Chapter 5

Now that Chloe wanted to act, he didn’t stop her.

Instead, he opened doors for her.

【Your situations are different.】

I asked him:

【How are they different?】

He changed the subject.

【Forget it for now. I have to get back to work. Oh, and I won’t be home tomorrow. Another job came up, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back.】

He avoided my question.

But I already knew the answer.

This had never been about whether the entertainment industry was complicated.

He simply couldn’t stand the idea of his wife shining brighter than he did.

So he had strangled my dream and cut off my path forward.

He trapped me at home and made me treat him as my entire world.

Chloe, on the other hand, was less successful and less famous than he was. He needed to take her into a bigger world so he could show off his charm and make her admire him.

In the days that followed, I checked Chloe’s Instagram several times a day.

They went surfing on an island and soaked up the sun on the beach.

They hiked through the mountains at night and took pictures together at sunrise.

They stayed in a forest resort, waking up to the scent of nature.

They wandered through food streets in different cities, enjoying the ordinary pleasures of life.

Ethan and I had done all those things together once.

The last time we traveled together had been a year and a half ago.

I kept telling myself:

Ava Reed, he isn’t the Ethan you loved anymore. He loves someone else. Wake up.

The day came for my blood test.

While I waited for the results, I was filled with anxiety.

Over and over, I prayed that I wouldn’t be pregnant.

But things didn’t go the way I wanted.

The test report clearly stated: Positive.

What was I supposed to do?

I opened my chat with Ethan and typed out a message, then deleted it.

I repeated the process three times.

In the end, I couldn’t send it.

I wanted him to know.

But I didn’t want him to know.

I wandered aimlessly through the streets, watching people pass around me.

Inside, I felt hollow. I had no idea where to go from there.

I was only walking down the street. I never expected to become the subject of an entertainment headline the next day.

【Former starlet Ava Reed left the entertainment industry for love. Now visibly heavier, she has lost all her former glamour.】

The paparazzi had photographed me the day before.

While trying to conceive, I hadn’t controlled my diet. On top of that, the fertility injections contained hormones, and I had gained more than ten pounds in a short time.

I looked completely different from the glamorous woman who used to appear on camera.

Some people mocked my body in the comments. Others guessed that I was pregnant.

Some even said I was no longer good enough for Ethan.

That was when Ethan suddenly called me.

I thought I should tell him I was pregnant.

But the moment I answered, his voice was full of disgust and impatience.

“Ava, how did you gain so much weight? And how could you be so careless as to let the paparazzi photograph you? You’re making me look bad. Sign up for a gym and lose some weight.”