Three Years of PretendingChapter 1

The Whitmore heir is cold. I am insufferable.

He refuses to share a bed with me, so I spend entire nights reciting the legal obligations of a spouse at his closed door.

He starts coming home past midnight just to avoid me.

So I go crying to his parents.

The elder Whitmores make him kneel and take thirty lashes with a belt.

I'm about to intervene when the comment feed flickers across my vision:

[Can this dumb-ass woman just fast-forward to her miserable end already? Can't she see he doesn't want her?!]

[His body is reserved for OUR female lead!]

[Let her keep acting out. The female lead already got hired as Callum's personal assistant — Callum's going to fall for her soon, and their kid will start calling him Mommy.

[Then this idiot wife throws a fit all over town, calling our female lead a homewrecker.

[Gets tossed out by Callum himself, ends up in a psychiatric facility, degraded and broken every single night.

[Honestly, just thinking about it is satisfying!]

My hand jerks. I nearly drop my glass.

The elder Mrs. Whitmore raises the belt again.

I lunge forward. The strike lands across my back instead.

Through Callum's stunned stare, I bite down on the pain:

"It's all a misunderstanding."

……

That one actually hurt like hell.

I suck in a sharp breath.

Callum looks at me like he's never seen me before.

The comments explode with question marks:

[What is Madeleine Shaw doing? This idiot wife just took a hit FOR him?]

[Please. Wasn't it her tantrum that got Callum punished in the first place?]

I try to stand. The movement pulls at my back and sends a white-hot bolt of pain through me.

Callum reaches out and catches my arm.

[Oh, I see it now — classic manipulation!]

[She took one hit so he'd have to help her up. Now she gets to use it against him!]

[What a disgusting woman. I want to reach through the screen and slap her.]

[Callum took ten lashes. She took one. And somehow she's made herself the victim. Nobody calculates like she does.]

My hand goes stiff.

I pull away from Callum's grip and manage a thin smile:

"I'm fine. It really is just a misunderstanding between Callum and me both."

Callum's hand freezes mid-air.

[Oh, the old push-pull. Worse than any cheater I've ever seen.]

[It's fine. Once he ends up institution-bound and broken, I'll have reason to keep reading.]

I nearly lose my footing.

When I turn back, Callum is still watching me.

His gaze is exactly what it's always been — distant and untouchable.

I was the one who swore I'd marry no one but him.

He was the one who never had any interest in me.

But… a psychiatric facility?

Humiliated. Destroyed. By his hand?

Callum… could he really become that cruel?