Chapter 2

In my last life, I had indeed lost completely. But this time, I wouldn't let history repeat itself.

A while later, my phone lit up—it was a message from my colleague Michael Collins.

Michael: [Ethan, Janice told me about what's going on. She knows she's in the wrong here, but you also know how hard Lily's death hit her.]

Michael: [She's been making up for her guilt over Lily by looking out for Kevin. She said she'll clear your name once the academic evaluation is over. Can't you trust her?]

I stared at the message and couldn't help but laugh, though my eyes felt a little damp. It had been the same in my last life.

To force me to sign the agreement, Janice had asked all our mutual friends to persuade me to forgive her. But she'd forgotten that these people were my friends too.

Michael couldn't bear to see our relationship—once praised by everyone as the perfect match—fall apart. He'd tried to talk Janice out of risking everything for a trivial matter, while also acting as a go-between to convince me.

I was furious. I couldn't believe that she wanted to humiliate me like this.

Ethan: [All these years, she's put Kevin first in everything. I get she's guilty, and I've always tried to be understanding.]

Ethan: [But now, there are a hundred ways for her to clear this up, and she chose to sacrifice me, to throw away twelve years of our relationship.]

Michael hesitated to reply. Later, he told me what Janice had said at the time. "Someone has to make a sacrifice. I can only let Ethan down. He loves me—he'll understand why I had to do this," said Janice.

So, she thought that I deserved to be sacrificed just because I loved her. How ridiculous. Fortunately, this time, I still had a chance to fix everything.

Janice was always overly attentive when it came to Kevin.

We'd gotten our divorce certificate just the day before. The very next day, she'd arranged the Academic Committee hearing.

I was organizing data in the lab when Janice's assistant came to find me. "Professor Lincoln, Professor Woods sent me to pick you up for the hearing."

When I didn't respond right away, the assistant added, "Professor Woods said that even if not for her, please attend for the sake of your own academic reputation."

I sneered. Janice was threatening me again. She was afraid I'd back out at the last minute, trying to force me into compliance with the same tactics she'd used in my last life.

To protect Kevin, she'd been willing to ruin my research career. I'd always wondered—was I her partner or her enemy in Janice's heart?

Now she wanted to end our relationship publicly. That suited me just fine.

The car pulled into the university campus. The hearing was held in the lecture hall of the administration building. The entrance was already crowded with reporters and students.

Flashbulbs popped, and the air buzzed with noise. The assistant led me through the crowd and into the hall.

"Please make way," Janice's voice called from behind.

I turned around, and our eyes met. The moment they did, she looked away calmly, as if I were a stranger.

She and Kevin stood close, looking intimate—like nothing around them mattered, like they hadn't even seen me. I let out a quiet scoff.

"Professor Lincoln, are you and Professor Woods really divorced?" a student reporter asked, sounding nervous.

"Yes," I replied with a smile, nodding calmly.

The reporter seemed determined to find a flaw in my answer. "But you two have been together since college. You've co-published so many papers, and just last month, you even won the National Award for Scientific Excellence together..."

"She owed me that," I said, still smiling—but my eyes turned cold.

All because Kevin had said, "I want to study under Professor Woods until my postdoc." She'd removed me from our collaborative project; that award was her way of making it up to me.