My Husband’s Happiness Reached 100% When I Left Chapter 02

My Husband’s Happiness Reached 100% When I Left Chapter 02

By the time the soup was ready, it was already three in the morning.

My back throbbed with a dull ache.

I carried it upstairs.

The door wasn’t shut all the way, and I could hear laughter spilling out.

I pushed it open and froze in the doorway.

Playing on the projector was footage from years ago—when I was still an actress, footage a tabloid photographer had caught of me nearly being forced into a casting-couch situation.

In the video, I was screaming, begging, over and over.

Even now the sound of it made my ears ring.

I’d been tricked into a hotel room back then, nearly assaulted, my clothes torn half off before Damian burst in and saved me.

I’d left the industry right after that and never appeared on screen again.

That footage—he’d bought the rights to bury it, sold an entire beachfront estate to make it happen, and swore to me no one would ever see it.

Now Brielle had seen it.

She was grinning ear to ear, hitting pause.

The video froze right on the frame where I was half-stripped, terrified.

My whole body shook, like I was the one being stripped bare right now.

Humiliation crashed over me.

Brielle looked at me, smiling sweetly.

“Annika, I grew up watching your shows, you know? I’ve always been curious why you left the industry, same as everyone else. So this is why~”

“Your body doesn’t even look that great, though. Why would anyone bother forcing themselves on you?”

“Unless… you offered yourself up for it? Trying to trap some director into marrying you?”

My throat closed up like a hand had wrapped around it. I couldn’t get a word out.

The next second, the projector clicked off.

Damian came toward me, reaching to pull me close, his voice low:

“Brielle found the flash drive in my safe. She’s young, she didn’t mean anything by it.”

“It was just a joke. Don’t hold it against her.”

The safe?

It took me a second before I turned to look at the safe I hadn’t had permission to open in seven years.

It stood wide open now, gold bars and valuables scattered across the floor.

Even our marriage certificate had been torn to shreds and tossed on the ground.

Seeing my silence, a flicker of impatience crossed his face.

“We can always get a new marriage certificate. Stop making that face!”

He’d once put that certificate into the safe in front of me with such solemnity.

“I’ll never give you a chance to get it out. We’re never getting divorced, not in this lifetime!”

The number above Damian’s head dropped instantly to 92%.

I came back to myself, forced down the metallic taste in my mouth, and smiled:

“It’s fine. I’m not upset.”

“The soup’s ready. Come drink it.”

I bent down, awkwardly, to set the soup on the table.

Crack—

Brielle flicked her hand and knocked it straight over.

Scalding liquid, hidden beneath the layer of oil, splashed across me.

My stomach seized, a searing pain shooting through me.

I went numb with agony, instinctively reaching out for help.

“Damian, our baby—”

Before I could finish, Brielle’s eyes went red, and she thrust up her slightly pink pinky finger.

“Damian, it hurts.”

Damian’s face went dark instantly. He scooped Brielle up and started toward the door.

He didn’t even notice my face had gone pale as a sheet.

He paused at the threshold, glanced back at me, his voice chillingly cold:

“Annika, is this some kind of jealous game to you?”

“If you keep hurting Brielle on purpose like this, get out!”

His Happiness Index dropped straight to 85%.

Gritting through the pain, I grabbed my phone and called an ambulance.

I dug my nails into my palm again and again to stay conscious, and even when my palm was raw and bleeding, I didn’t stop.

By the time I reached the hospital, I forced myself to sign the consent forms, and the surgery began.

When I opened my eyes again, I felt the emptiness in my abdomen.

Tears slid down the corners of my eyes without end.

My baby. Gone.

That night, the door to my hospital room opened.

Damian appeared in the doorway, his Happiness Index spiking to 97%.

“Honey, our son’s going to have a little sister! Brielle’s pregnant!”