“Addie loves me. She would never leave me. Someone must have switched the gift. This isn’t from her!” he shouted through clenched teeth, refusing to accept the truth.
In his frenzy, he summoned all the villa’s staff and interrogated them one by one.
“Who touched the gift box in my study? Tell me!”
The maids exchanged uneasy glances, their voices trembling as they replied.
“Mr. Sterling, we only clean the house. Without orders from you or Mrs. Sterling, we would never touch anything we’re not supposed to.”
“That’s right, sir. If you don’t believe us, you can check the security footage from the study. You’ll know we’re not lying,” one of them added nervously.
Their words hung in the air, but Jack’s mind was too chaotic to process them. All he could see was the divorce agreement in his hands, a stark reminder of what he refused to believe.
Every single staff member swore they hadn’t touched the box, but Jack refused to let it go.
It wasn’t until the security footage played before his eyes, fast-forwarding through the last two weeks, that reality finally sank in.
Deep down, he had known all along. The box in his hands was the exact one Freya had left for him two weeks ago.
But he had been clinging to denial, desperately hoping for an explanation—any explanation—that would prove him wrong.
In just thirty minutes, the torment he endured felt like an eternity.
Every question he asked, every desperate plea, was a futile attempt to summon a miracle, some shred of hope that someone would tell him, “Addie didn’t really want to leave you.”
But the truth was as merciless as it was undeniable.
On the screen, he watched Freya’s steady hand signing her name on the divorce agreement. Stroke by stroke, her resolve was painfully clear.
She had given up on him. She wanted to leave.
But why?
The question gnawed at him as he sat there, paralyzed, clutching the divorce papers.
He forced himself to replay every moment of their recent interactions, every detail of their time together. The subtle cracks in their relationship and the quiet signs he had ignored began to surface with stark clarity.
Each memory cut him deeper, the pieces of her unhappiness forming a picture he couldn’t look away from.
