CHAPTER 45: CHAPTER 45: MAKE A SCENE ALL YOU WANT, BUT DON’T BRING UP DIVORCE

Returned to the lab.

Victoria Sinclair spent the whole day in a daze, constantly making mistakes.

She overestimated her own determination and underestimated the impact Eugene Vaughn had on her.

Angela Austin and other colleagues all suggested she go home to rest, but she stubbornly refused.

Attempting to numb herself with work, the more she tried to busy herself, the more mistakes she made.

Helpless, she put aside her work and started studying in the office. Staring at the book, not a single word stuck, and she painfully endured until evening.

She walked alone on the streets at dusk, the hazy twilight shrouding her slender and exhausted body.

Her heart felt like it was weighed down by a heavy stone, unable to die, yet suffocating and hard to breathe.

Her steps were heavy, each one requiring all her strength; a mere ten-minute journey felt as exhausting as death.

Back home, she turned on the light.

It was as cold and quiet as ever, clean and tidy.

She dropped her backpack to the floor and collapsed onto the sofa, taking out her phone to browse trending topics online for the first time.

The trending topics no longer had any gossip about Eugene and Renee.

She deliberately searched for it.

The only video found showed Renee helping a staggering Eugene into a hotel.

That was all; no more videos.

Related videos showed a fire drill at the hotel this morning, with reporters being ushered out by employees, and customers running out, causing chaos.

In the end, nothing else was captured.

The scandal ended like usual, inconclusively, without closure.

And Renee immediately posted a statement on Weibo clarifying the video as a rumor.

With an emergency PR move, the incident was immediately downplayed.

It seemed even Eugene was not that easy to fall into the trap.

In Victoria’s eyes, these damage control measures were meaningless.

She put down her phone, lay sideways on the sofa, full of melancholy, with no energy to cook, nor did she feel hungry.

Unknowingly, she fell asleep.

In the dead of night.

Though tired, she was a light sleeper and felt something gently brush across her eye corner.

Startled, she opened her eyes.

Eugene, dressed in a simple white shirt and trousers, was sitting on the low coffee table in front of the sofa, elbows resting on his thighs, leaning toward her.

As if wiping away a tear from her cheek, his eyes were deep and dark, staring at the tear on his fingertip, he smirked and gently rubbed his fingers together.

Victoria got up from the sofa, flustered as she tidied her long hair and touched her wet cheeks.

Seeing him, the sour feeling in her heart intensified even more.

Eugene spoke with a slightly mocking tone, "Crying even in your sleep; what could make you, Victoria Sinclair, so sad and upset?"

Victoria lowered her head, continuing to wipe at her cheeks and the corners of her eyes, while the stone on her chest pressed heavier, nearly suffocating her.

She quietly exhaled, picked up her phone to check the time.

The screen showed 23:18.

Panic rose in her heart; she picked up her backpack from the floor, intending to go back to her room.

Eugene grabbed her wrist, "Answer me."

Victoria did not look directly at him, her cold tone soft and weak, "It’s work-related, I made several mistakes today."

Eugene let out a cold sneer, laughing self-mockingly: "You really don’t look at gossip news, but does your best friend not either?"

Victoria closed her eyes, mustering every effort to suppress the bitterness in her heart, yet she couldn’t stifle that sense of grievance, looked up with moist and reddened eyes, watery and gazing at him, "This morning, I called you, Renee answered."

Eugene calmly took out his phone, opened the call log, and looked through it for a while, "No record, it’s been deleted."

"I don’t need to look at hot searches, nor any gossip news." Victoria said with feigned calm, though her heart was bleeding, the pain making her voice tremble, "You have so many scandals, I don’t have time to search through them one by one."

Eugene frowned slightly, his expression darkening further, "This time it’s different from those usual staged tabloid shots."

"No difference, I’ve gotten used to it."

Eugene released her hand, his breath heavy, "Victoria Sinclair, your lack of crying and fussing is indeed reassuring, but also very annoying."

With that, he got up and walked out of the sofa.

If he disliked her, why remain trapped in this miserable marriage, torturing each other?

Victoria stood up as well, wiped away the tears from her eyes, her choked voice was incredibly firm: "Eugene, let’s get a divorce."

After she said those words, the air was deathly silent.

The oppressive atmosphere was like an invisible net, trapping the heart, making one want to struggle.

Such silence made Victoria uneasy.

But she was truly fed up.

She was just an ordinary, simple girl, living her life earnestly, who did she ever offend?

This kind of man, always surrounded by women, with constant flings and gossip, was not worth her love.

A marriage without sex or love was nothing to look forward to.

Whether she was someone else’s stand-in or not, the faded love and broken heart, at the moment he cheated with Renee, was completely dead.

Victoria stated firmly, word by word: "I really don’t want to continue with you."

Eugene turned to face her, his long fingers gently lifted her chin, meeting her eyes.

His eyes were deep and unreadable, hot and slightly reddened, his face was stern, but there was a cold smile on his lips, his voice soft, as gentle as water, "Victoria Sinclair, haven’t you already gotten used to it? Why can’t you take it this time? Is it because you feel sad, or disgusted?"

Victoria’s eyes were still brimming with tears, but she did not evade, staring back with watery eyes, "Disgusted."

Eugene sneered sarcastically, with a hint of something else: "It is quite a disgusting thing. But you will never understand what is truly torturous, what is heartbreaking agony, you only feel disgusted."

"I don’t understand what you’re talking about." Victoria didn’t comprehend the meaning behind his words.

She felt disgusted, but also pained and sorrowful.

As long as she stopped the loss in time, there would be no torture, let alone agony.

If she persisted, this marriage would truly become torture and agony.

Eugene released her chin, his hands in his trouser pockets, his demeanor as if they were chatting about the weather, neither warm nor cold, "You don’t need to understand, you only need to know one thing, if I wanted to let you go, I wouldn’t have gone to the civil affairs bureau two years ago to register our marriage, since we got married, I never planned on divorcing."

Victoria tightly clenched her fists, trembling slightly with anger, tears once again blurring her vision.

He used the word "let go."

What kind of hatred made him treat marriage as a cage, trapping her, unwilling to let her go?

If he didn’t love her, why disgust her like this?

"Marriage isn’t something you alone decide." Victoria said, calming herself, her attitude growing firmer, "There’s no affection between us, no marital relations, and now you’ve strayed; I have plenty of reasons to file for divorce in court."

Eugene, with damp and deep eyes, reached out and hooked the back of her head, pulling her close, speaking unprecedentedly gently, coaxing softly, "Victoria Sinclair, you can make any fuss, but don’t make a fuss about divorce. Emotions are such a fleeting thing, no one can understand them. As for marital relations, I can establish them at any time. As for the claim I cheated, it’s purely slander, baseless."

Victoria was momentarily dazed.

She had never seen such a gentle Eugene, making him seem unfamiliar to her.