She Said She Wasn't Drunk, Yet the Tears Kept Falling

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Jayden Whitney's newest kept canary was an adult-film actress.

She was a wild one.

When the girl suggested having sex right in front of me, I didn't lose it.

I just calmly served as a piece of background scenery.

At one point, the girl's scornful gaze swept across my face. Jayden, she's so dull. Even like this, she can act like nothing's wrong.

She didn't know that I had once cried and made a scene too.

What it got me was Jayden Whitney's cold threat: "Still haven't learned your lesson? You don't want your father's illness to never get better, do you?"

"Don't forget, I'm the only one who can treat your father's cerebrovascular disease."

From then on I tucked away my pride.

Luckily, my father's final surgery was in three days.

I had already arranged a sanatorium abroad; once the surgery was over, someone would escort us to the airport.

As for Jayden Whitney, our paths would never cross again.

An hour later, Julia Gilbert leaned coyly against Jayden Whitney's chest.

When she saw me, she covered her mouth in exaggerated shock. "Don't tell me you've been here the whole time?"

"Jayden, look at her, she's no different from a dog. She'll do whatever you tell her to."

Then Julia Gilbert's mouth curled into a nasty little grin.

"Sweetie, if you want to leave, kneel down on the floor and bark like a dog."

"If you want to stay and watch me and Jayden keep going, then bark twice. How about that?"

A faint smell of smoke hung in the air, like a signal of provocation from Julia Gilbert.

I looked numbly at Jayden Whitney. His eyes still held that faint smile, and he said nothing to contradict her.

The silence dragged on for a long time.

Jayden Whitney frowned, a little displeased. "Julia's young, she likes to have her fun. What's the harm in playing along with her?"

I suddenly laughed.

I couldn't help sneering, "Young, and yet she's shot quite a few films."

"You really must be starving, if you'll eat anything at all."

The calm smile on Jayden Whitney's face shattered in an instant.

Julia Gilbert, still in his arms, completely lost it, flinging herself at me with no regard for appearances, hand already raised to slap me.

The next second, I seized Julia Gilbert's hair with all my strength and slammed her head into the wall.

Julia Gilbert screamed in disbelief. "Are you crazy? Jayden, save me!"

Suddenly, pain tore through my whole body, as if all my strength had been drained away, and my legs gave out beneath me, dropping me to the floor.

The pain was so bad I nearly passed out.

Only when I saw the knife in his hand did I understand.

He had used it to stab me without a shred of hesitation.

The crimson blood pooling across the floor made me feel, in a daze, as if I had gone back ten years.

Back then, Jayden Whitney had fought bare-handed against a knife-wielding thug on the street to protect me. In the end he was covered in wounds, and his blood had spread across the ground just like this.

In an instant, an ache I couldn't hold back welled up in my heart.

"Daniela, how could you do this to Julia! Look at what you've become! You used to..."

I couldn't hear the rest, and when I woke again I was in the hospital.

I lay there in a daze until the wound went numb, letting the young nurse beside me change my dressing.

As she bandaged me, she looked at me with a face full of envy.

"You're so lucky. After you fainted, it was Director Whitney who carried you in. He arranged the most professional orthopedic team for you. Even an injury this serious will heal fast."

I was silent for a moment.

If she knew that this stab wound was Jayden Whitney's doing, I wondered what she would think.

The door was pushed open gently. It was Jayden Whitney.

After changing the dressing, the nurse tactfully left.

When Jayden saw my pale face, he paused for a moment, and finally sighed.

"She won't be a problem for you. This is over now."

I stared at him steadily, feeling as if a lump of cotton was lodged in my chest, hard and aching.

Seeing that I stayed silent, he leaned down and pinned me.

His warm body pressed against me, but a shiver ran through me.

I hadn't expected that the day after he stabbed me, he offered not a word of explanationinstead he was trying to force himself on me.

"Her old line of work... she had too many miscarriages, and now she can't get pregnant."

"But she loves children. Have a baby, and give it to Julia to raise."

With that, he roughly tore my clothes open.

I struggled hard.

"Says who!"

Jayden easily locked both my hands.

"You don't get to refuse."

I stared at him in disbelief, my voice shaking:

"What do you take me for? A baby-making machine? Julia says one word about wanting a child, and I'm supposed to hand one over, no questions asked? I'm a person too!"

Jayden frowned down at me, his tone calm.

"Stop putting on an act."

"Even without Julia, didn't you say you'd have my child?"

My throat tightened; I opened my mouth but couldn't get out a single word.

Five years ago I really had said that, but back then he wouldn't so much as speak a harsh word to me; he would give up an international medical competition and cross half the globe to see me just because I said my stomach hurt; when my father suddenly fell ill, he was the first to step up and say that with him there, he'd do everything he could.

All those moments that had moved me turned out to be bubbles, bursting at the slightest touch.

Just then his phone suddenly rang.

It was Julia; I could hear her crying nonstop on the other end.

Jayden got up off me, his tone turning gentle in an instant.

He said, "Don't cry. I'll take care of everything."

The moment he hung up, he strode out.

Not sparing a thought for me, lying naked on the hospital bed after he'd just torn off my clothes.

A chill spread through my chest.

I took a deep breath, picked up my phone, and opened the calendar.

Only two days left. It was time to draw up the divorce papers.

Late that night, I was yanked awake from a deep sleep.

My already injured leg banged against the bed frame, and I sucked in a sharp breath at the pain.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Jayden's dark, grim face.

"Are you the one behind the leaks out there?"

I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Jayden's eyes went colder as he took out his phone and set it in front of me. "See for yourself."

I hadn't expected Jayden's new relationship to be exposed so quickly.

That a celebrated genius doctor would lower himself to be with the lead actress of adult films had caused an uproar in the entertainment world.

On top of that, some insider had even dug up Julia's post from this morning: "There's always someone who'll embrace you without holding your murky past against you." The picture with it showed two hands with fingers laced tightly together.

"The only person who knows about Julia and me is you." His eyes fixed on me, sinister.

I let out a cold laugh. "So even you know it's nothing to be proud of."

Right then Julia rushed in from the doorway, accusing me through streaming tears.

"You'd actually stoop to such filthy tactics just to take me down!"

"I don't dare go out nowthe second I step out, someone recognizes me."

"You must be so pleased, seeing me reduced to this."

I said nothing. I had known nothing about this, but no one would believe me.

Julia sobbed and demanded that Jayden get justice for her.

"Jayden, I've been humiliated beyond words. If you let this slide, I'll never forgive you!"

"Jayden, you wouldn't just stand there and watch me suffer, would you?"

Julia pressed relentlessly for a definite answer.

And a small sliver of hope rose in me: if he believed me, then these petty jabs would come to nothing.

But without a moment's hesitation Jayden kissed Julia, saying lightly, "Since you hurt Julia, I'll make you pay for it too."

"Julia, how do you want to get even?"

Julia looked me over from above, disdain in her eyes.

"Who'd have thoughtfor a washed-up old woman, you've still got a decent body."

"What makes you so above it all? Everything I've been through, you're going to go through too! You look down on those films I made, don't you? Then why don't you get a real taste of what it's like to be the lead actress in an adult film!"

Jayden hesitated for a moment, and Julia immediately broke into tears.

"I've never been wronged like this in my life. If she hadn't leaked it, this many people wouldn't be cursing me out."

Jayden glanced at her helplessly, then finally nodded and dialed a number.

"Bring your people over."

My mind buzzed, and all the blood in my body seemed to run backward.

"You can't do this to me! I'm your wife!"

But no matter how I struggled, I was still tied up, a rag stuffed in my mouth so I couldn't make a sound.

Jayden left with Julia, locking me in the room.

Before long, a dozen or so people filed in one after another, and their eyes lit up when they saw me.

"We were just missing a female lead like her, a story where a kidnapped woman runs into her old lover and sparks fly."

I froze, staring in disbelief at the group of people in front of me.

One of the men walked toward me.

The lights shone down on me, the camera aimed straight at my face, and the shame inside me was almost enough to break me.

I was like a rag doll, handled by him again and again.

The pitch-black lens, like a demon, recorded this unbearable scene.

I don't know how much time passed, but my tears had already run dry.

Beneath me was a smear of blood-red, and my whole body felt like it was splitting apart with pain.

By the time I walked out of the room, I had been tortured beyond recognition.

Then, out of nowhere, a memory flashed through my mind, of when I was eighteen, when Jayden spent every cent of his savings just to buy me a necklace I had glanced at one time too many, all to win me over.

Later he studied like his life depended on it and worked part-time jobs, and with the money he earned he bought me the first little house I ever owned.

He went with me to climb a snow-capped mountain, and halfway up we ran into an avalanche, and he risked half his life to shield me.

Back then he said he would be good to me for the rest of his life.

Later, when my father fell ill and needed Jayden to perform the second-stage surgery, his phone could not be reached, no matter what.

My father was just that little bit away from a full recovery.

When I returned, utterly shattered, to the home Jayden and I shared, I saw him locked in an embrace with another woman, unable to pull apart. In that instant, all I could hear was a roar in my ears.

He knelt before me, crying, and swore there would never be a next time, that his phone just happened to be on silent, and he just happened to be drunk.

I cried until my whole body shook, until I nearly fainted.

But later there came a second time he was drunk, and a third.

And he went from wishing he could die to atone to now treating it as a matter of course.

"Daniela, be good."

"Your father still depends on me, doesn't he?"

"Last time, because of your willfulness, your father didn't get timely treatment, and his recovery kept dragging on and on. Is that what you want to see happen?"

The love that had once burned so fiercely had shattered to pieces just like that.

Before I could even leave, Julia sent someone to bring me before her.

She looked at the wretched state I was in, and a smug smile curved at her lips.

"Now you've become just like me."

I stared at her, my gaze heavy, my voice hoarse.

"And then what? Does that make you any better?"

"Jayden never takes you to meet his friends, because you're not fit to be seen."

A flicker of anger crossed Julia's face, but then she smiled again.

"So what? If I ruin you, he'll have no one to love but me!"

"Don't think I don't know your dad's still lying in that hospital bed! The surgery's supposed to be at two in the afternoon, isn't it? If I tell Jayden I'm sick, guess where he'll turn up?"

My heart pounded like a drum as I looked at Julia in disbelief.

"Are you insane? You can't!"

She burst into reckless laughter and leaned in close. "Do you know what Jayden loves about me?"

"It's this streak of madness in me."

The moment the words left her mouth, she had someone take me to my father's bedside.

As the time crept closer to two o'clock, Jayden was still nowhere to be found.

The doctors were like a body without a head, and not one of them dared to step up and perform the surgery.

Jayden was the only expert in this area.

So it turned out Julia hadn't sent me to my father out of any kindness, but to make me watch, helpless, as I lost the person I loved most.

Like someone gone mad, I broke free of my restraints and ran to every place he might possibly be.

At last, at Jayden's house, I found him holding Julia in his arms as she cried.

Julia's face was red from crying.

"I've been diagnosed with depression. I know you look down on me because of what happened before, but I can't accept this either."

"I want a good life too, but I was young, and I got tricked into it before I even understood what was happening."

I cut off her sobbing and grabbed Jayden, my hands trembling.

"Hurry, Dr. Finch said my dad's condition is very serious this time. If we don't get him into surgery soon, it'll be too late."

At that moment, Julia, standing off to the side, cried her eyes out too.

"In this whole world, you're the only person I have to hold on to. If even you leave, you'll never see me again."

Jayden's brow furrowed. He looked at Julia, crying uncontrollably, then at me, his face full of struggle.

Without hesitation, I knelt down and clutched the leg of his trousers. It was the first time in my life I'd been so wretched, but if it could buy my father's life, I was willing to do anything.

"Please, you know how much my father means to me."

He gritted his teeth and turned his face away in pain, his voice hoarse.

"I'm sorry. I've done everything I can for your father's illness. Julia needs me more."

"Even if your father is gone, you still have me. I'll always be your family."

"The person I owe the most in my life is Julia. I can't give her a proper title, and I can't bring her to meet my family and friends. So this time, I can't let anything happen to her."

...

When I woke up, the doctor looked at me apologetically and silently handed me an urn of ashes.

I held the box, tears falling without stop.

The first time I brought Jayden to meet my father, that thrifty old man, who scrimped and saved on everything, brought out the good wine he'd been treasuring and put on his most presentable clothes, just to make me look good, afraid Jayden might slight me.

Back when Jayden gave up going abroad to study because he had no money, I was so desperate I worked three jobs a day. My father, aching for me, somehow scraped together three hundred thousand to send Jayden off to study. Later I learned that money came from him doing the hardest, most grueling labor.

Thinking back on all of it, one thing after another, my heart felt like it was being cut with knives.

My phone suddenly lit up. It was a message from Jayden, explaining himself.

I'm sorry. I never expected your father wouldn't pull through this time.

Julia's symptoms are a little better, but I'm still worried, so I'll stay here for now.

I'll come be with you when I have time.

Too bad. I didn't need it anymore.

I deleted all of his messages, then blocked his number.

Then I took out the divorce papers I'd prepared long ago and signed them, and sent all the unbearable videos that had been filmed of me to the police.

The night I finished giving my statement, I boarded that plane without looking back.

When I saw that the seat for two now held only me, it dawned on me in a daze that the person who loved me in this world had completely vanished.

The last trace of love I still held for Jayden dissolved without a trace.

Jayden had just left Julia's house when several people came looking for him.

"Mr. Whitney, this is bad... The police just called. Your wife has exposed what we did that day!"

Jayden's heart lurched. "What did you do to her that day?!"

"Julia said it was just to teach Daniela a lesson. It couldn't be... no."