She continued mobilizing more people to search for any trace of me.
Summer had never been away from me this long. Every day the little girl cried, demanding to find Daddy. So Lennox brought her to the secret room in the mansion, where all the memories between me and her were kept. From when we first met until now. Until the day I left.
She had wanted to open the secret room so many times. But each time, she looked at those photographs, then looked at the house now empty of my presence, and her heart felt like it was being sliced with a knife. A week passed. Missing me consumed her entire mind. She had to find some comfort in those old happy memories.
But when Lennox saw clearly, every photo had my part cut away. Her face immediately went deathly pale. She frantically searched through all the photos, flipping through each one like a madwoman, muttering non-stop. "Impossible. How could there be none? How could all his images just disappear?"
Summer picked up one photograph. The little girl remembered it was the family photo from last New Year's, when all three of us had posed together. But now only mother and daughter remained. My part had been cleanly cut away. The little girl immediately burst into sobs. "I want Daddy. Why isn't Daddy here anymore?"
Lennox immediately called all the household staff, questioning each one about who had touched the photos in the secret room. One servant answered, trembling, "Young miss, only you and the master can enter the secret room. We don't know the password, so we can't get in. Oh, that's right, I just remembered. When the master was still here, I think I saw him carry something out from the secret room. Then he gathered it up and burned it in the garden. It's just that the master told us not to interfere, so we don't know what he burned."
The servant's words struck like a blow straight to her heart.
The next second, Lennox seemed to remember something. She ran straight to the study, to the safe where our marriage certificate was kept. She tremblingly entered the password, opened the safe, but inside was completely empty.
Lennox let out a bitter laugh, tears falling drop by drop to the floor. In that moment she finally understood how much I hated her. Hated her so much that not even a single photograph or marriage certificate was left behind.
Aaron, how could you be so cruel to me?
A terrible thought suddenly appeared in her mind. Would I forgive them? Would I ever agree to come back?
A sudden chest-tearing pain struck. Lennox coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood, then collapsed, losing consciousness.
It had been exactly one month since I left this world. Lennox still hadn't found any news about me. She had someone restore all the photographs, then pasted them back in the secret room. Summer stopped going to school too, every day staying stubbornly in the secret room. At night when sleeping, the little girl had to hold my photo in her arms.
Lennox expanded the search radius. She even posted missing person notices online, hoping someone who'd seen me would report back. But netizens didn't know I left because of her betrayal.
Oh my God, did something happen to Mr. Grant? Or was he kidnapped?
I heard Miss Whitmore is about to lose her mind. Such a rare couple, loving each other like that.
I hope Miss Whitmore finds Mr. Grant soon.
Lennox constantly monitored the comments, afraid of missing any clue, but not a single person had seen me. The comments were all shades of regret and worry. No one knew the truth behind my disappearance. No one knew all this suffering originated from her. All were just praises for the love between me and my wife.
If it were before, when Lennox saw news like this she would have felt proud. But now in her heart remained only endless guilt, and even fear, because she understood clearly that if not for that moment of impulse, her Aaron would never have left.
The search for me grew more intense. And then a post on Twitter immediately exploded across the internet.
After Lennox fired Becket Thorne, sure enough, as she'd said, in the city he couldn't find any other work. No company dared hire him. He knew this was Lennox's way of forcing him to leave the city. But why? He had been the one to seduce her initially, yes. But if she couldn't control herself, how could he have succeeded? Ultimately, it was Lennox Whitmore's fault that drove Aaron Grant away. Why should he alone bear the consequences?
When he saw news about me spreading everywhere online, his bone-deep resentment immediately reached its peak, transforming into hatred. She was just some woman pretending to be devoted. What was there to worship about her? Since his own life was in ruins, she shouldn't expect to live peacefully either.
He posted everything between himself and Lennox, detail by detail, on the forum. Intimate photos taken when they went skiing. Lennox spending the night with him on their wedding anniversary. Even including how Summer had called him Daddy.
The moment the topic was posted, it exploded across the internet. Whitmore Corporation CEO Lennox had affair while married. Mr. Grant suspected to have left home. The trending searches were filled with keywords related to the Whitmore family.
Before, netizens had thought my disappearance was due to some incident. But when Becket Thorne's post was exposed, they realized it wasn't an incident at all. Clearly Aaron Grant had discovered Lennox's affair, and that Summer was calling the other man Daddy. So he left, heartbroken.
Lennox's pure love image collapsed. From a beloved national wife everyone admired, she became a despicable, unfaithful woman scorned by all.
Damn it, I used to idolize their fairy tale romance. Turns out she just couldn't control herself. And she had the nerve to make such a show of looking for him.
I think Aaron Grant's heart was truly shattered. He decided to have nothing to do with those two anymore. So he erased every trace before leaving it all behind.
Tragically, under public pressure, Whitmore Corporation's stock plummeted. The entire company fell into chaos. Yet the person who should have returned to Whitmore to manage the crisis, Lennox, was now completely unreachable.
She sat in a bar, downing one glass of hard liquor after another. Only like this could she, in her drunken dreams, see once more Aaron, the person who'd once loved her so deeply.
A regular playboy at the bar, seeing Lennox drinking alone in the corner, felt his eyes light up. Before, whenever Lennox came to the bar, she'd never allowed other men to approach. She'd said if her husband found out, he'd be furious. Once, someone didn't believe Lennox truly wouldn't touch other men, so they specially called over a group of high-quality men for her to choose from. Lennox had exploded right there on the spot, cracking open Jared South's head. The contract about to be signed also went up in smoke. Since then, no one in the industry dared bring men near her. Everyone at the bar knew this rule of hers. No man dared approach her.
But now the news about Lennox's affair with her male assistant was making noise everywhere, creating chaos all over social media. Everyone knew that Lennox, who'd once loved me like life itself, had long had another man behind the scenes.
Faced with such a golden opportunity walking around, that playboy couldn't contain himself. He thought, if Lennox could sleep with her assistant, maybe she'd notice him too. He smoothed his hair, then walked over to sit beside Lennox, his voice suggestive as he called out, "Miss Whitmore, why are you drinking alone? How about I keep you company tonight?"
The implication in his words was crystal clear. This playboy had never lacked admirers. He confidently thought that even if he couldn't get her into bed tonight, at least he could exchange contact info with Lennox.
But he never expected that before his hand could even touch her, Lennox shoved him away with obvious disgust. The playboy refused to give up, his body slowly leaning back in, pressing close to Lennox's ear to whisper, breathing out the smell of alcohol. "Miss Whitmore, your husband isn't here anyway. Isn't being alone so lonely? Why don't we spend one night together?"
He had no idea those words hit Lennox's trigger point. She spun around immediately, wrapping both hands around his throat. "My husband will definitely come back. He will come back."
The man just felt like he couldn't breathe, desperately striking at her hands. But Lennox's grip only tightened, until other people in the bar noticed and ran over to restrain her before she'd let go.
Lennox's face was frost cold, staring down at the ground, looking at the playboy gasping for breath. "Don't let me see your face again."
The man hurriedly crawled away, fleeing. After leaving Lennox's line of sight, he cursed angrily under his breath. "Don't know how many times she slept with that assistant. Still putting on airs like some virtuous woman."
Lennox, reeking of alcohol, returned to the secret room in the mansion. Looking up at the wall covered with evidence of past happiness, she dropped to her knees with a thud.
"Aside from you, I'll stay away from every other man. Won't let anyone come near me. Can you please come back? I truly know I was wrong."
The room echoed with choked sounds. Lennox was now like a lost child, unable to find home, clutching our wedding photo tightly in her hands, tears endlessly streaming from the corners of her eyes, her mouth still muttering that she knew she was wrong.
Too bad that belated repentance, no one could hear it.