Chapter 2

Harrison didn’t even wait for me to explain.

His eyes locked onto the last life jacket in my hands.

“Emma’s whole life has already been ruined by that man.”

“And now she can’t even get a life jacket? Do you have to shove her all the way to her death before you’re satisfied?”

There was naked disgust in his voice.

“I wasn’t following you!” I shouted back, my eyes burning red.

Harrison let out a cold laugh and moved closer, step by step.

“Oh really? You weren’t following me? Then why’d you buy a ticket and get on this ship? Where exactly were you planning to go?”

“And what a coincidence—you just happened to book the very cruise where I’m the captain?”

I clutched my stomach and looked at him in despair.

“Because I’m pregnant! I came on board to surprise you!”

“Are you really going to sacrifice me and our baby for this woman?”

Harrison froze for a second.

Then his face twisted with ridicule as he yelled,

“Pregnant?”

“You’re so desperate to fight me for this life jacket, so desperate to compete with Emma, that you’d make up something that disgusting?”

“Sarah, you make me sick.”

Looking at his face—warped with anger—I felt cold all over.

I’d thought that, at the very least, hearing I was pregnant would make him pretend to care.

I never expected that in this life, he wouldn’t even bother pretending.

The second Harrison lost his temper, Emma went soft in his arms.

“Harrison, don’t be mad.” She took the chance to cling to his arm.

“Whether Sarah’s lying or not, that life jacket should’ve been hers.”

“I know I’m just some blacklisted person who couldn’t even legally buy a ticket.”

As she spoke, she weakly closed her eyes.

A tear fell with perfect precision onto the back of Harrison’s hand.

“I don’t deserve to live.”

“As long as you remember me forever, that’s enough.”

That fake self-sacrificing performance pushed Harrison completely over the edge.

He looked down at the woman in his arms, eyes full of pain.

Then he whipped his head around and charged straight at me without a second thought.

He grabbed the last life jacket in my hands and yanked hard.

The force sent me stumbling to the ground.

My body slammed against the slanted deck, and a sharp ache shot through my abdomen.

But he didn’t even look at me.

He quickly strapped the life jacket onto Emma.

Emma, of course, grabbed the straps and made a show of trying to take it off.

She looked at me with just the right amount of guilt, her voice trembling on cue.

“No, Harrison, give it back to Sarah.”

“She just said she’s pregnant. I can’t be the reason something happens to her baby.”

Harrison clamped down on her hand at once, his eyes reddening with distress.

“Don’t listen to her nonsense.”

“Sarah, you’ve always been tough. If you stay on the ship, I’m sure you can hold out until rescue comes!”

“But Emma’s too fragile. She’ll die without it!”

With that, he locked an arm around Emma’s waist and ran for the escape passage without looking back.

I struggled up from the freezing deck.

Watching them run, all I could think was how laughable these past few years of marriage had been.

By then, seawater was already pouring in like mad.

The lower escape route had been completely blocked.

The ship was tilting violently. To keep from being thrown by the waves, I had to cling to the handrail with all my strength.

Step by step, I was forced backward until I stumbled into the captain’s private lounge on the top deck, its door hanging wide open.

After we got married, I’d wanted to see this room more times than I could count.

But Harrison always snapped at me, saying it involved confidential navigation matters.

He made it crystal clear: family members were absolutely forbidden inside.

And now, with the door standing open, I finally saw what was really in there.

On the sofa and the bed were piles of Emma’s designer bags and personal belongings, out in plain sight.

The cabin suddenly lurched hard.

A drawer slammed open.

A thick photo album fell to the floor, and pictures scattered everywhere.

I looked down—and my vision blurred instantly.

Spread all over the ground were intimate photos of Harrison and Emma kissing.

The sunset in Santorini. A beach in Venice. The port of Marseille...

Every one of them was a place Harrison had reached during these past few years at sea.

Places he had once lovingly described to me over video calls.

I remembered him staring into the camera, telling me how sorry he was that we couldn’t stand by the ocean together.

The irony hit so hard it nearly drowned me. My chest hurt like it was being ripped open.

So while he was whispering sweet words to me through his phone, Emma had been curled up in his arms the whole time.

This hadn’t been some exhausting, miserable voyage at all.

It had been a paid-for world tour—using his position to take his one true love on a romantic vacation.

And me?

I was just the idiot left at home, easy to fool, easy to brush aside.

The icy seawater had already climbed past my ankles.

But no matter how cold it was, it still couldn’t compare to the chill in my heart.

I watched the glaring photos on the floor get swallowed one by one by the dark incoming tide.

Pressing a hand to my aching stomach, I felt all hope drain out of me.

Slowly, I closed my eyes.