Married to a Man Who Doesn't Understand the Silent Treatment

After three years of marriage to Chandler Goodwin, his wife believes his coldness is just part of his personality. She has spent their relationship apologizing for every conflict, assuming he simply doesn't understand emotional cues like the silent treatment. However, when she catches him desperately pleading for his assistant's forgiveness after less than an hour of silence, the truth emerges. It wasn't that he lacked emotion; he just never cared enough to coax her.

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Chapter 2

Amanda laughed at first, but when she realized that I was serious, the amusement on her face gradually changed to a pitying look.

Taking a sip of her coffee, she showed me the Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet on her wrist.

"Last month, Mr. Goodwin brought me along to a cocktail party. I didn't like the strong scent of alcohol wafting off him and complained a little. The next day, I found this bracelet on my workstation."

I paused in surprise. There was indeed a day last month when Chandler had imbibed quite a bit of alcohol, as when he returned home, his face had been completely red.

I was incredibly allergic to alcohol and would get rashes all over me with even a whiff of it, so I had voluntarily offered to sleep in the guest bedroom. That touched a nerve, and Chandler gave me the cold shoulder for an entire week straight.

"Then, there's this hair clip." Amanda unclasped the crystal hair clip on the back of her head. The Balenciaga diamonds embedded in them sparkled dazzlingly under the light. "Due to having to meet a client, Mr. Goodwin caused me to work three minutes overtime. He bought me this when he went to Faranga for a work trip."

Feeling a little dazed, I nodded.

My birthday had actually been a few days before Chandler's business trip to Faranga. One week before that, I had specifically reminded him to buy me a present. Besides that, three days before my birthday, I had even told him to set an alarm to wish me a happy birthday.

Yet, he had still forgotten.

In fact, when I confronted him about it, he had instantly exploded and spat out, "You know full well that I'm busy with work."

With that, he had stormed off coldly with his luggage for his business trip. Furious at him, I had given him the silent treatment for two whole weeks.

During the days when neither of us wanted to back down first, he had somehow still remembered to buy Amanda a hair clip.

The urge to laugh rose in me, yet my eyes were growing wet.

"Anything else?" I asked.

Amanda eyed me oddly, perhaps wondering why I was torturing myself so.

"Well… Your fight with Mr. Goodwin this time? You might be unaware, but the dress shirt you ruined was actually a gift from me to Mr. Goodwin. He had promised me to wear it when meeting his client."

Realization dawned on me when I heard that. I had been wondering why one destroyed dress shirt had been serious enough for him to move out.

Memories of last night flashed through my mind, of how I had been wiping away my tears while earnestly writing the apology letter.

"Chandler, I know I was wrong. Next time, I'll be even more careful when doing the housework. I'll definitely do it well. I'll buy you the same dress shirt, so please stop being mad at me, okay?"

Thinking back on it now, I found it all utterly hilarious.

No longer in the mood, I dipped my head at Amanda in a nod before leaving.

I now knew just how badly I had lost. At the same time, I finally decided just how my marriage to Chandler would end.

The fight this time was the perfect fuse.

…

After leaving the coffee shop, I headed straight to a law firm, where I paid extra to customize a divorce agreement.

While waiting for the lawyer, I happened to run into Chandler. It seemed like there was a problem with the company's legal team, so he was here to discuss a business collaboration.

Upon seeing me, Chandler instantly frowned. "Have you come to corner me here?"

He seemed to automatically assume that I was here to apologize, his gaze flicking to my bag.

"I don't have time to read your letter right now. Once I'm done with my work—"

"Ms. Lane, it's your turn."

At that moment, Adam Chance, the lawyer I was meeting, popped his head out of his office to beckon me inside.

I stood up, only for Chandler to grab my arm. "You're here for a lawyer?"

Continue to next part

Celebrating the third year of her marriage to Eanes Lambert, a woman is met not with romance but with her husband's public devotion to his childhood sweetheart. When she acknowledges their blatant social media post, Eanes lashes out, labeling her jealousy as petty. The disrespect peaks when the mistress sends a photo of them kissing. Instead of the usual confrontation, the wife chooses to walk away from the billionaire, finally granting him the freedom he clearly desires.

Billionaire Modern Romance

8.0

Flash Marriage To The Hidden Billionaire

8.0

My abusive step-family isolated me completely, holding my mother's medical funds hostage to control my every move. Yesterday, they finalized my sale. "You will marry Rudy Petrov next month. He is fifty, wealthy, and willing to overlook your lack of pedigree." Pushed to the absolute edge, I did the insane. I posted an ad online offering my life savings of $50,000 for a contract husband. A stranger named Brennan agreed. But my family wouldn't let me go. They forced me back for a dinner by threatening my mother's life-saving prescriptions. At the table, they relentlessly mocked my new "poor IT guy" husband and intentionally burned my hand with boiling tea. Worse, the housekeeper locked me in a guest room and forced drugs down my throat so Rudy could come in and assault me. I lay there paralyzed on the floor, bleeding from Rudy's slap, utterly terrified. I couldn't understand why my own family would throw me to the wolves, and I felt a crushing guilt for dragging an innocent, ordinary guy into my nightmare. Until a pitch-black Maybach smashed through the estate's wrought-iron gates at eighty miles an hour. My "poor" husband kicked the solid oak doors off their hinges, beat Rudy half to death, and carried me out into the rain. I didn't know it yet, but the ordinary man I hired to save me was a ruthless billionaire, and he was about to erase my family's entire empire by morning.

Billionaire Modern Romance

8.1

My Husband Gave Our Penthouse Key to His Ex

8.1

After three years of marriage, Olivia discovers her husband, billionaire Ethan, secretly gave his former lover the key to their private penthouse. This betrayal shatters her trust and forces her to confront the reality of their hollow union. As Ethan’s past flame begins to reclaim her place in his life, Olivia must decide whether to fight for a man who never let go of his history or finally walk away from the luxury and lies to find her own path.

Billionaire Modern Romance

7.7

Owned by the Ex

7.7

Silas Vane, a billionaire on the edge of ruin, needs his ex-wife's signature to save his tech empire-and June Ashby, his scorned orchard-owning ex, wants only one thing: to make him suffer. The deal is brutal, simple, and non-negotiable: Silas must move back to their small hometown, trade his silk suits for calloused hands, and work the orchard harvest for six months. Worse? He has to play her doting husband for the press-fake marriage, real contract, no room for error. What starts as a revenge-fueled game quickly spirals. As the sun dips below the orchard trees, old sparks reignite, and the line between fake and real blurs into something dangerous. Silas came to town for a patent to save his empire. But he might just walk away with a broken contract-and a heart completely owned by the woman who set out to destroy him.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.0

The Dying Billionaire's Secret Contract Wife

9.0

I stood in the ballroom of the Plaza Hotel, clutching a crystal flute of champagne that felt like a lead weight. It was my engagement party, the night I was supposed to be the happiest woman in New York. Then my phone buzzed with a link that shattered everything. I watched a video of my fiancé, Jed, tangled in the arms of my roommate while he laughed about how I was just a "boring, safe little girl" he needed to tolerate until my family's stock transfer went through. When I confronted him and walked out, I thought the nightmare was over, but my own father called me in a rage. He didn't care that I’d been betrayed; he only cared that the merger was the only thing keeping him from bankruptcy. He froze my bank accounts and left me with exactly forty-two dollars to my name. Jed started sending me threats, promising to leak private videos to the press if I didn't come back to him. I was penniless, homeless, and being hunted by a man who wanted to destroy my soul. Desperate, I took the only deal left on the table: a contract marriage to Hardin Hunter, a reclusive billionaire heir with terminal heart failure. The deal was simple: ten million dollars to be a "nurse with a ring" for six months until he passed away. I signed the papers and moved into his gothic manor, expecting to wait for a heart to stop beating. But when Hardin pinned me against a wall, his grip like iron and his pulse thundering with a strength no dying man should possess, I realized the "dying" heir was a lie. "You're not dying," I whispered, feeling the raw power of his heart against my hand. Hardin just looked at me with eyes like molten glass and said, "I might be a monster, Elsie, but I'm the only one who can keep you alive."

Billionaire Modern Romance

7.9

The Jilted Heiress: Rising From Betrayal

7.9

I woke up in a sterile hospital bed with the smell of antiseptic burning my throat, having just had my stomach pumped six hours ago. Before the sedatives even wore off, my mother called, not to ask if I was alive, but to demand I show up at my sister’s birthday gala in two hours. To her, I wasn't a daughter; I was a three-hundred-million-dollar signature needed for a corporate merger. She didn't care that I was suicidal, or that my fiancé, Franco, was currently at a luxury hotel with his "secretary" while I was hooked up to an IV. At the gala, the humiliation only deepened. I watched my fiancé walk in with his mistress, the air thick with her cloying perfume. When my grandmother’s "lost" emeralds—my rightful inheritance—spilled out of the mistress’s purse, my mother didn't flinch. Instead, she hissed at me to give them back to avoid a scene. My sister, the "perfect" golden child, took the stage and told the elite crowd that I was mentally unstable and "confused" due to my medication. I stood there, drenched in champagne and bleeding from a glass shard, while my own family gaslighted me in front of the world's press. Franco didn't even look at me as he shielded his mistress from the cameras, leaving me to stand alone in the wreckage of a life they had dismantled. I realized then that my parents didn't want a daughter; they wanted a pawn who wouldn't talk back. Why was my life worth less than a line item in a budget? How could a mother hand her daughter’s legacy to a mistress just to keep a contract intact? As my sister lunged at me in a fit of rage, I kicked her into the infinity pool and watched the "perfect" family mask finally shatter. I didn't wait for them to pull me down; I let the weight of my gown drag me into the dark water myself. Let them think the broken Kalea Alexander is gone. When I surface, I’m not coming back as a daughter—I’m coming back as their worst nightmare.

Billionaire Modern Romance

Married to a Man Who Doesn't Understand the Silent Treatment

Chapter 2

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