The doorbell rang, and Ethan answered the door. "Took you long enough, Seth."

Seth had already changed into a clean suit. His gold-rimmed glasses had been wiped clean, too. Last night, he'd pushed it into Maisie's body.

Seth smiled. "I got caught in some traffic on the way."

Maisie was still rooted to the spot when he entered the house. He nodded at her in greeting. "Hi, Maisie."

She was briefly taken aback but soon smiled. "Seth."

Ethan led Seth to the couch and told Maisie, "Mais, make Seth a cup of coffee."

Maisie felt disgusted when she heard him call her that. It was an affectionate nickname he'd used when they were madly in love, but it now made her feel like a snake had slithered all over her. She felt cold, icky, and uncomfortable.

"Mais?"

She scowled. "Can you mind your words? Don't call me that."

Ethan chuckled. "Fine. Could you please make Seth a cup of coffee, Ms. Stone?"

Maisie didn't want to spare either of the men another glance. She was no match for one of them when it came to being shameless and was no match for the other when it came to acting. Neither of them was better than the other.

She went to the kitchen, but it wasn't to make coffee. She just wanted some peace. The kitchen was the furthest from the living room, after all.

…

In the living room, Seth watched as Maisie left. He asked Ethan, "Did you two get into a fight again?"

Ethan chuckled. "Nah. She's just throwing a tantrum."

"I think Maisie's a great woman. Are you sure you want to go through with the divorce?"

"That's why I asked you to come, Seth. Can you help me draft a divorce agreement?"

Seth said, "You'd better think this through. With Maisie's looks and figure, plenty of people will fight to be with her once she's single. You'd better not regret it."

"No matter how delicious a dish is, you'll get sick of it after eating it for a long time," Ethan said breezily.

"Has she agreed?" Seth asked.

"She probably won't. She's on the traditional side and won't easily agree to a divorce if she's set on being with me. You've got to help me with this, Seth."

"How do you expect me to help?"

Ethan snickered. "How about you pursue her?"

Seth raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious?"

"I'm joking, of course!" Ethan laughed. "You're Gramps' only grandson, though. Stop being so focused on work and get married so you can give him a great-grandchild."

"Yeah."

Ethan suddenly narrowed his eyes at a spot on Seth's neck. "What is this?"

Seth pulled his collar tighter.

Ethan cried, "You weren't caught in traffic, were you? You were caught up with a woman! Come on! How could you not tell me you were involved with someone?"

Seth said, "It's not convenient now. I'll introduce you guys when the time is right."

"Alright, then. I'll introduce Felicia to you, too."

"Don't."

"Why?"

Seth cleared his throat."I should keep my distance."

Ethan chuckled. "She's your new cousin-in-law. What's there to be shy about?"

"It'd be inappropriate for us to be together."

"Tsk! Why should it bother you if it doesn't bother me?"

"Wouldn't you be bothered if Maisie and I were to be alone in the same room?" Seth asked.

Ethan looked like he'd heard a joke. "You know, you and Maisie are quite in sync when it comes to these things."

"What do you mean?"

"You're both so conservative, yet you like to make these jokes," Ethan said.

Seth smiled. "I can help you draft the divorce agreement, but you'll still need Maisie to agree to it. In other words, you have to make her give up on you."

"Yeah, I know. She was just bragging to me about having slept with another man last night. How's that even possible? You know how innocent and naive she is. She'd rather die than sleep with a stranger."

Seth rubbed the hickey on his neck and smiled without saying anything.

Ethan teased, "What's with the touching? Didn't you have enough fun last night?"

"Yeah, I didn't. She had to leave halfway to attend to something."

"Man, what a wildcat! She bites hard, doesn't she? I can see the bite marks."

Seth leaned back and said indifferently, "She's usually quite gentle, actually. Maybe it's because… the man she was with before never made her orgasm."

Maisie's legs started giving way after she'd stood in the kitchen for a while. She didn't know how long Seth had gone without a woman, but he'd been rough with her last night. Her thighs were trembling until now.

She cursed him silently, feeling like a fool. She thought she'd served herself to him on a silver platter. Honestly, she knew now why Ethan and Seth were relatives. Seth was a fake gentleman, while Ethan was a genuine asshole. They were both bastards!

She was still covered in Seth's saliva, and she felt icky. Throwing caution to the wind, she stormed out of the kitchen and headed to the bathroom.

Seth and Ethan jolted at the noise. Seth said, "She must be angry."

Ethan said, "She might be mad at you, you know?"

Seth curled his lip. "Oh?"

"It's not every day that I'm at home, yet you had to come and disrupt us."

"So, should I go?"

"Nah. You're already here, anyway. I'll buy you lunch," Ethan said.

…

Maisie took a nice, long bath. She soaked in the warm water until her body relaxed. She was almost nodding off when someone knocked on the door, jolting her awake. "Who is it?"

"Who else?" Ethan asked. "Seth and I are going out for lunch. Do you want to join us?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Bring Felicia with you." Maisie didn't want to see any of them now. She continued soaking in the tub and only woke up when the water started turning cold. She regained some energy after dozing off for a while but was still sleepy.

She left the bathroom while yawning. Then, she was spooked by the person before her. She pulled her towel tightly around her as she backed into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. "Why haven't you guys left yet?"

"We were waiting for you," Seth said. "You didn't eat anything this morning and used a lot of energy last night. You'll have low blood sugar if you still don't eat."

Maisie frowned. "I'll order takeout."

"It's not nice."

"I'll cook something, then."

Seth scoffed. "Do you have the strength for that?"

That pissed Maisie. "You—"

"I found it, Seth." Ethan came out of the master bedroom. "Why did you want to see our marriage certificate?"

Seth had been leaning by the bathroom door while chatting with Maisie. When he saw Ethan come out, he straightened up, his smile fading a little. "You wanted me to help you draft a divorce agreement, right? I need to see when you guys registered."

"I could've just told you the date."

"You still remember?"

"Yeah. It's Mais' birthday."

Seth took the marriage certificate from him and checked it. His lips curled slightly, but the smile was a little colder this time. "You guys have been married for five years."

"Yeah. Does that affect the divorce?" Ethan asked.

Ethan and Maisie had pinned a photo of them to the marriage certificate. Seth traced it softly.

24-year-old Maisie had her hair in a ponytail, and her face still carried a hint of baby fat. Her eyes were bright.

The only flaw was that her head was tilted toward Ethan. Seth didn't like seeing this.

He returned the marriage certificate to Ethan and said, "If the marriage is too short-lived, you can ask her to compensate you for a portion of the wedding gifts."

Ethan laughed. "You've been with us at every step of our relationship. Shouldn't you know better than anyone how long we've been married? Did you have to look at the marriage certificate for that?"

Seth said, "I just wanted to be sure in case I was remembering it wrongly."

Ethan nodded. Then, he urged Maisie, sounding impatient, "Aren't you done yet? Seth's already waited for you for two hours."

"He can continue waiting if he wants," Maisie retorted.

Seth knocked on the bathroom door. "Are you going to stay in there forever?"

Maisie took a deep breath. She looked at the hickeys and marks all over her body, wanting nothing more than to bite him. "Wait outside."

Seth chuckled. "Alright. We'll go out. There's no need to rush."

He patted Ethan's shoulder. "Let's go to the living room."

Maisie came out of the bathroom and ran to the bedroom, changing into a simple outfit of a T-shirt and jeans. Then, she blew her hair half-dry before leaving the room.

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "You haven't thrown this outfit away yet?"

It was one Maisie had often worn in college. It was plain and simple but extremely comfortable. In the past, she would put on a full face of makeup and dress presentably so she could match up her identity as Ethan's wife.

Now, however, since she'd already given up on him, she would wear whatever was comfortable. She said, "I didn't throw you away, did I? I've had you around for much longer than this outfit."

Ethan's expression darkened. "Whatever. Let's go."

"Go dry your hair completely before we leave," Seth said with a frown. "It's windy outside."

Maisie said, "It's unnecessary. It'll dry faster with the wind blowing."

"Go dry it," Seth said.

"I won't."

Ethan looked at her with her hair cascading over her shoulders and her face free of makeup. His gaze turned a little more gentle as he said, "You look better like this."

Maisie looked annoyed. "Well, it's all your fault for being such a successful businessman, Mr. Ford. If I were to leave the house looking like this every day, the media would probably make you out to be a frugal man who refuses to buy his wife something nice to wear."

He rubbed his nose without saying anything.

In truth, Maisie and Ethan's love story was a little like something out of a romance drama. During their school days, she'd been a good girl, and he'd been a bad boy. After graduation, they'd been a perfect couple who had supported each other through the difficulties of starting a business.

When Ethan had just graduated from college, he'd developed a game with a few of his coursemates. How many fresh graduates had money in their pockets? Ethan and Maisie had no choice but to rent the basement of a place in the suburbs of Shelkin City.

Food in the city was expensive, so Maisie had bought a secondhand gas stove and traveled to a market far away to buy groceries. She'd also carried the gas tank to the gas station to fill it up herself. Then, she'd cooked various dishes for Ethan.

She knew the prices of all the stalls at the market like the back of her hand. She knew which stall had discounts that day and which stall would give her a little something extra if she were to purchase above a certain amount.

Fresh fish cost five dollars a pound, so she would wait there until one of the fish died. Then, she would immediately buy it at one dollar a pound, which was the price for dead fish.

Maisie had worn the outfit she had on for three years. She'd washed it when it got dirty, and the jeans had faded from the number of washes. Even the T-shirt's material was thinner now.

Ethan seemed to also remember the difficult times they'd had when he'd been trying to start his business. He patted Seth's shoulder, saying, "I'll always remember the help you gave us at the time, Seth."

Ethan and his friends had developed their first game three years after establishing their company. Due to their inexperience, someone had tricked their source code out of them.

For the second game, they'd learned their lesson and hadn't gotten their source code stolen. However, an established gaming company had launched a game similar to the one they'd developed. Ultimately, their small company couldn't compete with the established one, leading to the failure of their game.

As for the third one, they'd finally managed to find an investor for the game, but the guy had run away halfway through. Another game had turned out to be a failure.

At the time, Ethan had basically given up on his dream. He'd wrapped his arms around Maisie as they lay on the bed in their cold basement. He'd said grimly, "I called my cousin, Mais. When he gets here, I want you to leave with him."

Maisie had almost exploded with rage. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Seth has a successful career and is handsome. Once you leave with him… life won't be so tough for you anymore."

Maisie had smacked him angrily. "What do you think I am?"

Ethan had suddenly burst into tears and held her tight. "I know I'm a failure, Mais. You're so beautiful and capable. I shouldn't be wasting your time. But when I think about how I might not see you anymore, I just want to die."

"So, you thought we could still see each other after introducing me to your cousin? What? Is it more exciting to have an affair with your cousin's woman?"

Ethan had smiled through his tears and tightened his hold on her. "Let's have ravioli for lunch, Mais."

At the time, they'd already run out of money and food. Where would the ravioli come from?

Later, Seth arrived. He'd been on a business trip to Shelkin City. When he saw the basement that was their home, he'd frowned deeply.

Then, he'd seen Maisie bustling around by the stove in her T-shirt and jeans, her hair tied up loosely. There wasn't any ventilation in the basement, and her face and hands were covered in grease. She'd still smiled brightly at him, though.

"Have a seat, Seth. I'll cook a couple of dishes while you two have some drinks."

Maisie had cooked two simple dishes—spicy fried peanuts and vegetable stir-fry. She'd used the most simple of ingredients and seasoning to prepare the tastiest dishes.

Seth drank some of the cheap wine they had and frowned at the taste. However, he had been completely sincere when he said, "I'm quite jealous of you, Ethan."

Ethan had been a little tipsy and didn't understand what he meant. He'd laughed and asked, "What's there to be jealous about? The fact that I live in a basement or that I haven't achieved anything in life?"

Seth hadn't answered.

Later, Ethan had never again brought up wanting to introduce Maisie to Seth.

Before leaving, Seth had stuffed a bank card into Maisie's hand. There'd been 100 thousand dollars inside.

She and Ethan survived for just over one year with that money. Finally, the fourth game Ethan and his friends had developed won the interest of angel investors. The first round of investment brought in over ten million dollars, and the game had been a huge hit.

It was also thanks to this game that Ethan's company had gone public, turning him into the billionaire he was now.

He now wore sharp suits and looked like an elite entrepreneur. His smile was roguish as he asked, "Have you made the call, Maisie?"

Maisie was pulled out of her memories. "What call?"

"Didn't you say you wanted to call the man you were with last night so I could meet him? Since Seth is here, invite him over, and we can have a meal together. Seth and I can help you see whether he's good enough for you."