Sebastian offered no resistance, letting Lilliana hover at his side.

He carried himself like a man accustomed to admiration. Calling him merely good-looking fell short. His bone structure was precise and striking, and a quiet refinement shaped even his smallest gesture.

He wore a black shirt, the top buttons undone, a strip of gauze circling his lean forearm. Instead of appearing rumpled, he gave off a faint, unruly charm.

It was hardly surprising that Lilliana remained spellbound by him, even though he was already married.

Sebastian leaned forward and helped Lilliana to her feet. "Sit down for a bit. Don't stay crouched there. You've looked already. I'm alright."

"This is because of me. If you hadn't come to meet me today, you wouldn't have ended up in that crash." Lilliana spoke as she sat down on the bench, settling close and resting against him.

Coralie remained at a distance, unable to step closer. The cold prickling her skin was trivial compared to the icy weight pressing inside her chest.

She had told herself long ago that she no longer expected anything from Sebastian, yet watching him dote on another woman now felt like a dull blade dragging across her heart, slow and merciless.

Between her and Lilliana, who was truly the wife?

A physician walked up to Coralie with two documents in hand and said apologetically, "I'm very sorry. There's been an error. Your husband is unharmed. Another Mr. Spencer is the one requiring urgent treatment. Ten vehicles collided, and the emergency ward has been overwhelmed."

"It's fine," Coralie answered quickly, turning to go, only for her gaze to collide with Sebastian's. His expression was unreadable, stripped of any visible feeling.

Too much time had passed since their last encounter, and the air between them turned stiff without warning.

Coralie tightened her hold on the strap of her purse.

After a brief pause, Sebastian broke the silence with a faint laugh. "So you rushed over because you thought I was on my last breath. Are you let down to see me without a scratch?"

"Whether I showed up or not changes nothing," Coralie replied coolly, her eyes shifting toward Lilliana.

Lilliana met her look with a trace of discomfort. "Coralie, this happened because of me. If Seb hadn't picked me up for work, he wouldn't have been caught in the accident. Rain always makes the roads dangerous."

Though her tone carried a hint of apology, her eyes gleamed with quiet provocation, emboldened by the protection she felt at Sebastian's side.

Coralie pulled her gaze away without acknowledging her and moved toward the exit.

She understood now that such small manipulations had only wounded her before because she had loved Sebastian and refused to let go.

With divorce already decided in her mind, she had no desire to entertain these childish contests with Lilliana.

"Coralie!" Sebastian called after her without warning.

She did not pause at the sound of her name. Instead, she lengthened her stride toward the exit.

Sebastian's eyes narrowed as he watched her walk away, a cold glint settling in them. When had she begun to treat him as though he were nothing?

"Seb…" Lilliana clutched his sleeve.

Her voice came out so faint that he paid it no heed, straightening to his full height.

Lilliana's eyes flushed red at once, and she raised her voice slightly. "Seb!"

Only then did he glance back, brushing her hair lightly in a gesture meant to pacify a child. "I'll head out first. Go to work and behave."

After speaking, he did not wait for her reply. He strode toward the exit, leaving her rooted in place, staring after him with a trace of bitterness in her gaze.

Outside the emergency entrance, Sebastian spotted Coralie just as she reached her vehicle.

He let out a quiet breath and moved quickly to her side. "I'll ride back with you."

Coralie kept her feelings in check and answered icily, "Our routes aren't the same."

He replied as though stating the obvious, "My car's wrecked. You can drop me off."

It dawned on Coralie then that he had followed her solely because he required transportation.

Before she could speak, Sebastian continued, "To Moon Estate."

A humorless sound slipped from Coralie's lips. "Mr. Spencer, more than a year has passed, and you've finally decided to step back into that house."

In the next instant, as she lifted her gaze, the corner of her eye caught sight of Lilliana standing at the entrance, watching them from the steps.

Coralie pulled the driver-side door open, her face carved from ice as she forced the biting retort back down her throat.

She might no longer love Sebastian, but she refused to let Lilliana flaunt herself right under her nose.

She had braced herself for an unbearable silence once they were alone in the car, but thankfully, after settling into the passenger seat, he let his eyelids droop, wearing his exhaustion like a visible weight.

Coralie flicked her eyes toward him, her expression unreadable and still.

He had bent over backward soothing Lilliana, only to put on this act when facing her.

Coralie pushed her foot down harder on the accelerator, letting the car surge forward without restraint.

Sebastian's eyes snapped open, and he barked, "Coralie, do you even know what you're doing behind the wheel?"

Coralie let out a faint, humorless laugh. "Funny, coming from someone who just wrecked a car."

The flicker of irritation on his face loosened something inside her, and the anger she had been bottling all day finally slipped free, leaving her strangely lighter.

Once they arrived back at Moon Estate, Coralie walked straight into the master bedroom and shut the door firmly behind her.

She wanted nothing more to do with Sebastian.

...

Coralie changed into her sleepwear and slid beneath the blankets. As the tightness in her thoughts finally eased, a soft dizziness overtook her, and she sank into a blurred, restless sleep.

Not long after, a sharp chill tore through her dreaming haze.

Suspended between sleep and waking, she sensed arms wrapping around her from behind, their heat chasing away the cold.

In the early days of their marriage, Sebastian had held her this same way when illness burned through her.

Still lost in that fog, she forgot, just for a moment, how broken things had become, and instinctively edged closer to steal more warmth.

"Stay still." A whisper-soft kiss brushed her ear, followed by low, blurred words thick with restrained feeling.

Then she became aware of something firm pressing into her lower back, sending an unwelcome tension through her.

Coralie instinctively adjusted her position.

The breaths behind her deepened and turned uneven.

A hand slipped under her clothes, traveling up her side before closing around her breast in a slow, deliberate squeeze.

Coralie, familiar with such closeness, felt heat gather low in her body, and a quiet sound escaped her lips.

At that sound, whatever restraint Sebastian had left shattered, and his other hand moved lower, finding the slick heat waiting there.

It had been far too long since she had felt anything like this, and the sudden press of his fingers made her thighs draw together on instinct.

Her eyes flew open as clarity returned, and she shoved Sebastian off before scrambling toward the head of the bed to switch on the lamp.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded, her expression severe as the last trace of warmth turned to anger.

Sebastian pushed himself upright with one arm, the fabric of his loose pajama pants settling as he moved.

He gave a cold, mocking smirk. "This is my house. Can't I sleep in my own bed? Or who else are you expecting here?"

His words struck her like an insult, and before she could stop herself, her hand flew up and cracked sharply across his face.

He was the only man she had ever been intimate with, yet he spoke as if she were someone cheap.

The thought of him staying with Lilliana and then crawling into her bed now made disgust and rage churn violently inside her. She snapped, "You really think everyone is as filthy as you? People with rotten minds see filth everywhere!"

Sebastian could tell she had struck him without holding anything back. He sneered, "Coralie, if I mean nothing to you, then why did you ever agree to marry me?"

"Because before we got married, you treated me so gently that I foolishly believed it was love. If I had known you would run straight into another woman's arms the moment we were married, I would never have married you, no matter how much you begged! I've had enough of this miserable life!"

Coralie could not bottle it up anymore. The words burst out of her before she could swallow them down.

At last, she drew her mouth into a frigid smile and shot back, "Sebastian, if you and Lilliana are so hopelessly devoted, why return to Moon Estate just to make a spectacle of me?"

His accusation made her want to roll her eyes. She straightened her rumpled nightdress and set her bare feet against the thick, velvety carpet.

"Enough! Stop pulling Lilli into every single thing!" The trace of amusement disappeared from Sebastian's lips, and his expression turned thunderous, as though clouds had gathered across his face.

He had remembered the date and had deliberately come back to Moon Estate to mark her birthday. Yet Coralie had bristled like something trapped, shoving him away without hesitation.

"Lilli…" Coralie murmured the name under her breath. Even in the midst of their clash, there had been a thread of softness in Sebastian's tone when he spoke it.

It carried her back to a long time ago, when that same gentleness had once been meant for her. But that warmth had thinned out and vanished with the passing of time.

If not for the title of wife she still bore, Lilliana and Sebastian would have looked every bit the devoted couple.

After all, for the past year, Sebastian must have been sharing a home with Lilliana.

The stretch of distance between them had slowly cleared Coralie's haze.

Clinging to what had already cost so much made no sense. It was wiser to draw the line. Remaining stuck in the mire would only drag her deeper; leaving sooner was the only sensible choice.

There would never be a better moment than this, Coralie told herself as she lifted her gaze to Sebastian, her eyes steady and still like unfathomable water. "We should get a divorce."

Once that opening line slipped free, everything else followed without resistance.

Coralie let out a slow breath, as if emptying her chest of every unspoken ache. "Life doesn't stretch on forever, so our time ought to belong to the people we truly cherish."

A faint sting pricked her heart as the sentence left her lips.

Sebastian's eyes thinned as he fixed them on her. He almost demanded to know who she meant by the one she cherished, yet the question remained unvoiced.

Though he had known her for years, marriage had turned her into someone he could no longer read.

What, exactly, did she carry in her heart for him?

If there had been love, why had she done those things…

"In your dreams!" Sebastian cut off the spiral of his thoughts, tossing out the words before striding away and banging the door shut behind him.

...

Coralie remained perched at the bedside, her gaze locked on a slant of light spilled across the floor, oblivious to the fact that night had slipped into dawn without her noticing.

A night without sleep had only hardened her determination to walk away.

She cast a look through the window at the hollow yard below. Sebastian had summoned a driver and left the villa the previous night. He never came back after that.

She remembered the way the word "divorce" had flown from her mouth during their quarrel. Even though the timing had been far from perfect, she could not pretend it had not been spoken. Since she had raised the matter, remaining at Moon Estate no longer felt fitting.

She arranged her next moves with care and reached out to an attorney to lay out the circumstances.

Although Sebastian bore the blame, she had no desire to profit from him. The only lingering regret in her chest concerned the company's project.

It had first been put forward by her parents, but complications had surfaced during the initial round of clinical testing, forcing everything to a halt. After she married Sebastian, the two of them had recognized its promise and revived it under a different title.

Once she had conferred with her lawyer, she texted Sebastian. "I'll be leaving Moon Estate within a few days. The divorce papers will be delivered to you through my attorney. I'll talk to your grandmother myself. You don't have to trouble yourself over it."

Ten minutes later, Sebastian texted back. "Come to the office now. Perhaps I'm open to discussing the divorce properly."

"Alright." She agreed without pause.

Coralie rose and headed into the bathroom. The woman staring back at her wore heavy shadows beneath her eyes, dark and stark. She usually went without cosmetics, yet this time she set aside habit and carefully applied makeup on her face before leaving for the office.

If this marriage was to end, she would face it polished and poised, not resembling someone cast aside.