PART 2
Two days after that humiliating incident in the kitchen, Christopher completely stopped hiding Gwen from the world.
First, he brought her along to important company strategy meetings as his personal companion.
Then he started taking her to high-end business dinners all over the city.
Finally, he escorted her to exclusive evening parties where all our lifelong friends knew perfectly well that I was still his lawful wife.
Gwen quickly transitioned from being a simple corporate assistant to becoming the prominent woman who walked proudly arm in arm with him everywhere.
The strange part was that Christopher continued to insist to everyone that he had no intention of divorcing me.
At a lavish birthday celebration, one of his oldest close friends finally confronted him near the bar.
“Christopher, this has gone far enough,” his friend said sternly. “Lorelei is your wife, and you cannot just show up with another woman and expect everyone to pretend this is normal.”
I had arrived at the venue entirely by myself, wearing an elegant dress and keeping my head held high.
Christopher spotted me from the far side of the crowded room and, perhaps feeling embarrassed by the judgey stares of his peers, quickly let go of Gwen’s arm.
He walked straight up to me, wrapped his hand firmly around my waist, and pulled me close to his side.
“You know that no single person in this world could ever truly take your place,” he murmured softly into my ear.
Then, right in front of Gwen, he leaned down and kissed me tenderly on the cheek.
Gwen forced a tight, polite smile for the crowd, but her eyes were burning with pure rage and jealousy.
Seeing her reaction made something clear inside me, so I decided to stop competing for a man who did not deserve me.
I stepped back and quietly began to execute a carefully calculated plan.
Later that same night, I overheard Christopher talking to his inner circle in a private lounge room upstairs.
“Of course I care about Gwen,” he explained to the men sitting around him. “But Lorelei is a completely different story, and I am mostly angry because she has started talking to her wealthy family again after all these years, especially since the Sterling family humiliated me for so long.”
My family had never approved of my decision to marry him in the first place.
My father had openly stated that Christopher did not love me for who I was, but rather loved everything he could gain through my family’s social standing.
Back then, I fiercely defended Christopher against my parents and deliberately distanced myself from them.
I agreed to get married in a simple civil ceremony without a grand party because he insisted he needed to consolidate his corporate position first.
Now, he was actively punishing me simply because I had chosen to reconcile and speak with my mother again.
“Gwen is just a temporary situation,” Christopher continued speaking inside the lounge. “I have already promised Lorelei that I will break off the affair eventually.”
As I stood near the hallway, I caught sight of Gwen standing behind the adjacent door frame, overhearing every word he said.
When she turned around in shock, she found me standing directly in front of her with a calm expression.
“Now you finally know your true place in his life,” I told her quietly before walking past her down the hall.
Her face turned pale, her confident demeanor completely shattering in an instant.
The very next morning, my hired private investigator received a set of very simple instructions from me: observe their every move, document everything thoroughly, and do not intervene under any circumstances.
I did not have to wait very long for results to materialize.
Gwen called Christopher thirty-nine times in a single evening while he was sitting next to me.
He finally picked up the phone when our private car was carrying us back toward our residential neighborhood.
“I lost my house keys!” she sobbed hysterically into the receiver. “There is a terrifying stranger standing in my hallway… I am so scared!”
A second later, she let out a loud scream over the line and abruptly hung up the phone call.
Christopher immediately ordered our driver to turn the car around and head straight to her luxury apartment complex.
I quietly got out of the vehicle at the next intersection without saying a single word to him.
Half an hour later, my investigator sent clear, high-resolution photographs of Christopher kissing Gwen on the staircase of her building.
I had the images printed out on high-quality paper immediately.
However, I did not post them online or send them to the press.
Instead, I had the physical photos delivered anonymously straight to Gwen’s private residence, along with old documentation proving their affair had been going on for three full years.
I knew with absolute certainty how her fragile ego would react to such information.
Gwen was a prominent lifestyle influencer on social media platforms.
Hundreds of thousands of young followers closely tracked her continuous travel updates, high-end restaurant visits, expensive clothing hauls, and supposed luxury lifestyle.
She published those exact photos on her official public profile that very same night.
“After three long years of hiding in the shadows, we can finally share our beautiful love story with the world,” her caption read.
The public scandal exploded across social media within minutes, creating a massive wave of intense corporate backlash.
Christopher arrived at our house in a state of absolute fury, slamming the front door behind him.
He smashed decorative flowerpots against the wall, threw expensive decorative objects, and violently knocked my phone out of my hand onto the hard floor.
“You are the one who posted those private photos!” he screamed at me, his face red with anger. “You are trying to destroy my entire career just because you are consumed by jealousy!”
With my leg throbbing painfully from where the heavy phone had struck me, I calmly retrieved the device and opened Gwen’s video page.
There was a fresh video uploaded just minutes earlier, showing Christopher fast asleep on the pillow right beside her.
His face instantly lost all its color as he stared at the playing screen.
“Lorelei… I swear I had not seen that video yet,” he stammered, his voice suddenly trembling.
He looked around the room, suddenly becoming aware of the physical destruction he had just caused in a fit of rage.
“Please forgive me,” he whispered, taking a step toward me with pleading eyes.
I did not offer him a single word of response.
Because while he was busy apologizing for his outbursts, my team of attorneys had already spent hours finalizing legal divorce papers that Christopher was convinced I would never have the courage to sign.
I still had to inform him of the exact condition under which I would grant him an easy, quiet divorce.
