Chapter 2

I got in the car and said to my agent:

"I want to withdraw all of my works from the Fintan Art Gallery."

"All of them? But your paintings are only exhibited and sold at the Stratton Gallery."

My agent was quite surprised, after all, my paintings were only displayed in various galleries under Fintan.

Even when others offered more tempting profit-sharing models, I would refuse without hesitation.

I looked out the car window and slowly began to speak:

"It won't be like that anymore."

I'm taking back my paintings, and I'll be leaving too.

My dream was to create works that would be admired by the world, to leave my name in art history.

But after getting together with Fitch, to support his dream of reviving the family business, I briefly put painting aside and became a curator at his gallery.

Ironically, it was after becoming disabled in both legs 4 years ago that I had time to focus on oil painting.

It was during this period that the name of the painter Aria gradually began to emerge.

Because people could only buy Aria's works at the Fintan Gallery, this directly brought quite a bit of fame to the gallery.

Since I've decided to leave Fitch, there's no need for me to continue working for him.

At home, I typed up a resignation letter and sent it to the HR email. I consulted a lawyer again to help draft a divorce agreement.

After that, I started packing my belongings.

In this enormous house, most of the time it was just me and the housekeeper.

I hadn't noticed it before, but now I realized how empty this home truly was.

So empty it sent a chill through my heart.

At 7 PM, I opened my phone and happened to see Xanthe's social media post.

She had shared two photos. One showed a man's large hand resting on a woman's smooth, flat belly.

The other was of two movie tickets for tonight's showing. I noticed it was for the sequel to that mythical romance film I'd been begging Fitch to take me to see.

The caption was lengthy, with explanations for each photo:

"My tummy was just a little upset, and he patiently massaged it for me."

"On a whim, we decided to see a movie. He carried me all the way to the theater without letting my feet touch the ground once. He's the world's best husband, my darling~"

He had told me he'd watch a movie with me tonight, but now he was at the cinema with another woman.

Over the years, countless instances had proven that his promises were utterly worthless.

I received a call from my agent. Word travels fast in our circles, and several galleries had already offered generous terms to acquire my works immediately. And I've already identified a potential overseas buyer who not only wants to purchase one of my existing paintings at a high price but also wants to commission me to create a custom piece for him.

I agreed to the buyer's request for a custom work. The buyer is in California, and since they can't come here, they've asked me to go there personally.

As a freelancer, California seems like a livable city, so I decided to take the opportunity to check out the environment.

My flight is booked for the day after tomorrow.

More than two hours later, Fitch returned.

He had a cartoon sticker of the movie's lead couple stuck to his face.

I had seen them online. The film was a blockbuster, and recently some theaters had been giving out couple stickers of the main characters with ticket purchases to create buzz.

I was a bit surprised.

He used to hate these little couple things - matching headbands, T-shirts, cups, and so on.

He said they were extremely childish and boring, and unnecessarily showy.

Because he disliked them, in the seven years we were together, apart from our wedding rings, we never had any so-called couple items.

Even when shopping, I would deliberately avoid anything that matched what he already had in style or color that might look like a couple set.

Now it seems he doesn't dislike these little romantic gestures, he just didn't like having couple items with me. The maid noticed and, thinking he was unaware of something on his face, started to inform him.

Fitch hastily wiped the sticker off his face, looking slightly flustered:

"I went to buy movie tickets for you. This thing must have gotten stuck on my face at some point."

I inwardly scoffed at his poor excuse.

"What time are the tickets for?"