The Times We Had

After my husband's death, I retained all his personal accounts and our marriage certificate.

Since then, Chuck Smith had been wooing me persistently, declaring that he would give me all his love to overcome the pain of loss.

He would search the entire city for some sweets that I mentioned on a whim, and he deleted every woman's number from his phone while keeping me updated on his location in real time.

But just as his feelings reached me, and I was ready to marry him, I found Chuck getting frisky with his new secretary in the basement parking lot…

"Ms. Adams, are you sure you want to deactivate your ex-husband's accounts? Even your marriage to him will be considered annulled."

Lisa Adams smiled faintly at the question. "Yes, I have found someone I want to start a new life with."

The clerk saw the determination in her eyes and nodded as she finished the procedure to deactivate Hank Locke's user accounts.

Later, as Lisa left the Civil Affairs Bureau, she was holding two revoked marriage certificates and a thin sheet that stated that all of Hank's accounts were to be disabled.

With that done, she returned to the office when she spotted a familiar car in the underground parking lot.

It belonged to Chuck Smith, her current husband.

When he returned five years ago, Chuck wasn't aware of Hank's passing and simply presumed her first love had just dumped her.

After that, he ignored anything anyone said and chased after Lisa for two years—listening to her in everything she said, while guarding her like a loyal knight.

When he knelt on one knee before her, she was entranced as she recognized the affection in his eyes and agreed to his proposal.

When she came to her senses, she realized that she was still registered as married to Hank.

But as she spent more time together with Chuck day after day, even she had to admit that she couldn't stop falling for him.

In between confusion and hesitation, she pulled strings with connections in the government to get a fake marriage certificate with Chuck.

It was something she had always felt guilty about, until today—when she made up her mind to deactivate all of Hank's personal accounts and marry Chuck for real.

Still, just as Lisa was about to get closer to Chuck's car, the man who loved her so fiercely was quickly getting into the car with a pretty face.

As if by instinct, Lisa hid behind a corner where the two could not see her.

The woman then pouted with clear envy. "Can't we go out again next week? All you do these days is spend time with that hag. I mean, she's almost thirty years old soon—or does she taste better than I do?"

Chuck smacked her waist as he looked at her curves pointedly. "How does she even compare? She falls asleep as soon as she comes home from work, and she's such a bore in bed."

Lisa's mind went blank even as she listened to the familiar voice. There was no mistaking it—it was definitely Chuck.

Her fingers trembling, she swiped through their chat history.

Chuck always updated her about his whereabouts and what he was doing on a daily basis, and the last one was two hours ago, with a photo of a meeting attached to it.

The two captions beneath were at once playful and aggrieved.

[I don't want to work. It just gets so tiring.]

[But I can't have my darling think the worst of me! I'll keep doing my best!]

Lisa stared at the messages, while Chuck and the woman kept flirting in the car, until Chuck did something and the woman suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, you naughty boy! We're still out in public!"

Chuck simply chuckled, his voice suddenly deeper as he panted, his hand reaching behind the woman's back and caressing every inch of it.

The car lights turned on even as their voices became muffled with the door closing, but the car never drove out of the parking lot.

Lisa stayed hidden behind the corner, unable to breathe.

She couldn't believe what she had just seen—her mind hardly registered it.

Her beloved husband, who supposedly loved her wholeheartedly and whose eyes seemed to be glued to her all the time, was getting frisky with another woman in the basement parking lot?

And judging from their conversation, the trysts had started long ago…

Nausea seized Lisa even before her nerves registered it, while she tried her best to suppress the urge to vomit and not look at the car that was rocking repeatedly now.

It was a bolt out of the blue.

Eventually, Lisa dialed Chuck's number with trembling fingers.

The call was quickly answered, and she asked bluntly, "Where are you?"