Category: English

Declan posted a video of me, fresh from the shower in just a towel, to a group chat. It was a chat filled with all the rich kids who’d ever tried to hit on me. And Declan, of course, was the prettiest of them all. [Damn, Dec. What’s the Ice Queen really like? Give us a taste.] [He’s taking one for the team. Seducing the valedictorian to get revenge for Chloe.] [Cold-blooded, man. Telling her he has cancer right before finals. I saw her in the hall, her eyes were all red.] [Break up with her right after the exams.] I heard Declan send a voice memo. His tone was lazy, bored—nothing like the weak, pitiful act he used with me. I’d been skipping class, running to the hospital, my grades plummeting. He’d be lying there, looking pale and perfect, holding a faked hospital report. “Elara,” he’d whisper, his eyes full of “love,” “I’m so sorry. I’m dragging you down. Stop spending money on me.” He knew I was broke. He was waiting for me to give up. Instead, I pulled out another $30,000 for his “treatment.” A new message popped up in the chat. [That bastard! He’s just a pretty face! Why would Elara fall for him?!] [She sold her condo for him! It was the only thing her mom left her!] [Liam, did you ever tell her the truth?!] [OH MY GOD, YOU IDIOT! DECLAN IS IN THIS CHAT! DELETE THAT! DELETE IT!] The messages vanished, one by one. On the hospital bed, Declan’s face went as white as the sheets. 1. School was never hard. I’ve been top of my class my whole life. I also got my mother’s looks. Aside from being broke, I was the perfect package. When I was in middle school, my mother married a tech mogul. She left me a debit card and a forwarding address. “Don’t contact me,” she said. “I’ll send money once a year.” She was telling her new world she was single, and I was a loose end. I just took the card. I told everyone I was an orphan. I was born with a low emotional frequency. My mother didn’t like me. She wanted a daughter who would call her “Mommy,” even if it was a stepdaughter. Her Instagram was soon full of a girl named Chloe—the mogul’s daughter. In every picture, Mom was hugging her, and Chloe was forcing a pouty, miserable smile. It was the first time someone else’s fake smile had ever bothered me. My life was boring. My only hobby was finding people who could make me feel something. So I cashed in some bonds my grandmother left me, bought a small condo in the district for Greenwood High, and enrolled. 2. Just as I suspected, Chloe hated me on sight. She and her little clique made my life hell. I ignored it. Then, the week before district midterms, I stopped going to school. Greenwood High has been living in the shadow of Northwood High for years. My test scores were their only hope of winning. When my homeroom teacher called, I put a tremor in my voice. “Ms. Allen? I was wondering… could I transfer classes?” “Transfer?” She heard the “problem” immediately. “Elara, is someone bothering you? You can tell me.” “No,” I whispered. “It’s just… I don’t think I fit in.” I hung up, my face smoothing back to its usual calm. I’ve never been a good person. I just believe in payback. Two days later, I was called back to the school. Ms. Allen had spent a whole day reviewing security footage. She found two months’ worth of Chloe pushing, tripping, and harassing me. It went straight to the principal. Chloe had to give a tearful, sobbing apology during the morning announcements. She was humiliated. And she hated me for it. “It’s all her fault!” I heard her screeching to a guy outside a coffee shop. “If she wasn’t some stupid genius, the teachers wouldn’t protect her!” “Liam! Are you going to help me or not?!” The guy, tall and handsome, pulled her into a hug. “Shh, stop crying. Declan and I will take care of it.” “How?” “We’ll get someone to rough her up, take some pictures, and post them. Let’s see how ‘high and mighty’ she is then.” The guy, Liam, laughed. “She’s just some poor-kid overachiever. Don’t worry, Chloe. We’ll teach her a lesson. We’ll have her on her knees, licking your shoes.” 3. Suddenly, my boring life was fascinating. A lot of very rich, very good-looking guys started trying to be my “friend.” “Elara, I know this great Michelin-star spot. Let me take you,” Liam said, leaning against my locker. He was tall, maybe 6’1″, with the easy charm of a professional player. He was Chloe’s cousin. He was very public about his “crush.” Since he was the only guy I ever bothered to reply to, the whole school thought we were dating. My teacher, Ms. Allen, called us both into her office. Liam’s homeroom teacher was there, looking furious. “Liam, you need to focus on your own work,” he snapped. “Your grades are terrible. Stop distracting other students. And your father and I agree, this ‘art’ thing isn’t a career. Your portfolio is a mess.” Liam’s hands clenched. His teacher kept going. “Just leave Elara alone. You’re dragging her down.” “He’s not,” I said. The room went silent. “He’s not a distraction,” I said, my voice flat. “I’ll still be number one.” 4. Liam’s pursuit was… basic. He sent bags I didn’t want and offered money. If he’d been after my mother, it would’ve worked. I’d seen her fall for it a dozen times. I finally told him, “Your grades are too low.” “Ouch,” he said. “Not all of us are geniuses, Elara.” “But your art is good,” I said. He froze. The lazy smile dropped. “You… you think so? My teachers say I’m just messing around.” “I don’t.” He started complaining, telling me his family wanted to send him abroad, that they hated his painting. I cut him off. “I have to go home.” A real player would know: never show your weakness to a girl who isn’t in love with you. “Elara, wait. Do you… want me to teach you?” Liam’s eyes were his best feature—dark, heavy-lidded, a professional heartbreaker’s eyes. I like beautiful things. “Your eyes are beautiful,” I said, smiling. “Teach me to draw your eyes.” He blushed. His hand actually trembled. He was still just a teenager. I looked at his drawing, then at my own pathetic attempt. “I guess I have no talent.” “You’re… really cute, Elara,” he stammered. I put the brush down. “It’s dirty. I don’t like things that are dirty. Men included.” His face paled. He looked at my eyes, then at his new drawing. He had sketched my eyes. Calm, empty, and totally devoid of love. He left in a hurry. I saw Chloe watching from the end of the hall, her eyes full of venom. Liam’s “precious” paintbrush was on the floor. I picked it up and dropped it in the trash. Time for the next one.

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Chapter 1 Ethan and I were together for seven years, from high school sweethearts to walking down the aisle. He proposed at our graduation ceremony, promising to treat me like the happiest princess in the world. And after we got married, he did. I had unlimited access to his bank accounts, the villa was in my name, and when my little brother needed a heart transplant, he paid the $500,000 surgery fee without blinking. Everything was perfect. Until she appeared. Lily. A scholarship student Ethan sponsored. She came from a remote mountain village and was frugal to the point of obsession. Ethan found her penny-pinching adorable. He even handed over our household finances to her. On the day of my brother’s surgery, Lily secretly swapped the matching donor heart for a pig heart. After the surgery failed and my brother died, she blinked her big, innocent eyes at me and said, “What’s the difference between a human heart and a pig heart, anyway? They both beat.” “$500,000 is way too expensive. I saved that money so Ethan could buy a new car. Isn’t that better?” I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I quietly handled my brother’s funeral. Then, I took my bodyguards and kidnapped Lily. She was terrified, screaming and struggling. “What are you doing?! Let me go! Ethan won’t let you get away with this!” I wore a black dress, my face pale as paper, my eyes cold as ice. Looking down at Lily, pinned to the ground, I spoke softly, my voice devoid of emotion but filled with a chilling resolve. “Break every bone in her body. One by one.” The bodyguards obeyed. The heavy thud of clubs hitting flesh mixed with Lily’s agonizing screams and the sickening crack of breaking bones echoed in the empty warehouse. I don’t know how long it went on. Suddenly, the warehouse door was kicked open. Ethan’s tall silhouette appeared in the doorway, backlit by the sun. Seeing the scene, his face went pale. “Stop! What the hell are you doing?!” The bodyguards froze. Ethan rushed in, his eyes immediately landing on the curled-up, bloodied figure of Lily on the floor. Pain and fury flashed in his eyes. He grabbed my wrist, squeezing so hard I thought he’d break it. “Sarah! I know you’re grieving for Sam!” Ethan’s voice shook with suppressed rage. “But Lily didn’t mean it! She grew up poor, she’s just too frugal! She saw the price tag and got confused! Her intentions were good! You have to understand her background, respect her lifestyle!” “Respect?” I laughed. It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. I looked at the man who once loved me more than life itself. Tears streamed down my face as I laughed. “Ethan, you’re talking to me about respect?” I yanked my hand away and pointed at Lily. My voice trembled with pure rage and grief. “Since she came into our house, we’ve eaten stale leftovers every day because she thinks fresh food is too expensive. I buy a jar of face cream with my own money, and she nags me for three days about waste. And now… she killed my only brother! You want me to respect her? Today, either I die, or she dies! There is no third option!” Ethan frowned, about to speak, when Lily let out a pained moan from the floor. “Ethan… it hurts… so much…” That single cry tilted Ethan’s heart completely to her side. He looked at me with disappointment and impatience. “Even if you’re angry, this isn’t how you vent! Guards! Lock my wife in the basement freezer! Let her cool off!” Pain ripped through my chest. I glared at him in disbelief. “Ethan! You wouldn’t dare!” Ethan sneered, his handsome face colder than I’d ever seen. “Watch me. Lily might not be a rich heiress like you, but she has me backing her now! You hurt her, you pay the price!” The guards moved to grab me. “Wait!” Lily suddenly gasped, weak but determined. Despite her pain, she looked worried. “Ethan, the freezer… uses too much electricity. We have to save energy.” Ethan looked at her helplessly, his tone softening. “Don’t worry, it won’t cost much.” “No!” Lily insisted, even managing a pouting tone. “You said you’d listen to me! Electricity costs money! Every penny counts!” Ethan looked at her pale face and sighed, giving in. “Fine. Whatever you say. How should we punish her then?” Lily furrowed her brow, pretending to think innocently. “Hmm… I saw an old tractor at the junkyard today that still works. Why don’t we tie Sarah behind the tractor and drag her? That doesn’t use electricity, and she can feel the pain of broken bones like I did. Two birds with one stone!” I snapped. I screamed, “Ethan! Don’t you dare! I’m Sarah! Your wife! We grew up together! You promised to protect me forever!” But Ethan just glanced at me coldly and ordered the guards, “Do as Lily says.” I was dragged out of the warehouse and tied to the back of a rusted tractor. The engine roared to life, deafeningly loud, and the machine lurched forward. The rough concrete instantly shredded my clothes and skin. Gravel embedded itself in my flesh, sending searing pain through my body. I was dragged, my body leaving a long trail of blood. I screamed his name. “Ethan! Ethan, look at me! Look at who I am!” But the man who once cherished me was carefully lifting Lily into his car, gently wiping her wounds, not sparing a single glance for his tortured wife. Chapter 2 Excruciating pain and humiliation blurred my consciousness. Before darkness took me completely, memories flooded back like a tidal wave. Ethan and I were true childhood sweethearts. Since we were kids, Ethan followed me around like a puppy, declaring to any boy who came near, “Sarah is mine!” Everyone said Ethan couldn’t live without me. On my twentieth birthday, under a rain of cherry blossoms, Ethan proposed. He said, “Sarah, I can’t wait anymore. I want to marry you and tie you to my side forever.” After marriage, he spoiled me even more. He’d drive across the city at midnight just because I mentioned craving pastries from a specific bakery. When I was sick, he’d drop everything to stay by my bedside. Every anniversary was a carefully planned surprise, ending with him kissing away my tears of joy. I thought we’d grow old together, the envy of everyone we knew. But in our seventh year, I noticed changes. Lemon candies—which I hated—started appearing in his pockets. Cheap hair ties were on his wrist. And… in moments of intimacy, he’d whisper a stranger’s name—”Lily.” I was devastated. I investigated and found a girl named Lily. Ethan had met her once and immediately taken her under his wing, showering her with care. Digging my nails into my palms, I prepared to confront her. But the day I left the house, I was hit by a car and woke up in the hospital. Ethan stood by my bed. His first words weren’t of concern, but of weary blame: “Sarah, I didn’t want to hit you. But I hope you won’t go trouble Lily.” My blood ran cold. He caused my accident? Just to stop me from confronting her? I stared at the man I thought I knew. “What is she to you?” Ethan rubbed his temples, annoyed, but finally confessed. “I wanted to hide it from you forever, but since you know… I fell in love with Lily at first sight. I like her. A lot.” He said “like” with more intensity than he ever showed when proposing to me. My heart felt torn apart. “You like her?! What about me? What about our twenty years together?!” Ethan was silent for a moment, then spoke calmly, cruelly. “Sarah, we grew up together. You were too perfect, like the moon. My feelings for you were probably just a desire to conquer, to own you. I mistook that for love. Until I met Lily. She’s so pure, so real. That’s when I understood true love.” “It’s my fault. I married you before understanding my own heart. So, as long as you don’t hurt Lily, you can stay Mrs. Vance. You’ll have the status you deserve.” He turned and left without looking back. Lying in that hospital bed, I felt like I had fallen into an ice cave. I thought it was a nightmare. A joke. But Ethan’s pursuit of Lily became public. Everyone gossiped about how he spent a fortune to make her smile, surpassing even his treatment of me. To reassure Lily, who felt “unworthy,” he moved her into our home and gave her control of our finances. Once Lily arrived, our home changed. Everything was measured by her extreme frugality. Life became chaotic and miserable, until… it led to my brother’s tragic death. The pain of being dragged brought me back to reality. As my consciousness faded, one thought burned in my mind like a poisoned vow— Ethan, I will never love you again. Never. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, my body screaming in agony. The room was empty. I struggled to sit up and discharged myself, expressionless. In the hallway, nurses whispered. “That Miss Lily in VIP is so lucky. Mr. Vance watched over her all night without blinking.” “Yeah, just a scratch, and he acted like it was fatal. Meanwhile, his wife is practically broken, and she’s all alone…” “Fate is cruel. They used to say he doted on his wife. Guess it’s out with the old, in with the new.” My heart stung, but I had no tears left. I went straight to a law firm. I pulled an old document from my bag and handed it to the lawyer. “I want a divorce.” It was a prenuptial agreement I jokingly made Ethan sign years ago. I had said, “Ethan, I don’t tolerate betrayal. If you ever wrong me, I will leave without looking back. You’ll lose me forever. Even if you kneel and beg, even if you kill yourself, I won’t come back.” Ethan had hugged me, laughing, kissing the top of my head. “That day will never come. We’ll never need this.” Now, everything had changed. And the agreement was finally being used. Chapter 3 The lawyer reviewed the document, confirmed the signatures, and declared it valid. Legally, after a one-month cooling-off period, if neither party withdrew, the divorce would be final. Regret? I smiled coldly. My only regret was not seeing through this man sooner and marrying him. I returned to the cold villa. Ethan didn’t come home for days. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t shed another tear for him. I started purging the house of Ethan. Photos, gifts, his clothes—everything went into the trash. I quietly packed my own things. Finally, Ethan returned with Lily, who was “recovered.” Seeing me, Ethan spoke flatly, with a hint of blame. “Sarah, Lily was hospitalized for a week because of you. This ends here. She feels guilty about Sam’s death, but we can’t bring him back. I bought him the best plot in the cemetery as compensation.” Lily walked in then. “Yes, Sarah, I’m sorry about your brother. But honestly, spending that much money on surgery was unnecessary. Five hundred thousand dollars? That could feed my whole village for a lifetime! Where I come from, if someone gets a disease that expensive, they just jump in the river to save their family the burden.” I dug my nails into my palms, using the pain to stay calm. “Are you done? If you’re done, move.” I didn’t want to waste words on them. Lily stepped forward. “Actually, there is something. You put me in the hospital, so I couldn’t buy discounted vegetables all week. We wasted so much money. We need to make it up. I know a spot by the river outside the city with lots of fish and shrimp. We can catch them and save on groceries for a month.” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Lily! That’s a Buddhist release pond! People buy animals to set them free for good karma! If we get caught…” Lily interrupted, self-righteous. “Animals are for eating! Releasing them is a waste of money! It’s stupid!” She grabbed my arm. “Let’s go!” I yanked my arm back. “I’m not going! I have money! I don’t need to save on groceries! Get out!” Ethan’s eyes turned cold. “Sarah, you are the heiress, yes. But you are also my wife. And don’t forget, your parents are gone, your brother is gone. I’ve been managing your family’s business. I am your only support! In this house, what I say goes!” My only support… The pain was unbearable. I remembered when my parents died, Ethan kneeling before their graves, vowing to protect me forever… Now, he used that against me. I shook, holding back tears. “If I refuse, will you kill me?” Ethan’s lips thinned. “I won’t kill you. But… I can’t guarantee Sam’s grave will stay peaceful.” I stared at him, horrified. “Ethan! What did you say?!” The man who said he couldn’t live without me was threatening my dead brother’s grave? Ethan looked away. “Sarah, just be sensible. Accept reality. Get along with Lily. Listen to me.” Devastated and threatened with my brother’s resting place, I had no choice but to submit. He was right. Grief-stricken and focused on Sam’s illness, I had ignored the family business. Ethan had taken over, merging our companies and becoming a tycoon. My assets were tied to him. I had no control. If I fought now, I’d lose everything. I had to endure until the divorce was final. Then I could take my share and leave. Ethan intended to come with us, but Lily stopped him. “Ethan, go to work! Your time is worth thousands a minute! Catching shrimp isn’t worth your time! Go make money!” Ethan agreed helplessly. Before leaving, he warned me, “Sarah, Lily just recovered. Take care of her.” My heart died completely in that moment. Chapter 4 Lily dragged me to the mountain behind a busy temple. Seeing the signs—”Release Pond,” “Infinite Merit”—I realized this was her “free seafood” spot. Lily jumped into the shallow water and started grabbing fish and turtles people had just released. “Lily! This is sacrilegious! If people see us…” “Food is food!” she retorted. “Buying this just to throw it back? Wasteful! Idiots!” She grabbed more. I turned to leave. Too late. Worshippers saw us. “Hey! What are you doing?! Those are sacred lives!” A crowd gathered, surrounding us, cursing us for our “sins.” An elder stepped forward. “You have desecrated this place. You must atone! Either kneel and bow every step up the 999 stairs to the temple to ask for forgiveness, or donate $100,000 in merit money!” I opened my mouth to pay, but Lily shrieked. “$100,000?! Are you crazy?! Robbery!” She grabbed me. “Come on! Let’s kneel! I’m not paying that!” I shook her off. “I’ll pay! Leave me out of it!” Lily held on tight. “No! We didn’t catch anything, and now we pay? No way! Money is more important than life! Sarah, you rich girls don’t know hardship! You have a lot to learn from me!” I raised my hand to slap her. Lily stepped back and pulled out her phone. “Don’t! If you don’t kneel, I call Ethan! See what happens to your brother’s grave!” My hand froze in mid-air, then dropped. Humiliated and trapped, I gritted my teeth. Under the scornful gaze of the crowd, I followed Lily, kneeling and bowing up the 999 stone steps. Knees on stone, forehead on dirt. Every movement was pain and shame. By the time we finished, we were bloody and exhausted. The crowd finally let us go. It was dark. Lily, refusing to spend money on a cab, insisted we walk home. I was in agony. I walked to the road to hail a taxi. Lily rushed to stop me. “No taxis! Too expensive! Walk! It’s good exercise!” “Let go!” I struggled. We fought on the shoulder of the road. Lily yanked my injured arm. I screamed in pain and shoved her away. Lily stumbled and let go. But the momentum threw me backward, straight into the middle of the road! Headlights blinded me. Tires screeched. Impact. I flew through the air, slamming onto the asphalt. Vision fading, the last thing I saw was Lily’s panicked but unrepentant face, and the cold city lights in the distance.

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I came back to the States after six months in a leadership program in London to find a mascot had taken over my family’s company. She didn’t do a damn thing. Just lounged in her workstation, scrolling through TikToks and playing games on her phone, yet she was pulling in a salary of a hundred thousand dollars a month. I was about to lay into her when my father’s assistant, Linda, pulled me aside, her voice a hushed, nervous whisper. “Ms. Ross, you don’t understand. This girl, Kiki… she’s got a gift. On days she laughs out loud, our stock price jumps a full point.” “When we’re negotiating with a client,” she continued, her eyes wide, “if she’s the one who prints the contract, the deal always closes.” “She’s the company’s good luck charm, a walking fortune. Your father adores her. Please, don’t make an enemy of her.” I don’t believe in fairy tales. I revoked her privileges, put her on the same performance plan as every other junior employee, and slashed her salary to match her title. The next day, the company went bankrupt. The shock sent my father to the hospital with a massive heart attack. My mother, hysterical, dragged me into the car to go beg Kiki to come back. We never made it. A truck blew through a red light. There was nothing left to bury. When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I did was fire her. Because that monster could not be allowed to win. 1 The office, a space that should have been humming with focused work, was polluted by the tinny sound effects of viral videos and the overpowering stench of microwaved fish and stale popcorn. Kiki was practically horizontal in her custom ergonomic recliner, kicking her feet in the air and roaring with laughter, completely oblivious to the world around her. The few employees trying to hold a meeting nearby were whispering, terrified of disturbing her. My face was a mask of cold fury as I walked up to her, just like last time. “Is this your idea of a professional attitude?” Kiki barely glanced at me, just rolled her eyes before her attention snapped back to the screen. Her posture screamed one thing: And who the hell are you? “Ms. Ross! Over here, quickly!” My father’s assistant, Linda, scurried over, her expression just as panicked as it was in my memory. She pulled me aside, feeding me the exact same lines as before. She finished with a new, frantic addition. “Mr. Ross is in an emergency meeting and can’t be reached today. If you fire Kiki, he’s going to be furious when he gets back!” For a split second, the déjà vu hit me like a physical blow. But I shook it off, gave Linda a look I hoped was reassuring, and strode right back to Kiki. I didn’t waste any time. “Kiki, you’re fired.” The air in the office froze. Every head snapped in our direction. “Pfft! You? Fire me? Who do you think you are?” Kiki tossed the half-eaten bag of Takis she was holding onto the floor, the spicy dust puffing into the already suffocating air. “Let me give you a little friendly advice. The last person who raised their voice to me in this office is still trying to get a callback for an entry-level job.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Security? Get this woman out of my sight.” To her astonishment, no one moved. Linda rushed forward, forcing a sycophantic smile at Kiki. “Kiki, please. This is Audrey Ross, the owner’s daughter. She’s been in London for the past six months, so she doesn’t know… Please, don’t be upset.” “Oh. Well then tell her to get the hell out of my light. I’m trying to watch my stories.” She hit play and sank back into her own little world. A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I never believed in any of that “good luck charm” bullshit. But in my last life, it didn’t matter what I believed. I fired her, the company collapsed, and my father’s heart gave out. It was only in the moment of my own death that I finally understood the truth. This woman wasn’t a blessing. She was a curse. And she had to be cut out. My resolve hardened. I stepped forward, snatched the tablet from her hands, and slammed it onto her desk. “This is your official notification. You, Kiki, are terminated for gross negligence of your duties during work hours.” Kiki didn’t even flinch. She just gave me another long, contemptuous eye-roll. But the other employees started to panic, their voices pleading and urgent. “Ms. Ross, please, don’t do this! The company’s performance is because of Kiki! She’s more important than you know!” “It’s true! Keeping Kiki happy is our top priority. She’s the reason we’re all still employed!” “You just got back, you don’t understand how things work now. Please, just wait for your father to get back.” My patience evaporated. “Our company’s performance,” I snapped, my voice cutting through the chatter, “is the result of our employees’ hard work and our shareholders’ investment. If we could build a successful corporation based on some New Age nonsense and a designated ‘mascot,’ we could all just quit and go burn incense at a temple every day!” My words hung in the air. Faces around the room shifted. Some flushed with embarrassment at being called out. Others hid their faces, quietly wiping away tears. And a few, the ones who had clearly been suffering under Kiki’s reign, looked at me with newfound support. “Ms. Ross is right!” one of the senior engineers spoke up. “I never believed in this good luck charm garbage! It was just a string of coincidences.” Just then, the head of marketing let out a strangled cry. “Oh my God! Northgate Industries—they just signed with our biggest competitor! That’s our thirty-million-dollar annual materials contract!” He stared at his phone, his face pale. “They’re not answering my calls! Did they block me?!” “What!” “Ms. Ross! Apologize to Kiki right now! Tell her you didn’t mean it!” “Yes, Kiki is our North Star! You made her angry and now we’re being punished! The universe is turning against us!” “You can’t let your ego sink the entire company!” The panic was infectious, the employees’ pleas turning into accusations. Kiki watched the chaos unfold, a smug little smile playing on her lips. “You know, Ms. Ross, I’m a forgiving person. Just give me a sincere, formal apology, and we can pretend this never happened.” I stared at her, my expression unreadable. “Did I stutter? You. Are. Fired.” “Fine! Fine! Don’t come crawling back to me!” Kiki shot up from her chair and stormed toward the exit, throwing me one last venomous glare. “Wait,” I said. “What? Regret it already? Too late!” She didn’t break her stride. “I wouldn’t come back to this hellhole unless you got on your knees and begged for my forgiveness in the middle of Times Square!” “Who said anything about asking you to stay? I want to settle your accounts.” My voice was calm, cutting through her tantrum. “Every single item the company purchased for you needs to be inventoried before you leave. Who knows what you might ‘accidentally’ take with you?” I started ticking items off. “Your top-of-the-line PC, your tablet, your sound system… that custom ergonomic chair that cost over ten thousand dollars, the lease on your downtown penthouse apartment, all those imported groceries and prime rib that were expensed to the company card…” “Every last cent needs to be accounted for. If one thing is missing, our next meeting will be at the police station.” “You! You! Fine! You want to play it like that?” Kiki’s face twisted into a grotesque mask of fury. A second later, it melted into the expression of a deeply wronged victim. “When Mr. Ross hired me, he said I didn’t have to do anything! He said my only job was to be happy and have fun here every day…” She sniffled. “You fire me without cause. I’ll see you at the Labor Board!” “Did you get any of that in writing? Who do you think the board will believe? Me, with security footage of you goofing off all day, every day? Or you, with your story about being a magical good luck charm?” I didn’t even wait for an answer, just pointed to a few terrified-looking junior accountants. “You, you, and you. Go with her. Conduct a full inventory and exit interview.” They froze, looking from me to Kiki. My voice dropped to ice. “You work for this company, not for her. You will do as I say and document every single paperclip. If you have a problem with that, you can follow her to HR and pick up your own severance package.” That got them moving. Kiki’s face was beet red. She stared at me as if I were already dead. Suddenly, Linda burst back into the room, her phone pressed to her ear, her face ashen. “Ms. Ross! The stock just dropped fifty percent! It’s in a freefall! The major shareholders are all calling at once! They’re saying if it drops another point, they’re pulling out completely!” The room fell into a stunned silence. A moment later, Mr. Henderson, one of my father’s oldest and most loyal executives, approached me, his expression grave. “Audrey, you’re new to this. Don’t be stubborn. Just apologize to Kiki. She’s a good kid, she’ll forgive you.” I didn’t even hesitate. “No. The decision is final.” Kiki had to go. “Audrey Ross! What is this madness! You come home with me right now!” My mother stormed in, her face a storm of anger and disappointment. She slapped me hard on the back. “The second you get off the plane you come here and act like a tyrant? And you target Ms. Kiki? I swear, you went to London to study business, but it seems all you learned was how to be a fool!” She whirled on me. “Apologize to her! Now!” Then, just as quickly, she turned to Kiki, her entire demeanor changing to one of abject humility. “Ms. Kiki, please, my daughter is just a foolish girl, don’t take it to heart. I promise you, right here and now, you will always have a place at Ross Industries. In fact, starting next month, we’ll double your salary. What do you say?” It was pathetic. Humiliating. No! I couldn’t let my mother chain us to this parasite again! Even if it meant bankruptcy, Kiki had to be expelled. In a moment of pure desperation, I grabbed a fruit knife from a gift basket on a nearby desk and pressed it to my own throat. “Mom! If you don’t let me fire this bitch today, I swear to God I will die right here in front of you!” I pressed harder. A thin line of blood welled against the steel. My mother shrieked, collapsing into tears, begging me to put the knife down. A wave of guilt and sorrow washed over me, so strong it almost buckled my knees. But I couldn’t tell her the real reason. I couldn’t tell my broken, weeping mother the truth. Not yet. “Mom! You have to choose! Is it going to be your daughter, or this… this snake?” “Okay! Okay! I won’t interfere! Just please, put the knife down!” she sobbed, wringing her hands. I dropped the knife into a wastebasket and fixed my glare on Kiki, who stood silently in the corner, her face pale and pinched. “Get out. Now. Or do you need an engraved invitation?” For the first time, I saw a flicker of genuine panic in her eyes. I saw it. But before she could move, a commotion erupted at the office entrance. “Ms. Kiki! Why would you subject yourself to this abuse? The doors of Croft Enterprises are always open for you! Five hundred thousand a month! You don’t even have to clock in, just grace us with your presence once a day. How does that sound?” A bald, portly man in an expensive suit pushed his way into the room. It was Harrison Croft, the vulture who had just poached our thirty-million-dollar Northgate contract. He was grinning, his face creasing into a fawning smile. His eyes landed on my mother and me, and his smile turned into a sneer. “See? This is what happens when you let women run things. Firing the company’s golden goose because of some petty jealousy. You think business is a tea party? You see a pretty face you don’t like and just kick her to the curb.” He winked at me, his gaze oily and repulsive. “Audrey, when this whole thing goes belly-up, you come see Uncle Harry. I’ll find something for you to do.” I wanted to scream at him, but I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off Kiki. Not for a second. “Mr. Croft, thank you for the generous offer,” Kiki said, her voice trembling artfully. “But Mr. Ross gave me my start. Even though I’ve been so terribly wronged, I feel I should wait until Mr. Ross himself tells me I’m fired. Only then can I truly move on.” She refused him. She actually refused him. In that instant, it was like a lightning strike to the brain. Everything clicked into place. I knew everything. “Forget your ‘start’! Kiki, are you that shameless?” I spat, my voice dripping with venom. “You’re not waiting for my father. You’re in love with him, aren’t you? Is that your game? You want to be the mistress? Break up my parents’ marriage?” “What is this, some kind of twisted sugar baby fantasy? You’re no good luck charm. You’re a parasite!” I turned to my mother. “Mom, don’t you see? I’m getting rid of this homewrecker for you! I won’t let her destroy our family!” I threw every disgusting accusation I could think of at her, watching the words land like physical blows. “You—you’re lying! How dare you!” Kiki’s face was now a violent shade of crimson. Humiliation finally broke her composure, and she burst into tears. It wasn’t enough. I pulled out my phone, logged into the company’s master admin system, and deleted Kiki’s security profile and keycard access right in front of her. “Get. Out.” The next second, it began. Phones started ringing all across the office, a symphony of disaster. “Multiple trucks in the transport fleet have spontaneously caught fire! We can’t make deliveries! The breach of contract fees are going to be astronomical!” “A main water line burst at the primary manufacturing plant! It’s flooding! The whole facility is underwater!” “It’s over! Someone leaked our new core technology online! It’s everywhere! Billions in R&D, just gone!” “The component we launched last month… we’re being sued for patent infringement! They’re saying we stole the technology! #BoycottRoss is trending everywhere!” “…” The bad news was a tidal wave. My mother swayed on her feet, grabbing a desk for support. “Audrey, please, stop being so stubborn…” she whispered. The employees, however, were done whispering. “Audrey Ross, you entitled little brat!” one of the men screamed, his face contorted with rage. “When this company goes under, you’ll still be a millionaire! You’ll just fly back to your fancy life abroad! But us? We have mortgages! We have kids to feed!” “My wife just had our second baby! Do you have any idea how much formula costs?” a man from accounting cried out. “Mr. Ross, I’m begging you, take back the order!” “My son’s tuition is due! If I lose this job, what am I supposed to do? My ex doesn’t pay a dime of child support! Are you trying to kill us, Ms. Ross?!” Their desperate, furious faces swam before my eyes. I dug my nails into my palms, the sharp pain a grounding shock to my system. And then, the final straw. Linda looked up from her phone, her voice hollow. “The company accounts have been frozen… due to excessive debt.” “It’s over… We’re not even going to get our last paycheck, are we?!” “Ms. Ross, please…” The woman whose son had tuition due fell to her knees in front of me. Through the cacophony, Kiki let out a small, delicate laugh. She adopted a mask of magnanimity. “Look, I don’t want to see everyone lose their jobs. But Ms. Ross has been so cruel to me today. So… how about this. If Ms. Ross kneels down and apologizes to me, I’ll stay.” Hope, desperate and ugly, flickered back to life in the eyes of every employee. Harrison Croft chose that moment to jump back in. “Ms. Kiki, you’re too loyal for your own good! Look what it gets you! Come to Croft Enterprises, I’ll have a million dollars wired to your account before you even sign the papers!” The employees’ renewed hope curdled back into sheer terror. Every single person in the room was staring at me, their breath held, their futures hanging on my next words. I finally spoke, my voice clear and steady. “I said she’s fired. And she is fired. If the company goes down with her, so be it.”

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Chapter 1 On the eve of our wedding, my fiancé, Julian, suddenly got amnesia. He remembered everyone—his friends, his family, even his dog—but he had no idea who I was. Today, I finally got my hands on an experimental drug rumored to restore lost memories. I ran to the private club where he’d been staying, my heart pounding. I was just about to open the door to his VIP room when I heard familiar voices. “Jules, man, faking amnesia? That is next-level. How did you even think of that? Celine has no idea. How long are you gonna keep this up before you tell her?” The laughter froze me. My smile cracked. Julian… was faking? All those nights I’d spent crying, all the doctors I’d begged, all the agony… what was it all for? A chilling cold crawled up my spine. Then I heard Julian’s voice, lazy and unbothered. “Give it another month. Then I’ll go back to Celine, play the part of the faithful, devoted fiancé.” “A month? You sure that’s enough?” one of his friends laughed. “You’ve been with, what, three different girls this week? Just break up with her. Who dates someone for seven years anyway? You’re not tired of it?” “Seriously,” another chimed in. “You’re sneaking around, faking a whole medical condition just so she won’t get mad. Isn’t that exhausting?” Julian’s voice lost its joking tone. “I will never break up with Celine. I love her. I only love her. But… seven years is a long time. We got… boring. In bed, she’s too reserved. I can’t be rough with her. This is just… hitting ‘pause.’ A little vacation. When the month is over, I’ll go back to her, and I’ll be her ‘one and only’ again.” “But, Jules,” his friend argued, “Celine isn’t the type to just let this go. If she finds out, she’ll leave you. You know how she is about loyalty.” “Yeah, man, remember that Gu kid? His girlfriend went abroad, and he’s still chasing her like a lunatic. You’re playing with fire.” Julian just laughed. “She’s mine. For life. I don’t care if she changes her name, moves to another country, or marries someone else. As long as her name is still Celine, I’ll find her, I’ll drag her back, and I’ll chain her to my side.” The room erupted in cheers. I was numb. I stumbled away from the door, walking out of the club and into the street. It was pouring. I didn’t even feel the rain. The bottle of pills I had fought so hard to get slipped from my numb fingers. They scattered on the wet pavement, dissolving in a gutter. As the medicine washed away, so did my last hope. I met Julian at the winter formal, freshman year of high school. I was the last performer of the night, and my rendition of Liszt’s “Liebesträume” brought the house down. He told me it was love at first sight. He cornered me backstage with a massive bouquet of roses. I’d heard all about Julian. He was the “King of the Campus,” with a list of ex-girlfriends as long as my arm. I hated playboys. My parents’ marriage had imploded from mutual infidelity. I had zero tolerance for it. I shut him down, hard. But he became obsessed. He chased me for three years. He was relentless. He pulled the fire alarm to get me out of a final I wasn’t ready for; he publicly rejected every girl who asked him out; he read all my favorite books, just so he could talk to me about them. I still said no. Until the summer after graduation. I was cornered in an alley by a group of guys. Julian showed up. He fought them—four of them. He got stabbed twice and almost bled out in my lap. I sat by his hospital bed, sobbing. I couldn’t understand how someone could be willing to die for another person. That’s when I knew. He was the one. We were together for seven years. From college dorms to our first apartment. He was perfect. Everyone said the playboy had finally been tamed. I believed them. Then, three months before our wedding, he was in a “car accident” on a business trip. The diagnosis: selective amnesia. He’d forgotten me. I almost fell apart. But I held on. I spent every second researching, finding doctors, trying to get him back. And it was all a lie. I walked home, my clothes soaked. I pulled out my laptop. Then I went to the courthouse. The clerk looked at me, confused by my request. “I’d like to petition for a name change,” I said, my voice hoarse. She handed me the forms. I signed my old name, and my new one. Julian would never find me. Chapter 2 The legal notice for the name change had to be published. The whole process would take a month. I booked a one-way ticket to Melbourne for the first of next month. I’d been accepted into a master’s program there three years ago but kept putting it off. Julian didn’t want a long-distance relationship. Now, there was nothing holding me back. I spent the next morning purging my life. I filled five heavy-duty trash bags with his gifts, our matching clothes, the letters he wrote me in college. I was dragging the last bag to the curb when a limited-edition McLaren pulled up. Julian got out. He had a girl wrapped around his arm. He saw me but didn’t even flinch. Of course not. He was “Julian with amnesia.” He didn’t know me. I knew why he was here. After the “accident,” he’d had his friends kick me out of our shared condo. The next day, the apartment right next door became available for a ridiculously cheap rent. It wasn’t luck. It was a cage. He was faking amnesia, but he was terrified I’d actually leave. I ignored him and dumped the last of our memories in the trash. He looked at the pile. “What’s all this?” “Trash,” I said, not looking at him. “But… that’s my varsity jacket.” I turned. “How would you remember that? You have amnesia.” He stiffened, then recovered, pulling the girl closer. “Just… curious. I don’t remember you. I’m with Lexi now. She’s the one who was there for me after my accident.” Accident. The lie came so easily. The girl, Lexi, was all makeup and micro-skirts. She was, I assumed, the “vacation” he’d found most satisfying. “Whatever,” I said, and walked back to my apartment. He watched me go, his brow furrowed. I was supposed to be crying, screaming, making a scene. My calm was confusing him. That night, my doorbell rang. It was Lexi. “Hi,” she said, chewing gum. “I’m Lexi. I’m staying with my boyfriend, Julian, next door. Since we’re neighbors, I figured I should get your number.” “No, thank you.” I started to close the door. She stuck her foot in it and snatched the phone right out of my hand. She added herself as a contact and handed it back, smiling. “Just being friendly. Oh, by the way… do you have any condoms? We just ran out. Julian is… insatiable.” My hand trembled. “No.” She laughed, a high, tinkling sound. “Right. Stupid of me to ask. I guess you’re not really using them anymore, are you? Since he dumped you.” Chapter 3 I tried to close the door again. This time, she threw herself backward onto the hallway floor and burst into tears. “Celine! I know you’re upset, but you don’t have to push me! I was just trying to borrow some sugar!” Before I could even process the ridiculous accusation, Julian was there, running down the hall. He scooped her up into his arms. He looked at me, his eyes cold with anger. “What the hell is your problem? She’s my girlfriend now. You need to respect that.” He carried her away. My hands were shaking. I slammed the door. That night, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. A video call. From Lexi. I groggily answered. The screen was filled with a close-up of pale skin, covered in dark, angry hickeys. I heard a woman’s moan. I heard a man’s low growl. I was wide awake now, frozen. Then I heard Julian’s voice, rough with lust. “You’re not… allowed to go… provoke Celine… anymore. Got it?” “But you like it,” Lexi purred. “You like that I’m naughtier than her. You like my body, don’t you? That’s why you’re here…” “You talk too much,” he growled. “Get on top.” The camera shifted. I saw his face, his eyes closed in pleasure. My stomach turned. I bit my lip until I tasted blood. I hung up. I stared at the ceiling, tears burning my eyes. When we were together… he was always so gentle. So worried about hurting me. He must have been so… bored. I didn’t sleep. A few days later was my best friend Maya’s wedding. “I invited Julian,” she whispered, as I helped her with her veil. “I know he’s sick, but maybe… maybe seeing a wedding will jog his memory.” I just shook my head. As I was about to answer, I saw him. He walked in, Lexi on his arm. Maya saw them. She saw them kiss at the door. “That bastard,” she hissed, and started to march over. I grabbed her. “Maya, don’t. It’s your day. It’s… it’s almost over anyway.” She didn’t understand, but the music started, and she had to go. I sat at my assigned table. The only empty seat was next to Julian. I took it. During the dinner, Lexi was all over him. “Jules, feed me this. Jules, my glass is empty.” He did it all. He even ate a bite of cake off her fork. I just watched the bride and groom, my stomach empty. Maya’s mom put a dumpling on my plate. I picked it up. Julian’s hand shot out and slapped it onto the floor. “You can’t eat that,” he snapped. “It’s shrimp. You’re allergic.” Chapter 4 The table went silent. I just stared at the dumpling on the carpet. He paled, realizing his mistake. “I… I just remembered. Our… our housekeeper… she… she told me once.” He didn’t look at me again. He just started peeling a shrimp for Lexi. She whispered something in his ear. He stood up, grabbed her hand, and they walked out. I didn’t care. After the bouquet toss, I went to the restroom. I heard… noises. A rhythmic slapping sound. From inside the men’s room. I stopped. “You’re really something,” I heard Julian growl. “Wearing… this… to a wedding? Hmm?” “Don’t you… like it?” she panted. “I love it.” I turned around and walked away. The wedding ended. I got downstairs. Julian’s McLaren was parked out front. Lexi grabbed my arm. “Julian had to run to the office. He left the car for me. We’re neighbors, I’ll give you a ride.” I tried to refuse, but she shoved me into the passenger seat and locked the doors. She drove like a maniac. “You know he’s faking, don’t you?” she said, glancing at me. “So why are you still playing along? Why don’t you just tell him?” I ignored her. “I mean, I’m glad you’re not,” she laughed. “He’s incredible in bed. I’m happy to be his… vacation.” I just closed my eyes. Her voice turned sharp. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” She wrenched the steering wheel. I heard the horn, the screech of metal. I opened my eyes just in time to see the windshield spiderweb. I threw my arms up. Pain. Hot, searing pain in my right arm. Then, darkness. … “Mr. Fu? Mr. Fu, you have to make a choice.” A voice. A doctor. “Both patients have severe trauma to their hands. Our specialist can only operate on one at a time. The other… the other may suffer permanent nerve damage. Who do we save first?” I was floating. I tried to speak. “Julian… my… my hand… I’m a photographer… my hand…” The hand that was holding mine… let go. I forced my eyes open. I saw him. He looked… terrified. He put his hand on Lexi’s shoulder. “Save Lexi,” he said. “Save her first.”

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When I loved him the most, I wove a bracelet for Liam from a lock of my own hair. He was a die-hard pragmatist, the kind of guy who didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t see or touch. But he still wore that bracelet for me for four years. Then, on graduation day, his “little freshman” protégé, Sophie, got hurt. He rushed to the hospital, frantic, and lost the bracelet in the chaos. He just shrugged it off. “You know I don’t believe in that stuff, Claire.” A week later, Sophie gave him a bracelet. Also made from her hair. When someone at a party accidentally spilled a drink on that one, Liam’s face turned to thunder. “If anything happens to her because of this,” he snarled, “I’ll kill you.” In front of everyone, he beat the guy badly enough to send him to the hospital. In that instant, I just felt… tired. So incredibly tired. So I called my dad. “You know that Sterling heir you mentioned?” I said. “The one who’s been in a coma for five years? I’ll marry him.” 1 My thesis had some formatting issues. My advisor called, so I rushed back to campus, only to walk right into Liam in the middle of a fistfight. I was just walking by when a girl next to me grabbed my arm, craning her neck to see the action. “Damn, I never knew Liam could fight like that.” I was about to tell her she had the wrong person, but the name “Liam” froze me. The girl kept talking. “All this over a bracelet? He’s trying to kill the guy.” “Jeez, it was just a splash of latte.” “Must be from his girlfriend, then. He’s treating it like it’s made of gold.” A hair bracelet? If I remembered correctly, the one I gave Liam… he’d lost it last week. We had a massive fight about it. He said he was a realist, that he didn’t believe a bracelet made of hair could “protect him” or that losing it would bring me bad luck. He said I was overreacting. He even had the nerve to grin and say I could just make him a new one, and he’d promise to be more careful this time. I was so furious at his dismissive attitude that we had the worst fight of our relationship. We hadn’t spoken in a week. I didn’t expect to see him again like this, finding the bracelet and fighting for it. It was so unlike him. Before I could think, I pushed into the crowd to stop him. But just as I broke through, a petite girl rushed past me and threw herself straight into his arms. “Liam, stop! Please, don’t be impulsive. It’s just a bracelet, it’s not worth getting in trouble for me.” Her words stopped me in my tracks. I watched as Liam, his face already bruising, reached out and gently ruffled her hair. The gesture was shockingly natural, his smile arrogant. “It’s not every day I accept a gift,” he said, “and this idiot ruined it. I have a right to be pissed.” “Besides,” he added, “you made this from your hair to keep me safe. He got it dirty, and I was worried it would affect you. That’s why I lost my cool. Don’t be scared.” As he spoke, he rolled up his sleeve, ready to go another round. Liam’s skin is pale, and the red hair bracelet wrapped around his wrist stood out, almost beautiful. Yes, red. This wasn’t the one I made him. He’d always said bracelets were girly, “especially red ones.” That’s why the one I made for him was black. I still remembered the exact tone of disgust in his voice. Seeing that red bracelet on his wrist now, I felt like a complete and utter clown. And I recognized the girl, too. It was Sophie. On graduation picture day, Liam was supposed to be with me. He never showed. I found out later that Sophie had “fallen down some stairs.” Liam “happened to be passing by” and took her to the hospital. That’s when he lost my bracelet. I’d never been angry at him for being kind. But I never, ever thought there was something “unclear” between them. I don’t know what I was feeling. I just stood there like a puppet, completely numb, until the sirens of a police car and an ambulance arrived at the same time. The first took Liam. Sophie went with him. The second took the guy he’d beaten. The main characters were gone, and the crowd broke up. The girl who had grabbed my arm finally turned, realized her mistake, and mumbled an apology. Then she grabbed her actual roommate, and I heard them talking as they walked away. “Not gonna lie, they look good together. I saw them making out in the woods by the library the other day, too.” Her friend hesitated. “But isn’t his girlfriend in our year?” “Yeah. They’ve been together since high school. Seven years. Guess he just got bored…” Their voices faded, leaving me alone on the sidewalk. 2 Liam and I were desk partners freshman year of high school. His dad donated enough money to build the new gym. In return, our homeroom teacher treated Liam like a prince. Knowing his grades were terrible, she assigned me to sit with him—”peer-to-peer tutoring”—and wouldn’t let me refuse. I was furious. I went home to my dad. My dad immediately funded the new science wing and the library. The teacher started fawning over me. After one day as Liam’s desk partner, I was moved to the opposite corner of the room. He was a cocky, restless guy. He probably felt like I’d embarrassed him, so he cornered me in the hallway after school. He was clearly trying to intimidate me. But I can be resourceful. With the hallway full of people, I dropped my backpack, sat right down on the floor, and wailed. I accused him of being a monster who “used me and then dumped me.” People passing by stared and pointed. An 80-year-old grandma, who was there for some event, actually hobbled over and hit him with her cane. Liam’s face was bright red. He didn’t dare touch the old woman, and I was still crying on the floor, so he couldn’t move. Then, not wanting to lose the fight, I scrambled up and told the grandma it was actually me who dumped him. She asked why. I said, “He can’t get it up.” Then I grabbed my bag and ran for my life, terrified he was going to kill me. After that, we were declared rivals. We hated each other. But somehow, all that fighting… morphed. One sunny afternoon, we were sitting on the bleachers, and he suddenly turned to me. “Claire,” he said, “let’s go out.” The boy with the sharp eyes and arrogant smirk, the one who looked like he’d punch you as soon as look at you… his hands were visibly shaking. He was terrified. The sun was perfect. The breeze was gentle. It was, in short, a good day to fall in love. So we did. We both donated to the building fund again and sat together for the next three years. I dragged him through his studies, and we got into the same university. Freshman year of college, we skipped a month of classes and backpacked through Europe. At the peak of it all, I cut a lock of my hair and wove it into a bracelet for him. A charm. To keep him safe. But he was a pragmatist. He didn’t believe in charms. He just wore it. I thought it was a symbol of our love. Until he lost it. And replaced it with a new one. If that was all, maybe I wouldn’t have been so devastated. But I saw it. I saw the rage in his eyes… for another girl. Because he believed that if her bracelet was damaged, she would be hurt. When he lost mine, he didn’t care. He thought I was being dramatic. The contrast made everything so… absurd. In that moment, I felt like a joke. Pathetic and sad. My heart ached with a dull, heavy throb. I’m not the kind of person who can tolerate this. I couldn’t just pretend it didn’t happen. So I called my dad. The old man was probably in the middle of something with his latest girlfriend; I could hear him breathing heavily. “Dad,” I said, “that Sterling heir you mentioned? The one who’s been in a coma for five years? I’ll marry him.” My dad always told me he’d spoil me in little things, but when it came to the family business, I couldn’t be selfish. If Liam and I didn’t last, I had to accept his arrangement. But instead of celebrating, the old man was quiet. “Claire… are you sure?” He’s a strange man, my father. I never knew my mom; he raised me himself. He doesn’t believe in true love, lives like a playboy, but he never brought a woman home or let anyone disrespect me. I’ve secretly seen him, though, drunk on the sofa, crying. Mumbling about some “heartless woman” and asking why she didn’t want him, and didn’t want me. So, when it came to my marriage, his philosophy was simple: True love is crap. Power and money are the only things you can trust. The Sterlings are top-tier. Their heir has been in a coma for five years, and no one knows if he’ll ever wake up. But if I married him, the Sterling family would give me 5% of their company stock, and my family’s business would get a massive boost. The only price was my marriage. I remember the light in his eyes when he first proposed it. “I’m your father, Claire. I’m looking out for you. Men are all the same. You gamble on ‘true love,’ and you’ll end up with nothing. Better to marry a vegetable. You get the money, the power, and he won’t be moving. Your legs still work. You can have a couple of boy-toys on the side, who’s gonna know?” He was so excited, I thought he wished he could marry the guy. I yelled at him back then, told him he was wrong, that true love was real. He just laughed at me. Said I’d learn the hard way and told me not to come crying to him when I did. “I won’t have to,” I’d said. “Liam will never make me cry.” Funny how things turn out. I’m the one with egg on my face. So, to my dad’s question, I could only answer with a bitter laugh. “Isn’t this what you always said? You can’t rely on a man.” If I can’t rely on one, I might as well listen to my father and pay him back for raising me. But the old man was still quiet. After a long moment, he asked, “Did he hurt you?” I didn’t answer. I was afraid he’d laugh at me. He didn’t ask again. But, faintly, I heard him sniffle. Tsk. Crying at his age. So lame. 3 For convenience, my dad bought me a condo near campus. He said men were heartless. Afraid that Liam had “impure intentions,” he bought the unit across the hall and hired a bodyguard to live in it. If Liam ever came over and didn’t leave by 10 PM, the bodyguard was instructed to go over and throw him out. I thought he was being so childish at the time. Thanks to him, Liam and I—for all our big talk—had never actually slept together. I was honestly afraid my dad would have an aneurysm. But Liam and I had planned to get married right after graduation. Once we had the license, my dad couldn’t exactly listen at the door anymore. I could even picture myself, hands on my hips, telling him: “See, old man? I got lucky. I found someone who loves me, and we’re going to be together forever!” He’d probably huff and puff… but then he’d say, “My baby girl deserves nothing less than that.” I’d imagined that scene a thousand times. Turns out, I’m not that lucky. And that happiness isn’t mine to have. It was late when I got back to the condo. Just as I reached my door, an arm grabbed me. I was spun around and pulled into a chilly embrace. “Claire. Are you still mad at me?” Liam hugged me tight, resting his chin on my shoulder and nuzzling me like a cat. He always does this. After every fight, he uses the same trick to make me melt. Only this time, I wasn’t going to. I shoved him. Hard. He wasn’t expecting it and stumbled back, slamming his shoulder into the wall. He winced, grabbing the spot where he’d been hit during the fight. “Claire!” His voice was sharp. When I just stared at him, his expression softened again. “Claire, baby, don’t be mad. I know I messed up. I shouldn’t have lost the bracelet you gave me. Hit me, yell at me, whatever you want. Just don’t ignore me, okay?” He leaned in, his sharp features softening as he tried to look pathetic. I said nothing. I just lowered my eyes to his wrist. He was wearing a jacket, but as he’d moved, a bit of red string had peeked out from his sleeve. He followed my gaze and, for a second, his eyes darted away. “Claire, don’t misunderstand,” he said quickly, pulling his sleeve up to show me. “This is just… a regular red string.” “I knew you were still mad about the bracelet… and I didn’t know what to do… so I went to a shop and bought this one. I know you like red better, so I got this to make you happy. Please don’t be mad, okay?” He sounded so sincere. If I hadn’t seen what happened on campus today, I might have actually believed him. Unfortunately for him, I had. But I didn’t call him on it. I forced a smile. He saw me smiling and immediately tried to pull me into another hug. “Claire, is your bodyguard still across the hall? We’ve graduated now. We’re supposed to be getting our marriage license in two months. Why don’t you come to my place tonight? I miss you so much…” The implication was obvious. I suddenly wondered: Is it because I never slept with him? Is that why he’s messing around with Sophie? If that was the reason, then I truly despised him. Even though I used to love him. I sidestepped his embrace. Then, I grabbed his wrist and made a fake motion to pull off the red string. “Since I didn’t give you this one, I guess I’ll just toss… ah!” “Don’t touch it!” I hadn’t even finished my sentence. His reaction was pure reflex. He yanked his arm back, hiding it behind him, and used his other hand to shove me away. I wasn’t steady and fell hard on the floor, my tailbone cracking against the tile. “Claire! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!” Liam snapped back to reality, scrambling to help me up. I slapped his hand away. My bodyguard across the hall was, as always, extremely diligent. He was out the door in a second, landed another clean punch on Liam’s jaw, and then pulled me to my feet. Liam’s head snapped to the side. He was furious, but he’d just pushed me, and the bodyguard represented my dad, so he didn’t fight back. He just glared at the bodyguard. Finally, he closed his eyes and looked back at me. “Claire, I didn’t mean to do that. I just…” Before he could finish, his phone buzzed. Not a normal ring. A special ringtone, reserved for one person. He froze, but didn’t answer. The buzzing stopped. Three seconds later, it started again, more insistent. This time, he didn’t hesitate. “Claire, I have to take this, it’s really important. I’ll come find you tomorrow. I promise, I will never make you angry again.” I opened my mouth. I had so much to say. But he didn’t give me the chance. He just turned and sprinted for the elevator. I sighed. I really wanted to tell him: Liam, there is no tomorrow for us. 4 I started packing that night. With the bodyguard helping, I just had to grab my important documents; he handled the rest. While I waited, I was scrolling through my phone when the campus gossip blog lit up again. A nine-photo spread. The pictures showed Liam, storming into the freshman girls’ dorm, carrying Sophie out in his arms, and driving away from campus. The comments section was on fire. [LMAO, this is next level. Rushing to the hotel?] [Kid’s intense. Just storms the dorm to grab her? Must be in heat.] [He’s not even trying to hide it.] [Insider info: that girl got in a fight with her roommate. Her roommate is hurt way worse. Sophie got a scratch on her leg that a band-aid could fix, but her roommate doesn’t have a rich boyfriend to protect her and got warned by the RA.] [Are they sleeping together?] [Username: ILoveDogs10000: I literally saw them checking into a hotel together last month. I swear on my dog’s life, I’m not lying.] I stared at that last comment. My heart just… seized. Just then, the bodyguard finished packing my last suitcase. He looked at me, and I nodded. We left. Before I got in the car, I sent Liam one last text. Just two words: We’re done. Then I blocked his number and deleted his contact. The car was waiting. The driver, whom I didn’t recognize, just nodded at me. The bodyguard sat in the passenger seat, and we drove away. An hour later, the car stopped at a villa on the hillside. People were already waiting at the door. I followed them inside. The foyer was silent. A man who appeared to be the head butler stepped forward. “Miss Lin, your room is on the second floor, last door on the left. I’ll have Mrs. Wang show you up.” I nodded and followed Mrs. Wang upstairs. She was a kind-faced middle-aged woman. After showing me into the room, she smiled. “Mrs. Sterling said that as Mr. Julian’s future wife, you are the mistress of this house. She will not interfere in your private life, and all of us answer only to you. Your bodyguard has been given a room in the staff villa out back. Also, there is a black card on your desk. It has no limit, and you can make withdrawals. Beneath it is a stock transfer agreement. If you sign it, it’s effective immediately.” I nodded, and with her watching, I signed the contract. I handed one copy back to her. Mrs. Wang took the contract and started to leave, but paused at the door. “Mr. Julian’s room is right next door. You may go in to see him whenever you wish. If you need anything at all, you can call me.” She left, and I heard her downstairs, telling the kitchen to prepare dinner for me. I looked around the room. It was enormous. Every single detail, from the colors to the furniture, was perfectly to my taste. I walked further in and found a massive walk-in closet. It was filled with this season’s newest clothes. An entire wall was just for handbags. It was unreal. I was supposed to go home tonight. But my dad said he was busy with work and couldn’t “babysit” me, so he’d arranged with the Sterlings for me to come straight here. His exact words were: “Don’t worry, kid. Julian Sterling’s been out for five years. There’s no one else in that villa to boss you around. You go in there, you’re the queen. Oh, and their chef is amazing. The staff is all top-tier. They even developed the land behind the villa. Pools, tennis courts, whatever. Have fun. Invite friends, throw parties, whatever you want.” I’d asked him how he knew all this. He’d just rubbed his nose. “True love? That, your old man can’t give you. Probably turn rotten anyway. But everything else? I’ll make sure you have it. I won’t let you be vulnerable.” My thoughts cleared. I walked out of my room and into the one next door. If I was going to marry Julian Sterling, I had to at least see what my future comatose husband looked like. I stepped inside and saw him immediately, lying in the hospital-style bed. His eyes were closed, his face pale, but… he was ridiculously handsome. A completely different type from Liam. Julian’s features were softer, more refined. I leaned in closer, wanting a better look… and didn’t see the edge of the rug. I tripped. I fell forward, completely and totally, landing right on top of Julian Sterling. I froze in terror, afraid I’d killed him before the wedding. I scrambled to get off him, babbling the whole time. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, please don’t be crushed…” But my apology died in my throat. Because as I looked down… The man who was supposed to be in a coma… had just opened his eyes.

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I’d just wrapped a six-month stint overseas, landing back in New York just in time for our anniversary. My first stop was Auden & Co. on Fifth Avenue; I wanted to get my wife, Ava, something special, a custom timepiece to mark the occasion. The sales associate, a man who’d known us for years, smiled warmly. “Mr. Blackwood, it seems you and Ms. Ava are perfectly in sync. She was just in yesterday and bought a matching pair herself. An early anniversary gift, she said.” The words hit me like a physical blow. I froze. An image flashed in my mind: her assistant, Leo, posted a picture on his Instagram story last night. On his wrist was the distinctive band of an Auden & Co. watch. His caption was a brazen little smirk in text form: *She said my time is hers now. 😉 * I pulled out my phone, my fingers numb as I dialed Ava’s number. It rang twice before a man’s voice, thick with sleep and irritation, answered. “Yeah? Who’s this? It’s the middle of the night.” A pause, a yawn. “Look, the boss just finished up, she’s in the shower. Call back tomorrow.” A bitter, humorless laugh escaped my lips. “Who am I? I’m her husband.” I let that sink in. “Tell her she’s fired. And so are you. Don’t bother coming into the office tomorrow.” 1 I hung up before he could respond and turned to my own assistant, who was waiting by the car. “Notify security,” I said, my voice flat. “As of tomorrow, Ava Blackwood and Leo Cruz are not permitted on Apex Innovations property. And get our lawyers on the phone. Freeze all assets in her name. I want divorce papers drawn up.” He nodded, his face a mask of professional discretion, and disappeared into the evening traffic. I had the driver take me home, the weight of the last six months pressing down on me, now compounded by a betrayal so sharp it felt like a shard of glass in my gut. I walked into our bedroom, the scent of her perfume still lingering in the air. Then I imagined Leo in this room, in our bed, and a wave of nausea washed over me. I turned around and walked down the hall to the guest room. … The next day, I slept until the afternoon. When I finally woke, my phone buzzed incessantly for a full minute as a deluge of notifications came through. The screen was a wall of missed calls and over a hundred messages from Ava. They started last night with cautious, almost gentle inquiries, then escalated to furious, frantic demands by morning. I cleared them all with a single tap. After a brief call with my assistant, I showered and went downstairs for lunch. Before I could even sit, our housekeeper, Maria, approached hesitantly, holding out her phone. “Mr. Blackwood, it’s Mrs. Blackwood. She insists on speaking with you.” The meal wasn’t ready yet, so I took the phone. I didn’t even have a chance to say hello before her voice, shrill and furious, erupted from the speaker. “Ethan! What the hell is your problem? Do you have any idea how humiliated I was today?!” The hard-won peace from a rare full night’s sleep evaporated. The rage I’d suppressed last night came roaring back. “Watch your tone, Ava,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet. “Your public image is the least of your problems right now. And if you ever speak to me like that again, I promise you, your reputation will be the first of many things you lose.” I hung up. A few minutes later, the phone rang again. This time, her voice was still tight with anger, but it was strained, reined in. “Ethan, I went to the office this morning. Security wouldn’t let me in. They said I was terminated. What’s going on?” I picked a single, out-of-place sunflower from the vase on the dining table, its bright, cheerful face a mockery. “It’s exactly what it sounds like,” I said calmly. “I put you in charge of Apex because I was out of the country. Now I’m back. It’s only natural that you step aside.” “And Leo?” she shot back, her voice rising. “He beat out dozens of candidates for that job. You’re firing him just because he didn’t kiss your ass on the phone?” My voice turned to ice. “Him? I don’t recall hiring an assistant whose job description included wearing matching watches with my wife and sleeping in my bed.” Silence. Then, a stammer. “You… you know?” “The watch was a corporate bonus for his performance,” she said, the words rushing out in a defensive torrent. “And he stayed over because the storm was terrible. Our house is halfway up the mountain, you can’t get a car service up here in that weather. But he slept on the couch! Nothing happened!” I cut her off, my voice devoid of emotion. “And last night?” “Last night was nothing! We had to entertain clients, we got two separate rooms. The shower in his room was broken, so he used mine. Honestly, Ethan, are you serious? The kid asked you who you were, you cursed him out and threatened his job. I’m a married woman. It’s not like that between us.” A dry, harsh laugh escaped me. “Please, Ava. Don’t treat me like a child. A storm, and our driver couldn’t take him home? A broken shower in a five-star hotel, and he couldn’t just call the front desk for a new room? Did you really think because I was in a different time zone, I was blind?” The reports from my private investigator burned in my memory. The cold fury in my chest intensified. “The first month I was gone, you bought him a three-million-dollar condo near the office. Three months ago, it was a new Porsche. Last month, you used the company jet for a ‘business trip’ to the Maldives. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Did you think I was a fucking idiot, Ava?!” The words came out like venom. I was done playing games. “He will return the car and sign the deed to that condo back over to me,” I said, each word a block of ice. “Or he’s going to prison, and you’re going to walk out of this marriage with nothing but the clothes on your back.” She tried to backtrack. “I didn’t give them to him, they were just… on loan. Besides, you know how much your mother wants a grandchild. If we get divorced…” “You think I care?” I interrupted coldly. “The only reason you’re not getting served with divorce papers this very second is because adultery isn’t a crime. Don’t push me.” I ended the call, leaving her in the ringing silence. 2 After lunch, I skipped the office and headed to the gym in the basement, spending the next few hours working out until my muscles screamed and my mind was blessedly empty. The next morning, I walked into my office, feeling the clean burn of exertion, ready to take back the reins of my company. The sight that greeted me sent a fresh surge of adrenaline and fury through my veins. My wife, Ava, was on the sofa, pinned beneath her assistant, Leo. They scrambled apart the moment I entered. Ava pushed him off her, her face a mask of panic. “Ethan! I can explain!” Leo tumbled to the floor, crying out as his elbow smacked the corner of the glass coffee table. But Ava didn’t even glance at him. Her eyes were locked on me, wide with desperation. “It’s not what it looks like! He twisted his ankle and fell on me, I swear!” “Shut up,” I said. The words were quiet, but they cut through her frantic explanation like a razor. I sidestepped her as she reached for my arm. “Who let you in? I made it perfectly clear you were both terminated.” My assistant appeared in the doorway, followed by a trembling receptionist. “Mr. Blackwood,” the young woman stammered, her face pale. “I tried to stop them, but Ms. Blackwood and Mr. Cruz refused to leave the lobby. When the representatives from OmniCorp arrived for the meeting, she said she knew them and just walked in with their group. I… I didn’t know what to do.” I took a deep breath, trying to control the violent tremor in my hands. “It’s not your fault,” I said, waving them away. “Go on.” Once they were gone, I ignored Ava’s pleading gaze and began to survey my office. My office. The air was thick with a cloying cologne I despised. On the credenza where a framed photo of Ava and me once sat, there was now a small, tacky glass sculpture of a sun. And hanging in my private closet was a man’s jacket that was not mine. Leo, still on the floor, began to sob, a theatrical, self-pitying sound. “Mr. Blackwood, please don’t misunderstand. There’s nothing between me and Ava. The jacket… I just forgot to take it home with me last time.” Ava moved to stand in front of him, a lioness protecting her cub. “That’s enough, Ethan. He’s just a kid. Stop trying to intimidate him. His clothes got soaked in the rain one day, so I had a new jacket delivered for him. I only brought him here today to collect his personal things. You can’t just fire someone and not let them get their belongings… Ah! What are you doing?!” Crack. The sharp, clean sound of a slap echoed in the silent office. I had pushed past her, and the blow that landed on Leo’s face cut off the rest of her sentence. “Ethan, what the hell are you doing?!” she screamed, her voice raw with fury. “Why did you hit him?!” I turned to her, my expression unreadable, and slapped her too. My gaze was pure contempt. “Why him? Did you think you were exempt?” I said, my voice dangerously low. “He opens his mouth and feeds me lies, he should expect the consequences. And you… you let him.” 3 We had a meeting with a partner firm on the top floor later. The sight of Leo crying while covering his face and Ava sporting a fresh handprint on her cheek was not exactly professional. I looked at Ava, my voice cold. “Are you going to continue this pathetic scene here, or are you coming home with me?” Her face was a mask of fury, but she finally bit out a “Fine,” and followed me. In the parking garage, she took the keys and got into the driver’s seat. Just as I was about to get in, Leo darted forward and tried to open the passenger door. “Get out,” I snarled. “My car doesn’t carry parasites.” “Ethan! That’s a horrible thing to say!” Ava snapped, frowning at me. I laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “Horrible? He has the nerve to sleep with a married woman, but he’s too delicate to be called a name?” Leo immediately adopted a wounded, innocent expression. “I was just offering to drive… to help you clear up this misunderstanding. I never wanted to cause any trouble between you.” I didn’t even look at him. My eyes were locked on Ava. The silent pressure was too much. She finally got out, walked around the car, and pulled Leo away from the door. “Just take a cab,” she said, her voice tight. “I’ll reimburse you.” He slunk away, looking back with a resentful glare. I didn’t want the staff to witness the drama, so as soon as we got home, I led Ava straight upstairs. She must have thought we were going to the bedroom, but I walked right past it, toward my study. She rushed ahead to block the door, her voice laced with anxiety. “Why don’t we talk somewhere else? You’ve been gone so long, the study must be incredibly dusty.” I ignored her, pushed her aside, and opened the door. The scene inside sent a wave of hot, blinding rage through me. My father’s portrait was on the floor, the glass cracked. On top of it was a small, dark, and unmistakable pile of animal feces. The desk and the floor around it were littered with scattered files, stained with dried, yellow patches of what I knew was urine. The air was thick with the foul, sharp stench of it. I gagged, my voice trembling with fury. “Who did this?”

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My husband and I were supposed to go skiing for Christmas. He bailed. He booked an entire ski resort for his old flame instead. She sent me a video from the slopes, her voice all soft and breathy, “I had no idea Julian would ditch you for me… I’ll make him make it up to you next time, okay?” I replied calmly: “Have a great time. Don’t worry about the money.” Oh. She probably doesn’t know that the resort Julian booked? I own it. 1 When Julian got home, I was reviewing the quarterly profits for that exact resort. He walked in and handed me a gift box. “Stella, a present for you.” A green box. The complimentary gift for guests who spend over ten thousand dollars. I didn’t even have to open it. I knew it was a green, Christmas-themed snow globe. I looked up. “Have fun with Chloe?” He flinched—just for a second—then sighed, as if he was relieved. “So you found out. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to overthink it. “Chloe’s going through a nasty divorce, she’s in a bad place. I was just keeping her company. It’s not a big deal.” “Oh.” I nodded, my eyes still on my laptop. He stared at me, frowning. “Are you mad? Over this?” His voice was getting impatient. “Stella, that’s enough. I just got back. I’m tired.” He went to the bathroom to shower. His phone, left on the coffee table, lit up. A new message from Chloe. [Julian, is Stella mad? Should I explain it to her?] [But what if she gets even angrier seeing me?] For the first time, I saw the contact name he had for her: Little Miss Drama. Unlike me. In his phone, I was, and always had been, Stella. My full name. 2 I was the one who replied to Chloe. [No need to explain. Just apologize.] I sent it as a voice memo. [A wire transfer is the most sincere way.] Another voice memo. Chloe didn’t reply for a long time. And she definitely didn’t send any money. Julian came out of the shower, toweling his hair, and glanced at his phone. Then he looked up at me. Just then, Chloe’s reply finally came. Timid. [Stella? Why are you answering?] [Did you and Julian fight because of me? Please… please don’t fight. I’m the one who asked him to come…] Julian listened to hers, then played mine. [No need to explain. Just apologize.] [A wire transfer is the most sincere way.] He listened to mine twice. His face darkened. “Stella, is money all you care about?” “What else?” I asked, surprised. “You?” I opened the green box he’d given me, running a finger over the green, glittery peak of the globe. “And get a freebie from your spending on another woman?” Julian froze. The anger on his face turned into awkwardness. “The flight was a last-minute thing. I didn’t have time to get you a real gift. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.” “Oh,” I nodded. “Cash is fine.” “Stella!” he snapped. I just looked at him, confused. I had no idea what he was so angry about now. We stared at each other for a long time. Finally, he gritted out, “You’re unbelievable.” He stormed off toward the guest room. SLAM. “…” Psycho. 3 Early the next morning, I was in the bedroom packing for a business trip. The second Julian opened the guest room door, his face went dark. “Stella, what are you doing? “Are you seriously running away from home this early? Is this ever going to end?” I frowned. “I have a business trip.” His expression softened slightly. He didn’t say anything. He just went to the bathroom. By the time he was done, I was dressed and ready. “Let’s go.” He blinked. “Go where?” “Your office. I need to pick up the proposal.” He finally remembered. The whole reason for the ski trip was that I was heading to Colorado to bid on the new mountain resort development. Halfway there, Julian turned the steering wheel. The car’s display lit up. Incoming call: Little Miss Drama. He instinctively glanced at me. I looked up. “Can’t answer?” He scowled. “Don’t be passive-aggressive.” He hit “accept.” Her voice chirped, “Julian, where are you? I’m all dressed and waiting!” Julian cleared his throat. “You should just grab an Uber. It’s not a good time for me.” Her voice faltered, then turned worried. “Julian, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” The car was silent. I laughed, softly. “Something did. His wife is in the car.” The other end went quiet for a long time. Then Chloe’s panicked voice came through. “Stella! I’m so sorry, I’m just causing trouble, I really didn’t mean anything, please don’t misunderstand…” “That’s enough.” Julian cut her off, frowning. He paused, and his voice softened. “Just get a car. I’ll see you at the office.” He hung up. He glanced at me while waiting at a red light. He hesitated. Then he explained: “Chloe’s living in a new place, it’s remote. It’s hard to get a car.” I almost laughed. “Are you looking for a ‘World’s Most Thoughtful Husband’ award?” Julian’s face instantly went blank. He stopped talking. 4 I printed a few extra copies of the proposal at his office. While I was having some tea, the office door was thrown open. Chloe stood there, her eyes red. “Julian, I still couldn’t get a car.” She was on the verge of tears, her wide, wet eyes fixed on him. “Is Stella still mad…? “So… can you still come pick me up…?” She looked devastated. “Does this mean… I can’t work at your company anymore?” I was sitting on the sofa, facing away from the door. I set my teacup down on the table with a clink. “Good tea,” I said, loud enough to be heard. Chloe’s face went white. She looked desperately at Julian. “Stella.” Julian’s voice was heavy, displeased. “You’re taking this too far.” In front of me, he buzzed his secretary. He had Chloe settled in a conference room first. Then he came back, locked his office door, and rubbed his temples. “Stop seeing her as a threat. She’s going through a divorce, she’s got no job, nowhere to live. I’m just… helping her out.” He made me laugh. “Just helping her out? “Helping her out so much she can just burst into your office without knocking? “Are the security and receptionists at your company dead? They just let strangers come right up?!” Julian’s expression cracked. “That’s enough, Julian. Stop being disgusting.” I sneered, grabbed the proposals, and walked out. Chloe was standing by the secretary’s empty desk. Our eyes met. She gave me a small, triumphant smirk. It was a look only another woman would understand. See? I’m taking your man. I stopped. I raised my voice. “Ms. Yao, what are you smiling at? Are you proud of yourself?” Her expression immediately shifted to panic. Julian pulled his door open. Chloe tugged nervously at her clothes. “I… I wasn’t smiling…”

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1 Eight years ago, I stood on the auditorium stage at Northwood High and publicly destroyed Cole Everett. He had just given the valedictorian speech, all brilliant and full of promise, the golden boy everyone adored. Afterward, he’d cornered me behind the heavy stage curtains, his expensive suit smelling like clean laundry, and asked me to prom. I told him I had a boyfriend. He was the kind of person who’d never been rejected in his life. He just nodded, polite, and walked away. The next day, I heard he’d turned down a full ride at Harvard. The day after that, he was on a 4 AM flight to Germany for a fast-tracked medical program. I, as usual, was clocking in for my 4 AM shift at my sister’s diner, my hands smelling like bleach and burnt coffee. Eight years later, I was on a bus to Boston, clutching the $7,000 I had left in the world, my arms wrapped around my desperately sick daughter. After reviewing her chart, the resident shook his head. “His file is complex. Honestly, there’s probably only one surgeon in the city who would even attempt this. He’s a specialist just back from Germany. He successfully operated on a similar case last month.” The doctor’s face suddenly lit up, and he called out to a man walking past us down the hall. “Dr. Everett! Perfect timing. This is the case I was just telling you about. Could you meet with the family?” For a second, I thought it might be a coincidence. Then I turned. He was wearing scrubs, not a graduation gown, but the eyes above the surgical mask were the same. Dark, intelligent, and completely, utterly cold. This was my first time back in a major city in eight years. The first hospital I went to. The first person I saw from my old life was the one person I’d prayed I’d never see again. Cole’s first words were not to me. He glanced at me, his gaze sliding right off, and spoke to the resident. “I’ve seen the file. Have Dr. Carter take her to my office. I’ll meet them there after rounds.” It was obvious. He didn’t recognize me at all. 2 I’d tripped on the curb outside the hospital entrance, too frantic to watch my step. I was so focused on making sure Annie wasn’t hurt that I didn’t notice I’d scraped my hands and elbows raw on the pavement. Dr. Carter, the colleague Cole had mentioned, was a kind man with a scruffy beard and a warm, chatty demeanor. He insisted on cleaning my wounds while we waited. “You’ve gotta take care of yourself, too, Mom,” he said gently, dabbing an antiseptic wipe on my palm. “Especially with a kid this sick. Look at you, you’re a featherweight. You’ll collapse.” I looked down. My coat, bought from a thrift store five years ago, was frayed at the cuffs. I was all elbows and cheekbones, worn down by exhaustion and fear. After Annie was born, I’d barely slept. When I ran into an old high school classmate in Syracuse last year, she’d stared at me, horrified, and whispered that she almost hadn’t recognized me. “Right,” I said, forcing a smile. “Thank you, Doctor.” “This is gonna sting a little.” Annie, who had been quietly watching from my lap, suddenly scrambled up and wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. “Mommy,” she whispered, and kissed my eyelid. “Kiss it. All better.” It was what I always did for her when she got a shot. In her world, a “kiss” could fix “all better.” “Wow, Annie. You were right. It doesn’t hurt at all anymore.” I held her tight with my good arm. “She’s adorable,” Dr. Carter’s voice softened. “So, you’re Annie, huh? That’s a great name. You’re a good girl, taking care of your mom.” Annie, who had started speaking later than most kids, answered seriously, “Mommy. Hurts, too. I’m three. I go… hospital.” Dr. Carter packed up the first-aid kit. “Well, Annie, you’re going to get all better. Then you can go to kindergarten.” He turned back to me. “Don’t you worry. My buddy Cole is the best. We’ll get you guys set up.” “Oh, right. He’s Dr. Everett. My bad. We were residents together in Germany. That’s what I call him. Cole.” It figured. Dr. Carter seemed to have opened a conversational floodgate. “Don’t let his attitude fool you. The guy’s a machine. He published twice as many SCI papers as I did. This world-famous cardiac surgeon, an old German guy who yelled at everyone, treated Cole like the son he never had. Took him on as his personal mentee, tried to keep him at his research institute.” I wasn’t surprised. In high school, Cole got perfect scores in AP Chem and Bio. The teachers used to look at him like he was a winning lottery ticket. “Hey, wait a second,” Dr. Carter said, his eyes narrowing. “Did you two… know each other? The vibe when he walked past was… weird.” 3 I tensed. “No. Not really.” He wasn’t buying it. “You knew him before, didn’t you?” “…We were in the same class in high school,” I admitted. “I knew it!” He practically slapped his knee. “Okay, spill. Did he date? Was he a player?” I thought about it. “I don’t think so. I wasn’t really… in that loop.” “Figures!” Ben said. “In Germany, the guy was a ghost. Never came to a single party. Just work, lab, home. The nurses in Berlin called him *’Der Schöne Geist’—*The Beautiful Ghost. Everyone was taking bets on who’d finally get him, but he never even went on a single date. Total waste of that jawline, if you ask me.” Cole… did have a face that looked like it would break hearts. Those sharp cheekbones, the long, dark eyelashes. He looked like the kind of guy who’d leave you on “read” and not care. But the Cole I’d known was painfully earnest. I’d heard his family was old-money strict, but he was just… a decent guy. Back then, anyway. “Although,” Ben said, leaning in conspiratorially, “the ice is finally melting! He gave up that prestigious job in Germany to come back here. Rumor is, it’s for Dr. Rachel Qin. She’s in Peds. Their families are old friends, grandfathers were in the army together or something. I mean, come on. Who’s more perfect for him than that?” I just listened. “They’re a perfect match,” I said quietly. A storybook romance. “It’s about time,” Ben said. “She came back six months ago, and bam, Cole follows. He’s totally chasing her. He’s just too stubborn to admit it. So, really, did he have a high school girlfriend? Did he ever ask anyone out?” “…” My face flushed. “I don’t know. We… we weren’t close.” Ben looked disappointed. “Yeah, that tracks. He never had many friends…” Just then, the door opened. Cole Everett stood there, hands in the pockets of his white coat. “What are we talking about?” “Nothing! Not a thing!” Ben Carter scrambled to his feet. “Chief wants me. See ya! You two chat!” 4 Cole hadn’t heard. And he still hadn’t recognized me. We were lab partners for six months in AP Chem. He wasn’t a talker, and I was too busy. Busy studying, busy working. I did my homework during class so I could go straight to the diner, work the dinner rush, prep for the morning, and get a few hours of sleep before the 4 AM alarm. We had a silent system. He sat on the aisle, so he’d always refill my water bottle when he got his, saving me the trouble. I knew he was a neat freak, so I’d fold his assignments perfectly before turning them in. But we barely spoke. Other than that one, awful day at graduation, we were strangers. So, it was normal that he didn’t remember me. “I’ve reviewed the file,” he said, sitting at his desk. He glanced at Annie, asleep in my arms, and got straight to the point. “I need more details.” He was thorough. He asked about every symptom, every procedure, typing notes into his computer, his focus absolute. Finally, he leaned back, scrolling. “Have you been handling her care alone? Where’s your husband?” I didn’t blink. “He’s busy. Work. I’ve been at every appointment. You can ask me anything.” His fingers paused on the mouse. He looked up, his eyes boring into me. “Busy? What kind of work is more important than his daughter?” I had no answer. But he seemed to let it go, turning back to the screen, his brow furrowed. “Her condition is… complex.” My heart hammered against my ribs. “She’s very young,” he continued, his voice distant, clinical. “Her case isn’t exactly like the one I operated on in Germany.” He closed the file. I panicked, my hand shooting out, grabbing his arm. “Doctor, please,” I whispered, afraid to wake Annie. “Please, save my daughter. She’s only three.” If Cole, the only hope we had, refused… I fumbled in my pocket, pulling out the thick envelope, the one with my last $7,000. I shoved it onto his desk. He froze. He looked at the envelope, then at me. His eyes narrowed. “Are you… bribing me?”

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Winter is here again. For three months every year, my husband, Mark, and our son, Leo, become allergic to me. It starts with the first frost—a mysterious, violent rash that blooms across their skin if they get too close. We’ve never found the source. So, for the sake of their health, they leave. They move into another one of our properties across town, drawing a clean, sterile line between us. They weren’t there when I slipped on the ice last year and my head bled all over the pristine snow. They weren’t there when a car ran a red light and I spent a week in the hospital. Those were wars I fought alone. We became the loneliest kind of family, separated by a sickness I couldn’t see, a sickness caused by my very presence. I was the thing that could kill them. All I could do was endure the frozen silence, counting the days until spring would thaw the world and bring my family back to me. But this year, I overheard a conversation that shattered everything. “Daddy,” Leo’s small voice drifted from the other room, “we only get to see Momma Annie in the winter. Can’t the allergies last a little longer?” Momma Annie? That was the name for Mark’s childhood sweetheart. His first love. I heard the sound of Mark’s hand ruffling Leo’s hair. “Too many antihistamines aren’t good for you, buddy. Besides, Momma Annie would worry. I’ll bring you to see her whenever I can.” Leo clapped his hands. “Yay! I love the winter mango candies. That’s how I know we’ll get to see Momma Annie.” The world went silent. All I could hear was the frantic pounding of my own heart. Mango. The one thing Leo was deathly allergic to. The one thing I had spent his entire life protecting him from. I stood in the biting wind for a long time before I finally went back inside. When spring returned them to my doorstep, I felt nothing. The warmth was gone. “Eat what you want,” I told Leo, my voice flat, as I watched him unwrap a piece of candy. “If you think I’m abusing you, you can call the police. I don’t want custody.” 1 Leo froze, his eyes wide. He’d never heard me speak like that. For a long moment, he just stared at me. Then, with a flicker of defiance, he tore the wrapper off a small, orange candy. A mango candy. The look of anticipation in his eyes was a knife in my heart. He truly believed that eating it would send him back to her. All my warnings, all the notes engraved on his school ID, all of it was just noise he had learned to ignore. Suddenly, Mark lunged across the room, smacking the candy from Leo’s hand. It skittered across the hardwood floor. “Lea, what’s gotten into you?” he demanded, his voice tight with alarm. “You’re not thinking straight. He almost ate it! You know how severe his allergy is, it could kill him.” Yes, I thought. I know. I was the clown who had built a fortress against a single fruit. I scrutinized every label on every snack, every carton of milk, terrified of a stray ingredient. I repeated the same warnings to him, his teachers, the parents of his friends. “Leo has a severe mango allergy. Please be careful.” I treated mangoes like a loaded gun. But this one, this little piece of poison, had been given to him by Mark. It was their secret password. Their ticket to Momma Annie. I let my gaze settle on my husband. “How did he get a mango candy in the first place? Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” A flicker of panic crossed Mark’s face before he masked it with a casual excuse and ushered our son upstairs. On this day, the first day of spring, they were used to a celebration. A feast I would have spent days preparing, handmade gifts waiting for them. A grand reunion. This time, the dining table was bare. Mark’s brow furrowed. “Lea, what is wrong with you today?” He noticed the redness in my eyes and his expression softened into one of weary patience. “Are you still upset? I promise, we’ll find a way to fix this thing with me and Leo. It’s this damn winter. It always makes me absent when you need me the most.” My nails dug into my palms. He remembered. When I was pregnant with Leo, my mother was diagnosed with leukemia. Mark wanted to protect the baby; I wanted to save my mother. “I’m donating my marrow,” I had told him, my voice raw. “Nothing you say will change my mind.” It was an impossible choice. I loved our unborn child, but this was my mother. It was as if my mom heard our arguments through the hospital walls. Her condition deteriorated rapidly, making a transplant impossible. We learned later that she had stopped taking her medication, quietly trading her own life for a new one. I gave birth through a fog of grief and rage, and the hormonal crash that followed plunged me into a severe postpartum depression. The winters were the worst. Alone in the quiet house, the silence screamed at me. I didn’t want to live. But then I would look at Leo—the child my mother had died for—and the thought of him growing up without me was the one thing that kept my hands from doing the unthinkable. I had tried everything to keep them with me during the winter. I’d wrapped myself in layers, worn a ridiculous respirator mask, but it was no use. The moment winter arrived, the red welts would appear on their skin. “Lea, the allergies are back,” Mark would say, his voice full of false regret as he packed his and Leo’s bags. “We have to go. Just hold on until spring. I’ll bring him back then.” I couldn’t understand it. I would scrub my body in the shower until my back was raw and bleeding, punishing myself for a crime I didn’t know I’d committed. I would cry in the bathtub until I fell asleep. Those winters were a bitter, agonizing penance. And it was all a lie. I pulled my hand from Mark’s grasp and went to our bedroom, alone. That night, Leo ended up in the hospital anyway. He’d found another candy and eaten it in secret. Delirious with fever, he kept murmuring the same words. “I want Momma Annie… I don’t want to go home.” Each word was a razor blade. I had just finished taking notes from the doctor, and his whispers nearly made me collapse. I handed the notepad to Mark, the sigh escaping my lips feeling like the last breath of a dying woman. “Let’s get a divorce. He can have his Momma Annie.” Mark laughed, a hollow sound. “He’s a kid, Lea. You can’t believe the things he says when he’s sick.” He looked me in the eye, his expression a careful blend of truth and lies. “You know Annie. We haven’t spoken since our wedding. I took Leo to see her once, a while ago. He must have gotten his memories mixed up. You know how kids are with new people.” Before I could respond, Annie herself burst into the room, rushing straight to Leo’s bedside. She scooped him into her arms, her face a mask of anguish, and then turned to me, her voice dripping with accusation. “Lea, how could this happen? He’s such a good boy, why would you let him suffer like this? He was perfectly healthy just a few days ago when he was with me.” Heads turned. Murmurs rippled through the nearby visitors. “That must be the stepmom. So sad when families break up.” Noticing my stare, Annie quickly backpedaled. “Oh, Lea, don’t misunderstand. That’s not what I meant. I’m just so worried about him. Why does he always have to go through so much pain?” I walked out and went to the restroom, splashing cold water on my face until the shaking subsided. He went through this pain to escape me. To see her. Every winter, from the time he was three years old until now. When I returned, I paused outside the door, hearing their voices inside. “Daddy, can I stay with Mommy for a few more days?” Leo pleaded. He called her “Mommy” so easily. Annie looked at Mark, her eyes hopeful. “No,” Mark said, his tone firm. “It was risky enough for you to come here. I told you, we can’t let this blow up in front of Lea.” Annie’s lower lip jutted out in a practiced pout. “Just one more time, please? We can be careful. I just want to make sure he’s okay before I leave. I only get to see him for three months a year. What’s a few more days?” Mark stared at her for a long moment, then sighed in defeat. “Fine. This is the last time.” A bitter laugh escaped me. In my own life, I was the other woman, the one they had to sneak around. A doctor entered the room and turned to Mark, rattling off questions. “What’s the boy’s history with this allergy? What medications has he taken before? What was his most severe symptom?” Mark just stood there, clueless. The doctor’s frustration grew. “You’re his parents, don’t you pay attention to these things?” Annie wrung her hands. Mark, flustered, pulled out his phone to text me. That’s when I pushed the door open. “Talk to me,” I said, walking toward the doctor. “I’m his…” I trailed off. What was I? I gave the doctor a detailed account of our son’s entire medical history. He was the child I had given birth to; I couldn’t stand to see him suffer, no matter what. When I returned to the room, Annie was making a show of getting ready to leave. At the sight of me, Leo burst into tears. “No! No! I want Momma Annie!” His shrieks echoed off the sterile walls. I knew what this was. It was a performance, a play designed to drive me away and give them the space they wanted. Tears welled in my eyes, hot and stinging, but I forced them back. I looked at my son, the child I would have died for. “Fine,” I said, my voice steady. “I won’t come back.” That night, a splitting headache took hold of me. Dazed, I accidentally called Mark instead of my doctor. He came home immediately, bringing me water, finding my medication. “Don’t blame Leo,” he murmured, stroking my hair as I swallowed the pills. “It’s just a novelty for him. In a few days, he’ll be crying for his mom again. This is good, it gives you a chance to rest. You’ve gotten so thin.” He waited until I seemed comfortable before returning to the hospital. But over the next few days, a crushing fatigue settled over me. I slept constantly, and when I was awake, my mouth was filled with a bitter taste and my stomach churned with a dull, cramping pain. I went to the hospital alone. My doctor looked at my chart, then at me, with a puzzled expression. “Did you change your prescription? The medication you were on was working very well.” I shook my head. I carried my pills with me everywhere. The bottle was the same. The doctor took it from me, ran a quick test, and his brow furrowed. “This isn’t your antidepressant. It’s almost identical to a sleeping pill. I prescribed you one once, years ago when you had that bout of insomnia, and you had a bad reaction. You’re not supposed to take these. Who gave this to you?” A chill washed over me, so cold it felt like ice water in my veins. I saw Mark’s face, fumbling with my pill bottle in the dim light of my bedroom. He was so annoyed that I had disturbed him, so afraid it might happen again, that he had drugged me. He had switched my antidepressants with sleeping pills. I remembered him warning me just a few weeks ago, “Be careful with these, Lea. Don’t ever get your pills mixed up.” The easiest way to ensure I wouldn’t bother him was to keep me asleep. The bitter laugh that escaped my lips was a sound of pure agony. My heart felt like it was being carved out of my chest, piece by piece. I went home and started packing. There was nothing left to discuss. While clearing out a drawer, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. It was one of Leo’s school essays, a perfect score circled in red at the top. The teacher’s comment read: Such a sincere expression of love for your mother. Wonderful! For a moment, I was transported back in time. Leo in preschool, learning his first song. He held my hand as we walked home, singing off-key, “My mommy is the best in the world.” He’d looked up at me with his big, serious eyes. “Mommy, when I grow up, I’m going to buy you a big house. You’re the best mommy.” I picked up the essay and began to read. My mom and I are like frost on a winter night. We can only be together in the cold, and when the warmth comes, we melt away. I wish winter would come sooner. Every line was filled with love. But it wasn’t for me. An immense, crushing weight of failure settled on my shoulders, bowing my spine. I sat there for a long time. Finally, I stood up, walked to the mantelpiece, and carefully wiped down the silver frame holding my mother’s photograph. I held it to my chest. Mom, the gift you left me isn’t a good one, I thought. I’m taking you with me. I didn’t want any of them anymore. The sound of the front door opening broke the silence. Mark and Leo were home from the hospital. Leo, too young to be discreet, was still complaining. “Daddy, now we have to wait another nine months. I have to sit up straight and stand up straight, and I can’t eat this and I can’t eat that. It’s torture.” Mark tapped him on the head. “Don’t say that. Your mother is just trying to do what’s best for you.” Leo pouted. “But I’m not happy. Momma Annie wouldn’t do that.” So that was it. My nine months of painstaking care, the time I cherished, was their prison sentence. The three months of separation that I dreaded, that I feared would stretch on forever, was their great escape. Mark saw me in the bedroom and, assuming I hadn’t heard, brought Leo over. “Lea, this little guy is just being mischievous. It’s a good thing you didn’t come to the hospital. He would have worn you out completely.” I murmured a quiet agreement, slipping my mother’s photograph into my handbag. On the pretense of running an errand, I took our marriage certificate to a lawyer. The young associate took one look at it and gave me a sympathetic glance. “This is a forgery,” she said gently.

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At 19, I had my first taste of intimacy with the school’s golden boy, Julian Sterling. Afterward, I overheard him on the phone. “Three days. You guys lost.” “No way, unless you send a pic to prove it?” Julian agreed, but at the last second changed his mind and only sent a photo of my sleeping face. From then on, he was addicted to me. And I was the perfect, obedient girlfriend. Until I left for a college on the other side of the country, blocked him on everything, and vanished. I heard Julian went crazy looking for me. I just laughed. He pursued me because of a bet; I went along with it because a girl from the trailer park only gets one shot at a guy like Julian Sterling. Once I slept with him, the spell was broken. 1 Nineteen-year-old boys have infinite energy. even the arrogant, high-maintenance trust fund kids like Julian Sterling. This was seven days after graduation. Three days after he “confessed” his feelings. We were practically strangers. The first time was quick, but he recovered fast. After that, he was relentless. My body was a new toy he couldn’t put down. The stubble on his jaw, clean-shaven earlier, had grown back, scratching my chest raw. I bit him. It only made him more aggressive. When it was finally over, he held onto me, satisfied but greedy. “Chloe.” He kissed my earlobe, his voice low. “Shower? Round two?” Then his voice softened. “Unless you’re too sore? Since it’s your first time.” I bit my swollen lip, closed my eyes shyly, and nodded. He carried me to the bathroom. An hour later, I stared blankly at the ceiling. Who would have thought Julian Sterling—the ice prince of our high school, whose family owned half the town—would be obsessively kissing every inch of a girl from the wrong side of the tracks? 2 It was almost dawn when he finally stopped. He collapsed on top of me, face buried in my neck. “Chloe, you like it?” he mumbled. “If you like it, want to come over every day?” I was too exhausted to open my eyes and just hummed a response. His phone buzzed. He got up, answered it, and collapsed onto the sofa near the bed. “What’s with the noise?” His voice was raspy, smug. The guys on the other end were loud. “Did you just finish?” “Yeah.” Julian couldn’t hide the pride. “Three days. Pay up.” “Did you take her V-card?” “Obviously.” “Damn, dude. She looks so innocent.” “So what? It’s me. You think there’s a girl I can’t get?” “I don’t buy it. Chloe is a prude. She blushed when I said hi to her last week. You expect me to believe you bagged her three days after finals?” “Believe what you want.” “Unless you got pics. That was the deal. Pics or it didn’t happen.” Julian didn’t hesitate. “Wait.” He walked back to the bed. 3 I was curled up on my side, a habit from sharing a small bed. My black hair stuck to my face. I had cried twice during the night. My eyelashes were still wet, casting shadows on my pale cheeks. My lip was swollen where I’d bitten it. I was deep asleep, breathing steadily, occasionally letting out a small, soft whimper. Julian reached for the blanket, then stopped. Instead of pulling it down, he pulled it up, covering me to my chin. Only my face was visible. He snapped a photo. His phone buzzed again. “Lame, Julian. Where’s the rest?” “Fuck off.” His voice was colder now. “She’s my girlfriend now. Watch your mouths.” “Okay, okay, chill.” “How long you gonna keep this up, though? A week?” “Maybe. Until I leave for Stanford.” “Right. You’re going to California. What if she follows you?” Julian laughed. “California is huge. Finding someone there is like finding a needle in a haystack.” “True. A girl with her background? You guys live in different universes.” 4 They weren’t wrong. My mom did two years for assault. Now she ran a food truck selling breakfast tacos. My dad was dead. Every holiday, I worked the truck—cooking, cleaning, taking cash. I always smelled like grease and onions. No matter how much I scrubbed. When Julian first approached me, he asked, “What’s that smell in your hair?” “Helping my mom at the truck,” I said honestly. “Maybe don’t stand so close. You’ll smell like grease.” “Who cares?” Julian smiled, unbothered. “Your mom’s tacos are supposed to be good. Bring me one tomorrow? I’ll pay.” He shoved a twenty in my hand. I tried to refuse, but he insisted. The next day, I brought ten tacos. I gave Julian the loaded special. The rest went to his friends. His friends wouldn’t touch them. Julian took a bite, frowned slightly, and threw the rest in the trash the second I walked into class. He never asked for tacos again. Instead, he bought me expensive shampoo and body wash. Brands I couldn’t pronounce. I looked them up; they cost more than my weekly grocery budget. Before coming over tonight, I used them. I smelled like expensive flowers. Julian was satisfied. No frowning. 5 Julian kissed me awake. “Chloe.” His chest was hot against my back. “Stay the day?” I bit my lip. “I can’t. The food truck…” “I’m your boyfriend. I don’t want you working like a dog. Here.” He kissed my neck, his hands roaming. “I’ll give you money. Lots of it. Just give me your time.” I shook my head, pushing him away, tears welling up. “I like you, Julian. I don’t want your money.” A single tear rolled down my cheek. Julian looked genuinely moved. But I knew men. In bed, they’d promise you the moon. Especially since I was his “first” too, in a way—his first conquest for a bet. He felt guilty. “I know you’re not like that,” he soothed. “If you were, you wouldn’t have rejected all those other guys.” I cried silently. “Don’t cry, baby. The money is just because I care. No strings attached.” I hugged his waist. “Julian… I’m doing this because I want to, too.” When I got home, I had a transfer notification. $10,000. Memo: Gift. I lay on my creaky metal bedframe, counting the zeros. My family had never seen this much cash at once. It wasn’t enough. My mom’s victim was paralyzed. His family came every month for “medical expenses.” It was a black hole. But now, I saw a way out. I’d be good. I’d make Julian want to keep me around. I’d get more money. Then I’d go to college, pay off the debt, and take my mom far away.

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