, of course, I had to go check in. I headed to the studio without letting Zane know, pored over every line of the account books, and when I confirmed nothing was out of order, I headed back out the door.

I stood on the sidewalk watching crowds of people bustle past, and I did not feel any rush to get home.

Instead, I strolled slowly down the street, turning over everything that had happened lately in my head as I walked.

It was rare to get this quiet time to myself, and that was when a devastatingly obvious missing piece hit me.

I still had no clue who the woman Zane was cheating on me with actually was.

Whether I had been spying through binoculars or hiding in that fitting room at the bridal shop, I had never once gotten a clear look at her face.

A three-person drama was no fun if one of the leads stayed off stage, after all.

"Violet?"

I lifted my head at the sound of the call, and there, standing right in front of me, was Emily, Zane's coworker.

A little idea clicked in my head right away. I nodded, furrowing my brow like I was genuinely confused, and said, "Emily, what are you doing hanging around here? Out for a walk?"

She snorted a laugh at my question, then jabbed a finger upward above her head and said, "Violet, what are you talking about? I am standing right outside my own shop. Why would I be out wandering around?"

Was that outside her own shop?

I craned my neck upward, and yes, this was the same restaurant Zane had worked at this whole time.

My gaze accidentally landed on a help-wanted poster taped to the front door that read "Chef Needed."

I paused. Did that mean Zane was not working here anymore?

Following my gaze, Emily quickly filled me in. Zane had quit his job a full month earlier.

A month ago was the very day Zane had proposed to me.

For that whole month, he had left the house every morning like he was still heading into work. What in the world was he plotting?

My brain was total mush. I could not wrap my head around why he was doing this at all.

Desperate, I made the first call for help I had ever made in my life.

Bryan showed up in front of me less than ten minutes after I picked up my call.

I asked him to look into what Zane had actually been up to ever since he quit, and he did not hesitate to agree.

For the days that followed, I waited quietly for updates.

On the surface at least, Zane and I had slipped back into our old routine together during this time.

But that nauseating feeling in my stomach was getting worse and worse, bad enough that I had started to believe I really was pregnant.

So once Zane left the house, putting on his usual act of heading to work, I headed straight to the hospital for a full checkup.

My doctor friend told me it was all caused by psychological stress.

Walking out of the hospital, I finally knew exactly what was making me sick to my stomach.

It was Zane.

Ever since I had spent those twenty minutes hiding in the wedding dress shop, everything about him had turned my stomach.

Only when I was far away from him did that sick feeling slowly fade away.

I would leave him eventually, I knew that. But the time was not right yet.

A few more days passed, and Bryan brought me an unexpected revelation.

He had been tailing Zane this whole time, and not only had he found out that Zane opened a restaurant behind my back, but he had also accidentally tracked down the other woman.

Staring at the woman in the photo, a weird sense of familiarity pricked at the back of my brain.

No matter how hard I racked my brain, though, I could not place where I had seen her before.

Before I could untangle that puzzle, Bryan handed me another photo.

This one showed a clothing studio, and every dress hanging inside looked eerily similar to my design style.

The more I stared at those photos, the more my brow furrowed.

Bryan spoke up from beside me. "That clothing store in the photos opened at the exact same time Zane's restaurant did. I went through the info you gave me, and every single dress they sell matches your design style ninety percent of the way. Only tiny little details are different."

It was no wonder.

Right after Zane proposed and I said yes, he started volunteering to organize all my fashion design sketches for me.

Before the proposal, no matter what I did, he never even glanced at my designs. But the moment we got engaged, he suddenly could not wait to tidy them up. I actually thought he had finally turned over a new leaf.

Who would have thought?

Had Zane already cheated on me back then?

When I stayed silent for ages, Bryan got worried. "Violet, if something is wrong, just tell me. Do not carry all this weight by yourself."

I shook my head. What he had already done for me was more than enough.

To ease his worries, I chatted with him about everyday trivialities for a while, until I was sure he had stopped panicking about me. Only then did I turn and leave.

When I got home, I was shocked to find Zane was already there.

I had just opened my mouth to say hello when my phone lit up, and the words "Wedding Boutique" flashed across the screen.

That place was a nightmare I never wanted to set foot in ever again.

I hit the end button without a second thought.

Not even a minute later, Zane's phone rang.

From what I overheard, it was the wedding boutique calling him, no question.

He hung up quickly, stood up, and said to me, "Violet, our wedding dress is finished being altered. Let's go try it on."

I did not want to go at all, but right now, I could not exactly say no.

*****

When we got to the boutique, the clerk actually led Zane and me straight to that godforsaken room I would never forget.

I could not hold it back any longer. I clamped a hand over my mouth and bolted for the bathroom, throwing up so hard I saw stars.

In the end, it was Zane who helped me stagger back out.

Once I left the bathroom, I used the excuse of my lost phone from my last visit to switch to a different room.

But switching rooms did not do a thing to scrub the agony out of my chest.

Along with the altered wedding dress, a glass of warm water was brought in for me.

The warm water settled my stomach, and I finally felt like myself again.

The shop manager was sharp as a tack, and only then did she bring the wedding dress out in front of me, walking me through every alteration they had made.

My gaze landed on her face.

It was her—the woman from the photos.

My pupils blew wide without my permission. Panicked that I had given myself away, I flicked a quick glance up at Zane.

Thankfully, his attention was not on me right then.

I let out a quiet, shaky breath and mentally kicked myself. Good thing he was focused on the dress. I almost blew everything.

I dragged my gaze back to Zane, and a cold prickle of unease crawled up my spine. On the surface, he was looking at the wedding dress, but a woman's intuition does not lie. Something was off with him.

I plucked at the fabric of the dress and fired off questions to keep up the act, all the while keeping my eyes locked on him.

And then I saw it. He subconsciously raked a hand through his hair.

That tiny tell of his only came out when he was extremely worked up and excited.

That tiny movement confirmed it. Something in this room right now had him buzzing with that kind of excitement.

I frowned in confusion. Even if he and this woman were fooling around behind my back, there were people everywhere right now; they could not...

The second that thought crossed my mind, every disgusting thing I had overheard during those twenty minutes I spent searching for my phone that day came rushing back. My stomach rolled so hard I ached.

I could not hold it back another second. I shoved past the crowd and bolted for the bathroom again.

This time, it was not Zane who helped me out. It was one of the shop assistants. And when I walked back into the main room, Zane was gone.

The manager smiled and said, "Ms. Hayes, your husband just left. He told me to let you know he had an emergency come up. He said not to carry the wedding dress out with you because it is too heavy. He will come pick it up himself once he is done with his business."

I nodded, my eyes sliding to the name tag pinned to her chest, and etched the name into my memory: Chloe Reed.

I stared at her grinning, cheerful face, and my hands, hanging loose at my sides, curled into tight, shaking fists before I even realized what I was doing.

Only heaven knew how badly I wanted to kill this woman right then and there.

But in the end, reason won out over rage. I could not do this. Killing her would break the law, and at the end of the day, I would be the one who suffered the consequences.

I sucked in a deep, steadying breath, forced a stiff, unnatural smile onto my face, nodded silently without another word, and turned to leave the shop.

It was not like my behavior was suspicious anyway. I had been throwing up nonstop ever since I walked through the door, and my face had been pale this whole time. No one would think twice about me leaving early looking miserable.

I had barely stepped over the threshold when Chloe's voice called out from behind me.

"Ms. Hayes, wait a moment."

I froze in my tracks, drew in another calming breath, smoothed my expression into something passably normal, then turned around with a carefully confused look. "Is there something I can help you with, Manager?"

Click-clacking over to me on her high heels, she held out a phone to me, the one I had lost here a while back. "Ms. Hayes, this is the phone you left at our shop last time."

It was my phone.

Staring at the device in her hand, a thousand thoughts spun through my head at once. If I had not lost this phone here, I never would have found out my fiancé was cheating on me.

I took the phone from her slowly, then turned and walked away. I could not stand to have one more second of contact with this woman.

Maybe stepping foot back into that putrid place had pushed my already frayed nerves over the edge, because by the time I was heading home, my stomach was churning so violently that I could not stop throwing up.

In the end, the taxi driver just drove me straight to the hospital.

It was already dark by the time I got home, and the whole house was pitch black. Zane still was not back.

I had just reached for the light switch when I spotted something glowing with a tiny red blink on the TV set-top box.

That steady flash, on and off, on and off, was impossible to ignore.

Slowly, all those scenes I had seen on TV, where people stumbled on hidden cameras, started playing through my mind.