Chapter 3
Xavier didn’t come home that night.
1/13
In the early hours of the morning, Rachel posted on Twitter: [You said you’d never hold anyone else’s hand again.]
She attached a photo of their intertwined fingers.
In the picture, one hand had a distinctive birthmark–unmistakably Xavier’s.
And I became that “anyone else” he claimed he wouldn’t hold hands with.
Within just ten minutes, the post shot to the top of trending topics.
My haters flooded Rachel’s comments with support: [Go for it, Rachel! You must get back together with Xavier!]
[I support Xavier’s affair. Sabrina Warren is nothing but a b*tch.]
Suddenly, countless people were waiting to witness my humiliation.
Some fans defended me in the comments: [Xavier, that can’t be you, right? I’ve been your fan for so many Christmas seasons, and I can see how good Sabrina has been to you. You can’t betray her!]
Xavier and I shared numerous endorsement deals. If either of us became
embroiled in a scandal, we’d face astronomically high contract penalties that
would cost us a Christmas fortune.
My agent couldn’t reach Xavier, so she called me instead, asking me to temporarily claim we were together to appease the public.
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2/13
Scrolling through my phone gallery, I realized how pitifully few photos I had
with Xavier.
More ironically, in these rare pictures, I was always the only one smiling.
Eventually, I posted an old photo of Xavier sitting under a desk lamp, deeply focused on reading a book.
The soft lamplight enveloped him, and for a fleeting moment, he overlapped
with that tearful figure from my dreams.
After I posted it, fans quickly defended Xavier: [See? Xavier is at home with his wife! Who dares say he’s cheating!]
Public opinion instantly reversed, with everyone attacking Rachel for seeking attention and having zero spaghetti (absolutely no shame).
However, minutes later, Xavier retweeted Rachel’s post with a simple
comment: [It’s me.]
He openly admitted they were together, exposing my lie in the process.
Once again, for Rachel’s sake, he abandoned me without hesitation.
Rachel’s fans mocked me in my comments section: [This is hilarious! Sabrina, you’re such a liar. LOL!]
[Rachel’s been gone for three Christmas seasons, and you still couldn’t capture Xavier’s heart. How useless.]
Reading these comments, I felt surprisingly calm. I deleted every trace of Xavier from my phone. This time, I was determined to end this marriage.
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3/13
Early the next morning, the company urgently called me back to handle
Xavier’s scandal crisis.
As soon as I entered the company, I ran into Rachel.
Obviously, Xavier couldn’t bear to leave her alone, so he had brought her along.
Rachel apologized the moment she saw me: “Sabrina, I’m so sorry about last night. I was drunk when I posted on Twitter, and Xavier was just being silly. I apologize for causing you trouble.
“I’ve already reminded him about it. He was only protecting me without considering your feelings. He’s being so careless.
“You shouldn’t mind those comments online. The netizens saying you’re my replacement is absolutely ridiculous.
“They don’t know how much I want to thank you. You’ve taken care of Xavier for so many Christmases…”
Rachel smiled at me.
I calmly returned her smile: “I am Xavier’s wife. Taking care of him is my duty, and I don’t need anyone else’s gratitude.
“As for you, don’t take it to heart that people called you a homewrecker last night.”
Hearing this, Rachel’s expression changed slightly. Her gaze suddenly fell on
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the ring on my finger.
Her tone became challenging: “Sabrina, that ring was originally mine. It’s time to return it.”
As she reached out to grab the ring, I irritably swatted her hand away, accidentally hitting her face.
Rachel immediately swung her purse at me. The metal clasp on her bag cut my forehead, and blood instantly seeped out.
The blow was powerful, leaving my ears ringing.
Just as I was about to retaliate, someone from behind firmly grabbed my
wrist.
Xavier suddenly appeared, warning me in an icy tone: “Sabrina, don’t you
dare hit her.”
I turned around. When he saw the blood on my face, he frowned and asked Rachel: “Did you hit her?”
Rachel shook her head with tears in her eyes: “Xavier, she called me a homewrecker and tried to hit me. My purse accidentally hit her when I was dodging. I didn’t mean to. I’ll apologize to her.”
4/13
As soon as she started crying, Xavier softened. He stroked her hair, praising her response: “If someone hits you, hit back. With me here, you don’t need to apologize to anyone.”
In that moment, I suddenly envied Rachel deeply.
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5/13
Actually, I used to cry often too, but the person who would have cared about my tears is no longer in this world.
My agent, Daisy Brooks, couldn’t stand it anymore. She pointed at me and
shouted at Xavier: “Sabrina is your wife! Xavier, are you blind? How can you be holding this woman?
“How is Sabrina inferior to Rachel?
“Have you forgotten you said you wanted to have a child with Sabrina? That you felt at home with her?
“Now you’re hurting her like this. Won’t you regret it someday?”
I placed my hand over my abdomen. There was a tiny life just beginning to
form there.
Xavier gave me a cold glance, his tone calm to the point of cruelty:
“Perhaps I did like Sabrina once, but Rachel is back now. No woman compares to her.”
Xavier might have only liked me briefly before. Now that Rachel was back, he
wanted to love her instead.
I removed the ring from my finger–the one that never truly belonged to me
-and held it out to Xavier.
His smile slowly faded. After a moment of silence, he reached out to take the
ring.
Daisy suddenly grabbed my arm, glancing at my abdomen with urgency:
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“Sabrina, calm down. You’re already…”
Rachel snatched the ring. When she tried it on, she found it was too small.
Her expression stiffened slightly as she tossed the ring into the trash can.
She linked her arm with Xavier’s: “Forget it, don’t be angry. I don’t want a ring another woman has worn.”
Xavier ignored her. He stared at me coldly: “You’re already what?”
I gave him a faint look before turning to leave.
Xavier, I’m pregnant, but you don’t need to know.
6/13
Xavier is an extremely perceptive person. With Daisy’s obvious hints, I figured he could probably guess about seventy to eighty percent of the truth.
This pregnancy was purely accidental. My body was in poor condition due to long–term medication, which would affect the fetus’s development. The doctor also advised me to terminate the pregnancy. Besides, I didn’t want to have any further entanglements with Xavier because of this child.
After deciding to have an abortion, I moved out of the house to avoid running into Xavier, preventing any unnecessary trouble from him. However, Xavier probably didn’t care about this at all.
Indeed, he never came looking for me and simply continued living his life.
One day, Daisy sent me a video. In it, Xavier presented Rachel with an extravagant diamond ring at an auction, while Rachel smiled and threw
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herself into his arms. They looked so perfect together, as if they were meant to be.
7/13
Seeing this scene, I suddenly remembered what Xavier had said. Rachel was back. Neither I nor the child in my womb could compare to Rachel.
This was for the best.
The day before my surgery, I suddenly felt anxious and restless.
Remembering that the pendant my mother gave me before she died was still
locked in the safe at home, I decided to go back and retrieve it.
However, when I arrived, I discovered that the door password had been
changed.
Standing outside my own home unable to enter, I felt utterly humiliated.
Suppressing my anger, I called Xavier. To my surprise, Rachel answered the phone.
She said smugly, “Sabrina, today is my birthday, and Xavier insisted on taking me to see the meteor shower. We won’t be coming home tonight.”
“I once told him that couples who make wishes on shooting stars will stay together forever. I can’t believe he remembered all this time. I’m so happy.”
“But I can’t give you the password. After all, we’re not home, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for an outsider like you to enter…”
Before Rachel could finish, I hung up and tried using today’s date as the
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password to unlock the door. It opened.
So the house password had been changed to Rachel’s birthday.
Walking inside, I discovered that all traces of my existence had been erased.
The wedding photo of Xavier and me that once stood on the TV cabinet had been replaced with a picture of him and Rachel. It was a photo from their younger days, Xavier holding Rachel, smiling happily.
My succulents had been thrown away, including all the pots, and the study had been transformed into Rachel’s piano room.
8/13
I froze for a moment, then rushed into the bedroom and opened the closet to find a neatly arranged row of sexy lace nightgowns–none of which were
mine.
The safe was located at the bottom of the closet. I unlocked it with my fingerprint and, with trembling hands, took out all the jewelry, cash, and documents inside, but I couldn’t find the pendant my mother had left me
anywhere.
It was the only keepsake I had from my mother.
Rachel knew exactly how important it was to me, which is why she had thrown it away.
Rachel despised my mother and me since our school days.
Back then, my mother worked as a housekeeper for Xavier’s family.
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Once, Rachel visited Xavier’s home with her parents. Xavier’s parents introduced me to them, praising me for being sensible, hardworking, and intelligent.
Rachel pretended to be friendly on the surface, expressing her desire to be friends with me.
‘But behind my back, she said: “So what if she’s good at studying? She can work her ass off for a good university, but in the end, she’ll still end up working for people like us. Her mother is annoying too, always smiling like an idiot. A family of paupers.”
Whenever my mother picked me up from school and encountered Rachel, Rachel would quietly call my mother a “whore.”
My mother couldn’t hear it and would still smile, complimenting Rachel on how pretty and cute she was, offering her homemade cookies.
Rachel would throw the cookies in the trash and sneer: “They stink so bad even a dog wouldn’t eat them.”
9/13
My mother turned bright red with embarrassment as people around us burst
into laughter.
Furious, I dropped my backpack and lunged at Rachel, pulling her hair.
In the chaos, when my mother saw me getting hit, she rushed over to protect me but was kicked down by one of Rachel’s friends, causing her to bleed profusely from her lower body.
That very day, my mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer.
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10/13
Those terrible cancer cells had silently appeared and eventually took her life.
That pendant was something my mother secretly obtained from the church, walking there step by step while hiding it from me as she was dying.
She said the church’s tokens were the most effective.
Fighting back tears, I asked her why. She just smiled and said it was a secret.
Deep down, I knew the truth. When I was little, I had been seriously ill, and
my mother had gone to church to pray.
She made a vow, willing to sacrifice half of her life in exchange for and safety.
my health
Later, I recovered from my illness, but my mother fell sick and passed away.
When Rachel learned about this, she mockingly said: “Your mother was so superstitious. What’s the use of leaving a pendant? She should have sold a kidney instead to leave you some money.”
At two in the morning, Xavier returned with Rachel in his arms.
As they entered, Rachel clung to his neck, whispering seductively, “Xavier, will you sleep with me tonight? I want to give myself to you…”
She tried to kiss him, but Xavier dodged her advance.
I sat on the sofa, watching the scene with cold detachment.
Xavier noticed me.
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When Rachel turned and saw me, she smiled provocatively. “Sabrina, had I known you were home, I would have asked Xavier to return earlier. We couldn’t see any shooting stars tonight, and he was worried I’d be
disappointed, so he insisted on taking me to see fireworks. I’m sorry, blame me if you must, but don’t be angry with him.”
11/13
Slightly tipsy from drinking, I stood up unsteadily and walked toward Rachel, asking her point–blank, “Where is my pendant?”
Rachel blinked nervously, then smiled. “You mean that pendant from the safe? I accidentally broke it while organizing things. It didn’t look valuable, so I threw it away.”
Tears instantly spilled from my eyes. My body went cold, and my lips trembled uncontrollably.
My mind flooded with memories of the day my mother died. She had held me tightly, wiping away my tears with trembling hands. She comforted me, saying she wouldn’t leave, repeatedly soothing me not to be afraid, promising “as long as the pendant is with you, I’ll be by your side.”
In a fit of rage, I hurled my glass at Rachel. It shattered on the marble floor, and a shard cut her leg.
She retreated fearfully, hiding behind Xavier, crying out, “That hurts!”
I lunged forward, grabbing Rachel’s collar, screaming uncontrollably, “Where did you throw that pendant? Where did you throw it?”
Xavier restrained me, but I slapped him hard, shouting, “We’re not even divorced yet, and you bring her home? How dare you let her touch my
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things? Are you that desperate to sleep with her? Xavier, you disgust me!”
12/13
Xavier forcefully pulled me into his arms, stroking my hair while whispering, “Sabrina, calm down. I’ll help you find the pendant, okay? Stop crying, it breaks my heart to see you like this.”
Rachel threw away my pendant this morning. I figured the waste disposal station probably hadn’t cleared today’s garbage yet.
Xavier drove me there, speeding all the way to the garbage station. Despite his usual germophobia, he completely disregarded the filth and helped me search through the foul–smelling garbage heaps, his hands covered in grime. We searched from midnight until dawn but couldn’t find the pendant.
As the sun rose, I suddenly felt utterly helpless. The harsh sunlight seemed to pierce through my eyes, and I bit my lower lip, desperately trying to hold back my tears.
An elderly couple at the garbage station saw my distress and came to help with the search. Just when I was about to give up hope, the old woman called out, “Hey, come look at this. Is this what you’re looking for?”
I jumped up quickly, feeling a wave of dizziness, but I pushed through it, dragging my filth–covered shoes as I ran over. The woman was holding a wooden box containing my pendant–now broken.
I told myself I should be grateful that at least we found it. I tried to smile, but as soon as my lips curved upward, tears streamed down my face
uncontrollably.
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In my heart, I whispered, “Mom, you said as long as I have the pendant, you’d be by my side, right? Now that it’s broken, will you still stay with me?
Mom, please don’t leave me.”
Xavier pulled me into his arms and comforted me, “Don’t be sad. I’ll find
someone to fix it.”
‘I pushed him away, shaking my head to say it wasn’t necessary.
After a brief silence, Xavier’s voice turned cold. He suddenly growled, “Sabrina, every time you reject me, I feel like strangling you! Can’t you depend on me just once?”
I looked at him silently.
Just then, Xavier’s phone rang–it was Rachel calling. He hesitated for a
moment but still answered.
13/13
Rachel sobbed on the other end, “Xavier, I was trying to find you both to properly apologize to Sabrina. But I got lost. There’s a man following me, and I’m so scared…”
Xavier immediately forgot about me and turned to leave.
At that moment, I received a text from the doctor. Today was my scheduled abortion appointment.
On Rachel’s birthday, I lost the last memento my mother left me, and I was about to lose the child in my womb.
