The morning sunlight filtering through the sheer curtains of the penthouse did nothing to warm Aurelia.

She had barely slept all night. Every time she turned to glance beside her, the image of the reddish mark on Arkana's neck and the photograph outside the emergency room replayed relentlessly in her mind. Yet when the alarm rang promptly at five in the morning, Aurelia got out of bed with a calm expression, as though nothing had happened.

She carried on with her routine.

She laid out Arkana's dark gray suit, pressing every crease until it was immaculate, then headed to the kitchen to prepare his favorite cup of black coffee, no sugar.

As dawn began to break, a pair of strong arms suddenly wrapped around her waist from behind.

The familiar scent of Arkana's soap, blended with cool mint, surrounded her. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, leaving a trail of demanding kisses against her skin.

For Arkana, this was their morning ritual.

A habit he never skipped, where he always wanted his wife before facing another busy day.

"Arkan, your coffee's going to get cold," Aurelia whispered, trying to steady the violent pounding in her chest. Every instinct inside her wanted to pull away, especially when her eyes caught another glimpse of the faint reddish mark on his neck.

"Let it," Arkana murmured.

Without giving her a chance to protest, he turned her around and effortlessly lifted her onto the kitchen counter.

His touch felt exactly as it always had, intense, commanding, and full of desire.

Aurelia closed her eyes, allowing herself to surrender to her husband's touch, desperately searching for whatever sincerity might still remain between them.

Their clothes came off one piece at a time until nothing remained but warm skin against skin beneath the comfortable temperature of the room.

Just as their breathing grew heavier and Arkana was about to make love to her, the quiet morning was shattered by a familiar sound.

His phone, resting on the dining table, buzzed loudly.

The clock had only just struck six in the morning.

Arkana froze instantly.

Every muscle in his body tensed above hers.

The warmth that had filled the room vanished in an instant, replaced by a suffocating silence.

Without saying a word, Arkana pulled away, ignoring the desire that remained unresolved between them. He grabbed the bathrobe he had discarded earlier and hastily slipped it on.

Aurelia slowly sat up on the kitchen counter, wrapping her trembling arms around her knees.

The cool air against her exposed skin suddenly felt numb.

From several feet away, she watched Arkana's expression change the moment he read the message on his screen.

He looked back at her, his eyes filled with unmistakable guilt.

"Aurelia, I'm sorry," Arkana said as he hurried toward the bathroom to get dressed. "There's an urgent situation at the office. The board meeting has been moved up to seven this morning. I have to leave right away."

Aurelia merely nodded.

Her throat was too dry to form even a single word.

A few minutes later, Arkana emerged wearing his neatly pressed suit, although his tie sat slightly crooked from dressing in such a rush.

He walked over to Aurelia, who still hadn't moved, and gently kissed her forehead.

"The meeting will be over by ten. I'll come straight home to see you, and we can pick up where we left off. Okay?"

Aurelia nodded again, forcing a faint smile that never reached her eyes.

The moment the apartment door closed and the sound of Arkana's footsteps disappeared, the smile fell away.

The tears she had been holding back finally spilled over, streaming down her pale cheeks.

The pain was unbearable.

A single message at six in the morning had been enough for Arkana to abandon their intimate morning without a second thought.

But Aurelia refused to remain the fool crying alone in the corner of her own home.

Her need for answers had reached its breaking point.

With trembling hands, she quickly got dressed, pulled on a knitted beanie, grabbed her car keys, and hurried down to the parking garage.

Only a few minutes separated their cars.

Aurelia kept a safe distance behind Arkana's black SUV as it moved through the increasingly crowded streets of Manhattan.

Before long, her suspicions were confirmed.

Instead of heading toward the business district where his company's headquarters was located, Arkana turned toward the Upper East Side.

He was driving straight to the same hospital she had seen in the photograph the night before.

Aurelia parked several buildings away from the main entrance.

Her heart pounding, she stepped into the hospital and quietly followed Arkana's tall figure from a distance.

He finally stopped in the quiet corridor of the VIP inpatient wing.

Standing outside one of the rooms was a woman dressed in a hospital gown.

Her face was deathly pale.

She looked heartbreakingly fragile, tears streaking down her cheeks.

Without the slightest hesitation, Arkana strode toward her and immediately pulled her into his arms.

He gently rubbed her back with slow, protective strokes, cradling her head against his broad chest, the very place that had belonged to Aurelia only a short while ago.

The woman sobbed uncontrollably in his embrace while Arkana whispered comforting words that Aurelia couldn't hear from where she stood.

Aurelia staggered backward.

She leaned against the cold corridor wall to keep herself from collapsing.

The soft click of the front door broke the suffocating silence inside the penthouse.

Arkana stepped inside, loosening his tie as exhaustion showed on his face. But he stopped short the moment he realized Aurelia wasn't there to greet him as she always was.

She sat upright on the living room sofa, staring at him with a look he had never seen before.

"Sweetheart, this is unusual. You're not coming to greet me?" Arkana tried to lighten the mood as he walked toward her. "I'm sorry about this morning. The meeting really took up my time, but thankfully it ended earlier than expected."

Aurelia didn't move.

Her eyes remained fixed on the shirt Arkana was wearing, the very shirt she had lovingly ironed just a few hours ago. Now it was slightly wrinkled from another woman's embrace.

"The meeting?" Aurelia's voice was flat, almost a whisper. "Was it a board meeting, or was it at the VIP wing of the Upper East Side hospital, Arkan?"

The room instantly turned ice cold.

Arkana's hand froze halfway through removing his watch. His jaw tightened, and his eyes sharpened.

"You followed me?" he asked, his voice low with disbelief.

Aurelia let out a hollow laugh, one filled with nothing but pain.

"Followed you?" She rose from the sofa, gripping her phone so tightly her knuckles turned white. "If I hadn't gone there and seen it with my own eyes, I'd still be the fool who believed her husband was busy leading a meeting, while my husband was actually busy holding another woman as she cried against his chest!"

"Enough, Aurelia!" Arkana snapped, his voice echoing through the spacious penthouse. "Stop making baseless accusations. You don't know anything about what happened there!"

"Then explain it!" Aurelia shouted.

The tears she had been holding back finally broke free.

Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe through the overwhelming pain.

"Tell me who that woman is, Arkan! Who is she that she can call you in the middle of the night on our anniversary? Who is she that at six in the morning, when we hadn't even..." Her voice faltered before she forced herself to continue. "You walked away from me without a second thought just to rush to her at the hospital. Who is she?"

Arkana pinched the bridge of his nose, his breathing growing uneven as anger began to boil inside him.

He felt cornered, accused of something that, in his mind, wasn't what Aurelia believed it to be.

But his pride, and the promise he had made, kept him from explaining.

To him, everything involving that woman was his responsibility alone, something Aurelia had no reason to interfere with.

"I don't have to explain every detail of my life to you when you're acting this childish," Arkana said coldly, disappointment flashing in his eyes. "I went there because there was an emergency I had to handle. Why has your mind become so twisted? Where's your trust in your own husband?"

"Trust?" Aurelia pressed a hand against her shattered chest. "How am I supposed to trust you when you keep lying to me? You said it was work, but you went to the hospital. You hid her behind a contact saved as 'S.' And..." She swallowed hard. "That mark on your neck last night, was that part of your office business too?"

For a brief moment, Arkana's expression stiffened at the mention of the mark on his neck.

But instead of explaining himself, he felt his pride as a husband being trampled. In his eyes, she had treated him like a criminal by following him and questioning everything he did.

"Enough, Aurelia! I won't be interrogated and followed around like this!" Arkana shouted, fury blazing in his eyes. "I married you because I thought you were understanding, not because I wanted a jealous woman who loses all common sense and spies on her own husband. Then accuses him without knowing the truth!"

His words struck the deepest part of Aurelia's heart.

Childish?

Lacking common sense?

Her mind drifted back three years.

They had fallen in love while working at the same company.

For three years they had dated, laughing together, supporting each other's careers until Arkana finally proposed.

After they married, it had been Arkana's wish for her to live comfortably without the pressures of work.

She had willingly given up a thriving career.

She had buried her ambitions and devoted herself completely to becoming the wife who would always be waiting for him at home.

And after every sacrifice she had made...

This was all she had become in his eyes.

A childish, unreasonable woman.

"We dated for three years, Arkan... and we've been married for one." Aurelia's voice trembled violently between broken sobs. "I gave you my entire life. I quit my job so I could take care of our home, so I could be the person waiting for you every day. But what have I gotten in return? You treat me like a stranger who doesn't even deserve to know the truth about her own husband's lies."

Arkana turned his face away.

His wounded pride refused to let him look at his wife's tears.

"If you're going to keep accusing me without even trying to understand my position, then this conversation is pointless."

"It is pointless!" Aurelia cried.

Her emotions surged past the point of control.

The pain and disappointment bursting inside her forced the words from her lips before she could stop them.

"If you'd rather protect that woman than care about how I feel... if this marriage is nothing but lies, then let's get divorced, Arkan. Let's just get divorced!"

The room fell completely silent.

Only Aurelia's heartbreaking sobs could be heard.

Arkana stared at her with piercing eyes.

His jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles in his neck stood out.

The anger he had been suppressing finally exploded the moment she spoke that forbidden word so easily.

"Divorce?" Arkana asked, his voice now icy and razor sharp.

He let out a mocking scoff.

"You think this marriage is some kind of game? Something you can end whenever you throw a childish tantrum?" He gave a bitter laugh. "Fine. If that's what you want, if you've already decided you can't trust me anymore... then fine. A divorce it is."

The moment those devastating words left his mouth, Arkana snatched his car keys off the table.

Without another glance at Aurelia, who stood frozen in place, he turned and strode out of the penthouse.

The front door slammed shut behind him with a deafening bang, leaving an oppressive silence throughout the apartment.

Arkana left to cool off.

He left behind the storm he had just unleashed on his wife's life.

Aurelia slowly collapsed onto the cold marble floor.

She covered her tear-soaked face with both hands.

Her entire body shook with painful sobs.

Her chest felt hollow, tight, and shattered into countless pieces.

The man she had loved for four years, the man who had promised before the altar to cherish and protect her, had just agreed to divorce her rather than set aside his pride or explain another woman's place in his life.

She cried for hours on the cold floor, letting every ounce of her pain pour out through her tears.

Gradually, her sobs began to subside.

Aurelia slowly lifted her head and looked toward the empty front door.

She wiped away her tears roughly with the back of her hand, though her eyes were swollen and red.

The warmth that had once filled her heart was gone.

In its place stood a quiet resolve, forged from unbearable pain.

*Fine,* Aurelia thought, drawing a long breath that ached in her chest.

*Maybe divorce really is for the best. I won't let myself be destroyed any further in this house.*

The slow ticking of the wall clock echoed through the luxurious penthouse, breaking the oppressive silence.

Seven o'clock in the evening.

Arkana stepped through the front door, his body weighed down with exhaustion after burying himself in stacks of paperwork all day. It had been the best distraction from the explosive argument they had earlier that afternoon.

The house was dark and unusually quiet.

As he slipped off his wool coat, his gaze instinctively swept across the living room and kitchen.

Empty.

There was no sign of Aurelia anywhere.

*She must already be asleep. Or maybe she's locked herself in the bedroom because she's still angry,* Arkana thought, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling creeping up the back of his neck.

He let out a quiet breath, convincing himself that her outburst earlier had simply been the result of heightened emotions. The word *divorce* that Aurelia had thrown at him, along with his own harsh agreement, had surely been spoken in the heat of the moment.

As he walked farther into the apartment, he made up his mind.

Tonight, he would set his pride aside.

He would finally explain who Selena really was, for the sake of the marriage they had built over the past year. What they had shared, three years of falling in love while working together and another year as husband and wife, was too precious to let fall apart so easily.

Arkana headed toward the master bedroom.

He carefully pushed open the heavy wooden door, making as little noise as possible. He didn't want to wake the wife he assumed was sleeping beneath the blankets.

But the instant he flipped on the light, the sight before him stopped him cold.

The room was neat.

Too neat.

The velvet comforter stretched perfectly across their king-size bed without a single wrinkle.

The soft vanilla fragrance that always lingered whenever Aurelia was there was gone, replaced by a cold, lifeless stillness.

His gaze locked onto the center of the bed.

Aurelia wasn't there.

Arkana immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to call her.

Each attempt went straight to voicemail.

Her phone was completely turned off.

"Damn it, where are you, Aurelia?" he muttered through clenched teeth as anxiety mixed with irritation settled heavily in his chest.

Using the emergency tracker connected to the spare car Aurelia had taken, Arkana quickly pinpointed her location.

A quiet city park on the outskirts of town, not far from an apartment complex.

Without wasting another second, he grabbed another set of car keys and sped through the evening traffic.

Meanwhile, beneath the dim glow of the mercury streetlights, the winter fog drifted through the deserted park, biting at the skin.

Aurelia sat alone on a long wooden bench, her fingers tightly intertwined.

Even her thick casual clothes couldn't stop the shivering that ran through her body, not only because of the cold, but because of the turmoil raging inside her heart.

She had deliberately turned off her phone that afternoon.

She needed time to calm herself, far away from the walls of the penthouse that had begun to feel suffocating after the exhausting emotional collision.

*Should I really give up and get divorced?*

The question circled relentlessly through Aurelia's mind.

At first, the unbearable pain had forced the word *divorce* from her lips without a second thought.

She had been devastated by Arkana calling her childish and unreasonable.

But after spending hours alone in the quiet park, her anger had gradually softened.

Reason began to return.

Four years together, three years of falling in love after meeting at work, followed by one year of marriage, was not a short chapter of her life.

She still loved him.

That love remained deeply rooted in her heart.

Aurelia wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the blurred city lights through eyes clouded with fresh tears.

*I can't accept our marriage ending like this without knowing the truth. I won't give up this easily before I hear the truth directly from Arkan himself.*

She made up her mind.

Once she had completely calmed down tonight, she would go home.

She would demand a full explanation.

No shouting.

No more secrets.

"Aurelia..."

A familiar voice shattered the silence.

She startled and looked up to find a tall man wearing a dark brown coat standing in front of her.

"Jensen..." Aurelia whispered, her voice catching.

The moment she saw the one person who had always understood her better than anyone else, every wall she had spent the entire day building around herself collapsed.

Her careful reasoning disappeared beneath a tidal wave of grief.

The man she had always regarded as an older brother, the one who had spent years protecting her, stepped forward without a word.

He pulled her into a firm, protective embrace, allowing her head to rest against his broad chest.

He had only recently returned from Italy with his wife and child.

After spending four years abroad, he had come back just a few days earlier.

Aurelia had never had the chance to introduce Jensen to her husband because of how busy he had been.

Aurelia broke down in the arms of the man she considered her brother.

Her shoulders shook uncontrollably as every ounce of pain, heartbreak, and loneliness she had carried since their ruined anniversary poured out in tears.

Jensen remained silent.

He simply stroked her back with gentle, reassuring motions, offering the comfort his little sister needed more than anything at that moment.

Across the street, Arkana's car had just come to a stop.

He climbed out in a hurry, intending to find his wife and clear up every misunderstanding between them.

But after taking only a few steps into the park, he froze.

Beneath the dim glow of the park lights, the sight before him struck him like a crushing blow.

His wife, Aurelia, was in the arms of a man he had never seen before.

The stranger held her tightly, gently rubbing her back in what looked like an unmistakably intimate embrace.

Arkana's blood ran hot.

His determination to explain everything about Selena and repair their marriage vanished in an instant, replaced by a searing fire that consumed his pride.

Disbelief and suspicion immediately poisoned his thoughts.

*So this is why you turned off your phone. This is why you were so quick to ask for a divorce.*

Arkana's breathing became ragged as he struggled to contain his anger.

He had believed Aurelia had left to cool off after their argument.

Instead, she had sought comfort in another man's arms.

His wounded pride and overwhelming sense of betrayal made his fist tighten inside the pocket of his coat.

His eyes turned as cold as ice, filled with profound disappointment.

He refused to lower himself by confronting them in the middle of a public park.

He didn't want to know.

He didn't care.

He refused to find out who the stranger holding his wife was.

To Arkana, what he had witnessed tonight was proof enough that Aurelia had already given her heart to someone else.

His jaw tightened, carving sharp lines across his handsome face.

Then he turned around and strode back toward his car.