After she finished her words, she handed back the agreement to Matthew and continued. “But we barely even know each other. Why would I want anything from him? Tell him I said thanks, but I don’t need any compensation.”

Lawyer Matthew frowned with surprise. “Think about it before you decide. As far as I know, you are in a good financial state, but compared with what Mr. Denovan is offering you, it’s a drop in the bucket. This money could change your life.”

Matthew had come across many divorces as a lawyer, and even those with deep pockets would fight ferociously for their property. How could this woman be so indifferent towards a large amount of money offered to her? Her attitude made him respect her more.

Selene smiled with a sigh and explained. “Our marriage was different than what you think.” Realizing it absurd to explain her abnormal marriage with a stranger, she tried to end the conversation. “Anyway, I appreciate Mr. Denovan’s compensation, but I don’t need it. And I sincerely wish him happiness, and I hope he will find his soulmate.”

Her words came out drenched in irony.

Matthew shook his head and put back the agreement. “I will let Mr. Denovan know about your decision, and I will give him your message.”

They both said their goodbyes, and Selene walked away expressionlessly.

The breeze of the spring afternoon made her feel a little cold. The sky above her was perfectly blue.

Her pointless marriage had finally ended after a year.

Selene gave a deep sigh of relief and smiled. She then waved her hand to stop a cab.

Seeing Selene away, Matthew also smiled to himself. At that moment, a black car stopped by his side. The window lowered. He bent towards the car, recognizing the figure within. “Mr. Denovan.”

The man in the car asked emotionlessly. “What did she say?”

The man looked around 30 years of age and was very good-looking; his business suit fit him perfectly.

“Just like what I’ve told you before, the second time someone goes in for a divorce, the judge will usually grant it,” Matthew explained.

“Okay.” Clint’s face didn’t betray any emotion, but his voice showed some weariness.

Then Matthew took the agreement out from his business bag and handed it to Clint. “Selene didn’t sign it, and she said she doesn’t want the compensation.”

“What else did she say?” Clint balled the agreement and casually threw it on the floor of the pavement outside.

Lawyer Matthew smiled at Clint, then started explaining patiently. “She also wished you happiness and hopes that you will find someone better.”

Hearing this, Clint gazed blankly for a while, then sneered. “Thanks, Matthew. My assistant will pay you the rest of the fee.”

Matthew smiled with gratitude. “Honestly speaking, this is the easiest divorce case I’ve dealt with. For the ex-wife not to ask for a penny. If there are more cases like this, please let me know.”

Clint glanced at him and snorted. Without saying a word, he rolled up the window and drove away quickly.

Matthew resentfully touched his nose, thinking of Clint as strange. His joke hadn’t even earned him a smirk from the billionaire. Lacking a sense of humor, Matthew started to understand why Clint’s ex-wife had sought to divorce him twice in a single year.

Sitting in the backseat of the cab, Selene caught a glance of Matthew talking with a man in a car by the court gate in the rearview mirror. The car seemed familiar to her, but before she could read the license plate, the cab turned away.

Selene thought deeply and leaned back against the seat. “Maybe I’m overthinking this. Why would Clint be here? He doesn’t care about the divorce, so he wouldn’t come here himself.” Having this burden mentally removed, she felt relieved and covered her eyes with one hand, smiling.

The whole story of Selene’s marriage had started about one year ago, or perhaps even earlier.

Selene was born in a middle-class family in Houston, Texas, and their parents got divorced when she was young. Though her family was not rich by any means, they were financially secure.

Other than being deprived of motherly love at a young age, Selene’s life went very well. She loved fashion design while growing up, which was further intensified by her grandmother being a tailor. She also ended up majoring in fashion design in college.

When she was in junior high, she fell in love with her high school classmate, Joseph Geoffrey. The two had been in contact with each other after meeting on a train on their way to school that year. After meeting a few more times, a romantic relationship soon blossomed naturally.

Until now, she had wondered whether she had truly fallen in love with Joseph. To her, it seemed that she just followed the high school trend of getting into a relationship. Besides, Joseph seemed perfect; He was handsome and diligent, so she committed to it.

Selene and Joseph got along well with each other, and as they were in different colleges in the city, they did not meet each other every day. They just dated at weekends and phoned each other up during workdays. They were not very intimate, which was not uncommon for younger lovers like them.

Joseph had majored in finance. Being from a poor family, he could not rely on his family financially. In order to enter the financial field after graduation, Joseph had to try harder than others. As a student, Joseph worked much harder and lived a thrifty life.

At that time, Emily, Selene’s best friend, had told her that Joseph was full of ambition and would try to fulfill his goals rather than focus on love. Selene thought about it very carefully and then admitted that Joseph was just the kind of man Emily had said he was. Selene then pondered whether she would continue the romantic relationship with him or not.

Finally, she came up with a satisfactory answer to this.

As they aren’t born equal socioeconomically, so Joseph tried his best and made greater efforts to climb higher on the social ladder. She didn’t blame him.

Moreover, Selene was not one to put love as the main priority in life. She believed that they were the same and that they might keep their relationship steadier than many others.

As time flew, the time for their graduation came. Joseph received a full scholarship for his postgraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. At the same time, Selene decided to start working in Houston and maintain her romantic relationship with Joseph, even though a large distance would separate them. Joseph had also promised her that he would return to Houston to stay with her after graduation.

After Joseph finished his postgraduate studies and returned to Houston one year ago, he almost reached his career goal of becoming an executive at SSGB, one of the most influential asset management companies in the city. But to Selene’s surprise, he did not contact her when he came back. Selene found this out from her old friends.

When Selene finally met Joseph in the city, she saw a scene that shocked her to the core: Her boyfriend Joseph was sitting in the Royal Restaurant with a young and gorgeous girl, hugging and kissing her.

Selene tried to rationalize Joseph’s betrayal. She believed that she could maybe forgive him, as they had been apart for a long time, so it must have been very easy for Joseph to get into a relationship with a lovely new girl.

But when she saw that the girl who sat by Joseph was Jennifer Keller, her college classmate, she exploded with anger. How small the world was!

Jennifer was not only her classmate but also her old rival.

As students who majored in Fashion Design were mostly from middle- or upper-class families, Selene did not stand out among them. However, Jennifer, who drove a luxury car to school and wore expensive designer clothes, considered herself unique.

With different family backgrounds, they did not socialize with each other for a long time when they were in school.

Until the first semester in junior high, the two took part in the same fashion design activity held by the school. Being overly pleased with herself, Jennifer thought that she would win first prize every time she took part in activities before. Unexpectedly, she did not. But Selene, whose design wasn’t anything too special, won second prize.

Jennifer was very ashamed and bitter about this, and she envied Selene for her prize. Why on Earth could Selene win the prize with such ordinary work? As a result, she started planning her revenge on Selene for this. Maybe spoiled silver-spoon girls were mostly naïve.

Though Selene kept a low profile during her daily life, she did not let people walk over her. When she was very young, whenever kids would laugh at her when she was with her mother, she would later catch up with these kids alone and fight them. Seeking revenge for the smallest of grievances, that’s who she was.

So that’s how a bitter rivalry had started between Selene and Jennifer.

In fact, Selene did not want to interact too much with Jennifer, who was capricious and naïve. What Jennifer did was just destroy her design and alienate her from her classmates.

Selene always shrugged off these petty occurrences. However, Jennifer was very persistent in playing tricks on her. Selene could do nothing more than to ignore her.

However, one day, Jennifer becomes a love bandit by seducing Emily’s boyfriend. As Selene’s best friend, Selene could not help but hit back.

It was very naïve for Jennifer to do this to Selene, so Selene decided to treat her in a similar way.

Out of anger, Selene asked one of her friends, a tech geek, to hack into Jennifer’s computer, steal revealing photos of Jennifer with different boys, and post them on the school’s forum online. Though the photos were just taken when they were partying in nightclubs, they were fresh news of the central heiress that many students enjoyed gossiping about in their leisure time.

Jennifer was disgusting from Selene’s perspective, but she was gifted, charming, and had a decent family background among the public. So, the photos that were posted online totally ruined her reputation.

The posting of these photos escalated the war between Selene and Jennifer. Maybe this was very typical among girls who didn’t know each other well but became enemies over trivial things.

They simply hated each other!

They did not get a break until Jennifer moved to another city to further her postgraduate studies.

Selene decided to stay in Houston with her family and start her career as an assistant in fashion design at a big company. After working at the company for one year, she left and founded her own custom-made clothing company and majored in custom tailoring, which she was quite good at. Also, the company was doing surprisingly well.

Selene’s life became quite peaceful after that, and she gradually forgot what had happened in the past two years between her and Jennifer.

But now they met again in the city, and Jennifer gave Selene a devious smile and greeted her. “Hi, Selene. Long time no see.”

Ignoring Joseph, who was sitting by Jennifer with a pale face, Selene answered with a sneer. “Yes, it’s really been a long time.”

“Let me make a brief introduction for you, Selene. This is my boyfriend, Joseph Geoffrey. Joseph, this is Selene. We went to college together.”

Jennifer continued. “It seems that you two were high school classmates, weren’t you?”

Joseph could only stand up and greet Selene with a quiet voice. That was the way they finally met after several years of separation.

Selene snorted back. “Yes, Jennifer. We are not only high school classmates, but he is also my ex-boyfriend. I didn’t expect you to like chewing others’ leftovers!”

Jennifer was too shocked by Selene’s words to say anything, and before she retorted, Selene turned back and left, leaving them her back.

I didn’t want them to see how humiliated I felt. Selene thought. Though she felt really awkward, she tried to pretend to care nothing about Joseph’s betrayal.