My husband, born without affection or love. Turns out, he just couldn’t feel it for me.
He found her in the slums–a mute girl with bruises on her skin and purity in her eyes. Emily Clark.
A living angel, he said.
The first person to make the mafia king Robert Johnson feel alive.
He thought he hid her well.
He didn’t.
I found out–and flipped the table at the Johnson family’s Christmas banquet. In front of a hundred guests. He didn’t even blink.
Instead, he wiped his hands clean, like I was dirt under his nails, and slid divorce papers across the table.
“Sarah Miller, sign it. The three private hospitals in D.C. are yours.”
I tore them apart. So he raised the stakes.
He pushed me off a pier. Blew up my family’s factories.
Then tied my parents to five motorcycles and said: “Sign, or watch them get ripped apart.”
I begged on my knees.
He smiled. And pulled the trigger. Their blood sprayed across my face.
“No… Stop!!”
And when I opened my eyes–I was back. Back to the day I first discovered Emily.
But this time, I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry.
That very night, I contacted a New Zealand vineyard to close joint accounts and file for divorce.
Only after I disappeared….
Did Robert finally go insane?
In my past life, I’d only seen Emily’s photo in Robert’s study.
Given a second chance, I wanted to see firsthand what magic this girl possessed–how she made an emotionless de-
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mon learn to care.
“John, relocate my parents to New Zealand within the week. I’ll join them soon.”
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After giving instructions, I called my lawyer to draft divorce papers. Then I went to the slum chapel where Emily
was.
Standing on tiptoe beneath a stained glass window leaking rain, she was using sign language to “tell” Bible stories to a group of grubby children.
Sunlight filtered through the shattered colored glass, dappling her figure with light–pure as an angel untouched by this world. No wonder… Robert was captivated.
“Look out-!” Suddenly, the aged chandelier overhead came crashing down!
I instinctively stepped back, but Emily lunged forward, shielding the children with her back against the falling iron frame.
Thud! A sharp hook tore through her shoulder, blood instantly soaking her white nun’s habit.
Yet she only frowned slightly, turning to sign at the terrified, weeping children: “Don’t be afraid. God catches all suf- fering.”
I stood frozen in place.
Her blood dripped onto the ground like crimson poppies blooming in snow.
Half an hour later, I bandaged her wounds in the makeshift clinic. Her paper–thin skin revealed faint blue veins be- neath, an old scar etched across her collarbone.
“This is…?”
She answered with sign language and a smile: “Got it from tin sheets as a kid. Doesn’t hurt.”
But I knew–slum kids just cauterized wounds with fire to stop bleeding.
Suddenly she grabbed my wrist, tracing words on my palm: “Your hands are shaking, sis.”
I jerked my hand away.
True enough. I was trembling–because in my past life, Robert used these very hands to press the button that dismem- bered my parents.
“Wait here.” I pulled the prepared check from my bag, pressing it into her palm. “One month. I’ll give you a better gift then.”
In one month, the divorce decree would be mine.
Emily shook her head, pushed the check back, and gestured: “Helping others shouldn’t be exchanged for money.”
Just then, her old phone vibrated. With just a glance, I recognized the number–Robert’s private line.
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She answered it, and a man’s deep, cold voice came from the other end: “Where are you hurt?”
Emily couldn’t hear, but the phone had a real–time text conversion feature. She lowered her head and typed a reply, but I saw her eyelashes flutter slightly and the tips of her ears turn red.
“I’m fine, it’s just a minor injury, no need to come…”
But from the other end came the roar of an engine. He really was a powerful man, to have eyes even here. Emily had just gotten injured when his call came.
But in his “eyes“, there only seemed to be Emily. Not me, his wife of ten years.
I gave a self–mocking smile.
The last time I was hospitalized for three days with a stomach hemorrhage, Robert only had his assistant send me a bouquet. The card read: “Don’t die in the hospital. I don’t have time to bury you.”
So it wasn’t about having no time–I simply wasn’t worth it.
“You go ahead with your work. I should leave.”
After estimating Robert had taken Emily away, I took the divorce papers to Johnson’s corporate headquarters.
“Madam, Mr. Johnson is in a meeting. Please wait a moment,” the secretary respectfully blocked my path.
A meeting? Yet I distinctly heard Emily’s voice.
The blinds weren’t fully drawn. Through the gap, I saw Emily perched on his leather office chair, dirt on her white dress, her feet dangling in faded canvas shoes.
And Robert–that man who wouldn’t flinch if stabbed through the heart–knelt on one knee, delicately using tweezers to remove a wood splinter from Emily’s palm, as if that tiny prick hurt him more than a knife wound.
“Ma’am…” The secretary stood awkwardly behind me.
I forced a smile. “It’s fine. When will he be available? I need his signature on some documents.”
The secretary took the divorce papers and discreetly slid them to the bottom of the contracts awaiting signatures. I thought Robert would hesitate at least, but he didn’t even glance before flipping to the last page to sign.
My hands trembled so violently I could barely hold the document when receiving it.
At fifteen, I learned I had a fiancé named Robert–born without pain receptors, emotionally detached, repulsed by any body heat.
He didn’t love me, but he loved no one. So I believed if I stayed obedient and patient enough, I’d eventually thaw this glacier.
I followed him like a shadow for ten years. But now, ten years of foolish dreams have finally ended.
Back home, I had the maid take the wedding dress to the backyard and burn it. Victoria Clark was puzzled: “Isn’t this your favorite wedding dress, Sarah?”
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Yes, I once treated this wedding dress as a trophy. At that time, I thought: Look, this heartless monster still became my husband in the end.
But now, it’s time to wake up from the dream.
“There will soon be a new mistress here, so this thing shouldn’t be an eyesore to her.”
