Category: English

Three years after I left Rick Hayes, I moved back into his house. He was still single. Shamelessly, I slept in his bed, used his credit card, and slept with him. It only took a month for everyone to assume we were getting back together. I even managed to drive out the secretary who had been by his side for a decade. The day she got married, a completely drunk Rick finally seemed to surrender. “Fine,” he slurred, a note of helpless resignation in his voice. “I’ll remarry you.” But the next morning, I wasn’t there. Waiting for him on the steps of City Hall was my three-year-old daughter. 1 When Rick and I divorced, it was ugly. I was convinced something was going on between him and his secretary. He insisted I was being irrational. “For God’s sake, Lara, can you just let it go? It was a cup of hot water. When are you going to drop it?” Rick, who hadn’t spoken to me in over a week, finally broke his silence, rubbing his exhausted temples. A cup of hot water. It was the incident that made me the laughingstock of our entire social circle. No one could understand why I’d thrown such a massive fit over Rick simply pouring his secretary a cup of hot water. I’ll admit, there were times I wondered if I had overreacted. But every time I replayed that moment in my mind, the same bitter sense of betrayal washed over me. We had both been caught in a downpour—me and Anna, the secretary who had been with him for years. The second we got into the car, before I had even closed my door, I saw Rick grab a thermos from the console and hand it to her. It was so natural, so effortless. She took it without a second thought, cradling it in her hands and taking a few careful sips. In that instant, my own hands were so cold they trembled. My heart felt like it had been encased in ice. This was the same man who wouldn’t even bother to pick up a knocked-over trash can at home, yet here he was, attending to another woman with such quiet, intimate care. I lost my temper immediately. Rick didn’t see the big deal. “Anna’s on her period today,” he said dismissively. “You’re not.” And with those words, I filed for divorce. The proceedings dragged on for nearly six months. We fought at home, we fought at his parents’ house, we fought at his office. It became a public spectacle, and eventually, the gossip started to tarnish his secretary’s reputation. Only then did Rick finally agree to sign the papers. The day it was finalized, we stood glaring at each other, clutching our divorce decrees, and swore we would stay out of each other’s lives forever. But three years later, I showed up on his doorstep with a suitcase in my hand. And he let me in. 2 Rick hadn’t changed much. He was just as handsome, but the look he gave me was colder than I remembered. The reunion wasn’t as awkward as I’d feared. He just stood there, silent, staring at me with that icy expression. I squeezed past him and strolled inside as if I owned the place. “I’m broke,” I announced, my voice full of unearned confidence. “I’ll be crashing here for a while.” I then asked the housekeeper to take my bags upstairs. Rick didn’t move from the doorway. “Get out.” I made myself comfortable on the sofa, poured a glass of water, and waved a dismissive hand at him. “Don’t be so stingy. It’s not like you’ve remarried. I won’t get in your way.” That was a lie. I was here specifically to get in his way. I didn’t know why he hadn’t married his secretary yet, but I was going to make sure he never did. Rick, for all his faults, was a gentleman. As long as I was shameless enough, he wouldn’t physically throw me out. And so, I successfully moved back in. He worked in his study late into the night. When he finally came to bed, freshly showered, his arm brushed against mine. He flinched as if he’d been burned. In less than a second, he had rolled over and pinned me to the mattress, his body a dead weight on top of mine. His eyes were narrowed to slits, the words ground out between his teeth. “Lara, you are playing with fire.” I let him hold my wrists, my body going limp against the soft mattress. “I’m used to this bed. I can’t sleep anywhere else.” A bitter, humorless laugh escaped him. His handsome features twisted into a sneer as he leaned close to my ear. “So you haven’t slept in three years?” My, my. A few years apart, and even the emotionally stunted Rick Hayes had learned sarcasm. Must be the influence of his cheerful little secretary. Unsurprisingly, he grabbed me by the collar and tossed me out of the room. He even threw my slippers out after me. Such a temper. I sat on the floor for a moment, looking at the dark bruises already forming on my wrist. I zoned out for a second. He hadn’t actually used much force. It was just the medication—it made my body more fragile than a normal person’s. I stood up, dusting myself off, a pang of regret hitting me. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him so hard. I only had a month left. I hoped it would be enough time. 3 I was up before dawn the next morning, shooing the housekeeper out of the kitchen so I could make Rick breakfast myself. I’d never cooked for him once during our marriage, but here I was, three years divorced, slaving over a lavish spread of four dishes and a soup. Surely, he would be moved. Just as I set the food on the table, Rick came downstairs, impeccably dressed for work. He walked right past me as if I were invisible, heading straight for the door. I quickly blocked his path. “Rick, you are not leaving until you eat what I made.” He shot me a contemptuous look. “With your cooking skills? I’d rather not be poisoned.” That was the old me. I had a culinary certificate now. When he didn’t move, I grabbed the sleeve of his pristine shirt and tried to pull him toward the table. He stood rooted to the spot, immovable, but at least he wasn’t leaving. Taking that as a cue, I hurried to ladle out a bowl of chicken soup. I’d been simmering it since last night. It smelled divine. But before I could bring it to him, the front door opened. “Mr. Hayes, I brought you breakfast,” a cheerful voice called out. “It’s a bit cold, let me just heat it up for you.” Rick’s secretary, Anna, bustled in, not noticing me at first. She moved toward the kitchen with a practiced ease that told me she’d done this a hundred times before. “No need,” I said, my voice bright and sweet as I held up the bowl of soup. “I’ve already made breakfast for Rick. You can have yours, Miss Foster.” She froze, her eyes widening when she saw me. I could see the fear in them. She forced a smile. “Mrs. Hayes… you’re back?” Her voice trembled, and she’d forgotten to use my maiden name. Before she could correct herself, I shot a flirtatious glance at Rick and said, “It’s alright. Maybe in a few days, I’ll be Mrs. Hayes again.” Rick rolled his eyes, probably worried I was about to bully his precious secretary. “Anna, forget breakfast. Let’s go.” I blocked the doorway, holding the soup in one hand and raising the spoon to his tightly pressed lips with the other. I was prepared for a long standoff. But just then, a side effect of the medication kicked in. My hand started to shake uncontrollably. Hot soup sloshed over my knuckles, turning the skin an angry red. Terrified he would notice, I summoned the last of my strength to step aside and clear a path for them. But Rick, who had been so eager to leave, suddenly snatched the bowl from my hand and downed the entire thing in one go. 4 Anna didn’t come back to the house after that day. I casually asked the housekeeper about it. Apparently, aside from the occasional breakfast delivery, Anna had never spent the night. It didn’t seem like a typical boyfriend-girlfriend arrangement. But that was impossible. Anna had been with Rick since she graduated from college. Ten years, and not a single boyfriend. I didn’t believe for a second that she wasn’t in love with him. And Rick… he had been willing to divorce me to protect her reputation. He had to be crazy about her. Could it be that Anna refused to stay here because I had once lived in this house? Did they have another home together somewhere else? If so, my being here was completely pointless. I couldn’t break them up if they weren’t even around. No, I had to go to his office. Using the excuse of bringing him lunch, I had the housekeeper pack up a few dishes and headed to his company. The security guard at the front desk didn’t recognize me, so I had to call Rick. He sounded like he was in a meeting and hung up on me before I could finish my sentence. A few minutes later, Anna appeared, dressed in a sharp white power suit. On her home turf, she was a different person. “Miss Reed,” she said, her voice dripping with condescension, “Mr. Hayes is busy. If you have a message, you can give it to me.” Had he sent her down to get rid of me? She must have complained to him after seeing me at the house, and now he was letting her put me in my place. I smiled sweetly. “Miss Foster, if Rick was really in love with you, don’t you think he would have married you by now? He proposed to me a month after we started dating.” Yes, I was trying to stir up trouble. But she was good. Rick had trained her well. She didn’t even flinch. “Miss Reed, I don’t believe my relationship with Mr. Hayes is any of your business.” She had a point. I couldn’t argue with that. So, I resorted to brute force. When she wasn’t looking, I made a mad dash for the elevators. In the end, Rick himself had to come down to get me. Inside the elevator, he didn’t even spare me a glance. His attention was solely on his secretary. “Are you hurt?” he asked her, his voice soft with concern. She shook her head, looking at him with adoration, and then shot me a tiny, triumphant smile. She was taunting me again. Since no one was talking to me, I decided to start a conversation myself. “Rick, is this elevator for your personal use only?” I had seen the “CEO Only” plaque on the wall. But Anna had used it to come down. “I have a weak constitution,” Anna answered for him, her voice full of pride. “Mr. Hayes is considerate. He doesn’t want me to get jostled in the crowded staff elevators. So yes, only the two of us are allowed to use this one.” Rick remained silent, but I saw his brow furrow slightly. 5 Now that I was in his office, there was no way I was leaving easily. After about a dozen trips to the bathroom to stall for time, I used the excuse of being too sleepy to keep my eyes open and crashed on his sofa. The medication made me tire easily, so it wasn’t entirely a lie. I actually did drift off. In a daze, I thought I felt him drape a jacket over me. Anna came in and out several times, bringing him coffee, delivering files, her eyes constantly darting in my direction. I vaguely heard her say, “Mr. Hayes, if this is difficult for you, I can have security escort Miss Reed out. Having her here like this… it’s causing gossip among the staff.” The pen in Rick’s hand stopped moving. He looked up, his eyes cold. “What did you just call her?” Anna’s face went pale. She bit her lip, looking pitiful and fragile. Rick’s harsh demeanor softened. “You can go,” he said, his voice gentle. “You don’t need to stay and work overtime with me tonight.” But for once, the ever-obedient Anna stood her ground. “Mr. Hayes,” she said, her hands clenched at her sides, “when you were at your lowest, she humiliated you in front of your competitors and stole the project you’d worked on for a year. Why are you still letting her back into your life?” Rick’s face darkened. He looked at the tears welling in Anna’s eyes and, against his better judgment, offered an explanation. “What happened back then wasn’t her fault. I wasn’t clear with her. She misunderstood.” Anna’s tears finally spilled over. “You poured me a cup of hot water! How much clearer did you need to be? I explained it to her! I told her you always remembered my cycle because you would lighten my workload during that time. But she wouldn’t listen! She used your love for her to throw tantrums time and time again, and you were always the one to apologize first. You’re finally free of her. Why would you get tangled up with this mess again?” The next second, a stack of files went flying off his desk, hitting the floor with a loud thud that made Anna jump. Rick glanced over at me on the sofa. Then, his voice low and dangerous, he said to Anna, “Get. Out.” 6 I slept for a long time. When I woke up, it was dark outside. The office was pitch black, except for the single desk lamp illuminating Rick’s workspace. He was still there, working. He’d always been a workaholic. He’d forget to eat, to drink, to sleep. I used to invent all sorts of ridiculous errands for him—buy me bubble tea from the West End, pastries from that bakery on the East Side—just to get him to leave the office at a decent hour. The memories flickered before my eyes. If it weren’t for what happened, Rick would have been a good husband. He never once refused any of my requests. He saw that I was awake. He closed the file in front of him, came over, and took his suit jacket off of me, his back turned to me the whole time. “Let’s go. I’ll take you home.” Had he been waiting for me? He could have just woken me up. Anna was gone. Had she gone home for the night? But if she was his girlfriend, surely she wouldn’t be comfortable leaving him alone with me. I decided to ask. “You and Anna seem to have a pretty open relationship. She’s okay with you being alone in a room with your ex-wife?” Rick stopped walking and turned to me, a confused look on his face. “Why would I need her permission?” “Well, you two are together, aren’t you?” He took a step closer, his gaze intense as he stared into my eyes.

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I needed someone to cover my class, and I accidentally hired a guy. When my name was called, he answered with a clear, masculine “Here.” The professor looked up, confused. “Since when is Maya a man?” The guy froze for a second, then inspiration struck. “I’m her boyfriend, actually,” he said smoothly. “She’s sick, so she asked me to come record the lecture for her. She wants to catch up as soon as she’s better.” A murmur rippled through the lecture hall. Then, from the front row, Liam stood up. He gave the guy a polite, tight-lipped nod. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry, but I’m Maya’s boyfriend,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “Who are you?” Liam was a legend in the Computer Science department. I was a nobody, barely avoiding academic probation. We hadn’t seen each other in a month, and the first thing he said to me was: “Maya, if you don’t start taking this seriously, you’re going to end up as nothing.” He glanced at his watch three times while he said it, as if every second with me was a waste of his life. I nodded, my voice surprisingly calm. “I am nothing. I don’t deserve you. Let’s break up.” To finally get away from him, I asked the guy from class—the substitute—to pretend to be my new boyfriend. After we successfully broke up for good, his eyes lit up. “Awesome! So, does this mean I get a promotion?” 1 I’d been sitting motionless in the art studio for ten hours when my roommate called. “Maya, you have to check the campus gossip site! You’re going viral, hahaha! You should probably go explain things to Liam.” My fingers, stiff and sore, fumbled with my phone. At the top of the site was a video, already with thousands of views. In the clip, the professor is taking attendance. When he gets to my name, a guy’s voice calls out. The professor calls his bluff, and the guy improvises, claiming to be my boyfriend and painting me as some kind of diligent, dedicated student. The punchline, of course, was my actual boyfriend standing up to call him out. The comment section was a sea of laughing emojis. 【Did the golden boy of CS just get played?】 【Lmao, this dude is so obviously a class-sitter for hire.】 【He really thought on his feet, too bad he picked a girl who already had a boyfriend in the room. Busted.】 My vision went dark for a second. I pulled up my chat with the substitute. 【You didn’t think to mention you were a guy?】 This was a major-specific course. The professor knew our faces, even if he didn’t know us well. The plan had been simple: have a girl wear a mask, sit in the back, and just blend in. When I’d hired him through the app, his profile said female, so I didn’t think twice. He replied instantly. 【I’m so sorry! It was my first time doing this, I didn’t know the protocol. (´-ω-`)】 【I panicked, I had no idea your boyfriend was there! (ಥ_ಥ)】 【I explained it to him afterward, I don’t think there was any real misunderstanding. (シ. .)シ】 【Seriously, I feel terrible. Can I buy you dinner to make up for it? ( TДT)】 I closed the app and sighed. This was bad. Now Liam was going to be mad about me skipping class again. It was the same fight we’d had a month ago, the one that had led to this cold war between us. 2 Liam and I grew up across the hall from each other. He was always one of those intensely self-disciplined people, while I was born to drift. When other kids were playing outside, he was forcing me to do homework. He’d stand over me, his face serious, his lips a thin line. “This is wrong. Write it out ten times.” It was torture. In high school, he requested to be my desk partner, pushing me every single day. “You have to work harder,” he’d say. “We’ll go to Northwood together.” His ears would turn pink when he said it, his normally cool composure cracking just a little. He kept repeating it, “we together.” For those two words, I studied like my life depended on it. We both got into Northwood’s top-ranked Computer Science program. My parents cried with joy. They said Liam was a blessing, that without him, I would have ruined my own future. The day my acceptance letter came, everyone was beaming, so proud of me. But on that sweltering July afternoon, I felt a chill spread through my body, a cold so deep it made me tremble. Because in the list of majors I had painstakingly chosen and submitted, Computer Science wasn’t anywhere on it. And my scores were more than good enough to get my first choice. Someone had changed my application. 3 I knew I hated coding from the very first day of college. The rigid rules, the unyielding logic—it all felt so suffocating, so dull. I started skipping classes, secretly taking drawing workshops and spending all my time in the art studio. I couldn’t let Liam know. But you can’t hide something like that forever. When he found out I was cutting his beloved data structures lecture for a life drawing class, his brow furrowed. “That’s not a serious pursuit,” he’d said, one word at a time. His tone was as stern as my parents’ had been my whole life. The big fight, the one that broke us, happened last month. It was because I’d submitted my application to transfer majors. Liam was furious. He said I was being impulsive, that I was throwing my future away. In that moment, a wave of exhaustion washed over me. I didn’t want to convince him anymore. I didn’t want to explain myself at all. 4 I opened my chat with Liam. The last messages were from a month ago. I hesitated, then started typing. 【Liam, guess what today is!】 No reply. I sent another. 【If you can’t guess, you owe me a kiss.】 An hour passed. 【Okay, fine, I know you’re just pretending not to know so you can get that kiss.】 【It’s World Oceans Day! We should get dinner to celebrate!】 【Where are you? I’ll come find you :)】 A knot of frustration tightened in my stomach. I was making it so obvious I wanted to make up. Why was he ignoring me? I ate dinner with my right hand, my left endlessly scrolling up through our old conversation, waiting for his name to pop up with a new message. The Wi-Fi in the dining hall was spotty, and I was terrified I’d miss his reply because of a delay. I stretched a single meal out for over an hour. He never wrote back. 5 I texted one of Liam’s roommates, who told me he was at the lab. When I got there, he was hunched over a monitor, debugging code, his focus absolute. I waved, trying to keep my voice light. “Liam!” He glanced up, his eyes meeting mine for a fraction of a second before he quickly looked away, feigning indifference. “What are you doing here?” I wrapped my arms around his and stood on my toes to give him a quick peck on the lips. “Don’t be mad anymore, okay? I’m sorry.” A faint pink blush crept up his ears. The icy resolve on his face seemed to melt, replaced by the soft light of a winter morning. “Okay,” he mumbled. “What are you sorry for?” “…Let’s go get dinner. You have dark circles under your eyes. You pulled another all-nighter, didn’t you? I bet you haven’t eaten.” I was desperate to change the subject. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. His face went blank again. “Excuse me, you two,” a voice cut in. “Dinner’s not an option just yet.” I turned. It was Sophia, one of Liam’s frequent hackathon partners. She offered me a smile that felt more like a courtesy than a welcome. “We have a huge competition deadline coming up. Liam and I have to grind this out. I’m sorry, he can’t go with you.” She paused. “I ordered us some food, it should be here soon. You’re welcome to stay and have some, if you want.” There was a subtle arrogance in her tone that rubbed me the wrong way, a hint that this was her territory, not mine. But Liam had told me how important this competition was to him. “It’s okay, I don’t want to get in your way,” I said. “Liam, I’ll see you when you’re not so busy. We can get dinner then.” He gave a noncommittal “Mm.” “Okay, then. We won’t see you out,” Sophia said, her smile firmly in place. The last thing I saw before the door clicked shut was Liam and Sophia leaning in close together, their heads nearly touching as they pointed at the screen, completely absorbed in their work. A sour feeling churned in my stomach. 6 Liam must have been really busy. Another month passed after I saw him at the lab. He never texted, not once. His roommate told me he was practically living there. Ever since we got to college, it felt like he was always busy. Too busy to answer my texts. Far too busy to ever reach out first. This past month, I’d thrown myself into my art and hadn’t reached out to him either. The result was a month of complete silence. It was hard to believe we were even in the same major, let alone the same city. We were living in different worlds. His was a world of GPAs, research, and competitions. Mine was a world of skipped classes and charcoal-smudged fingers. He was collecting awards, becoming a campus celebrity. I was skirting academic probation, a person of interest for my academic advisor. When did we drift so far apart? 7 I finally broke the silence and called him. While the phone was ringing, a notification popped up from my friends’ group chat. My roommate had shared a link to an article from the campus paper. It was about Liam and Sophia winning first place in their competition. The photo showed the two of them on stage, accepting their award. They looked confident, radiant. They looked good together. My roommate tagged me: 【Your boyfriend is amazing!】 Before I could reply, another notification appeared, a suggested news story. 【Power Couple, Both Early Admits to Grad School…】 I slammed the “dislike, show less of this” button, but a wave of sadness washed over me anyway. Suddenly, the call connected. Liam’s voice, tired and distant, came through the line. “What’s up?” My mind was still stuck on that headline, and a childish sense of hurt colored my voice. “Liam, why haven’t you called me? I just saw—” “Busy,” he cut me off. “…Well, do you have time to get dinner with me?” “Where.” “Just the dining hall. It won’t take long. Five o’clock?” “Fine.” “See you there?” “Yep.” He hung up. 8 I waited for him at the entrance to the dining hall for one hour and twenty-one minutes. Liam finally arrived as dusk settled over campus. “Sorry. Something came up.” I opened my mouth to ask, Why couldn’t you have just sent a text? But I didn’t. We were finally getting dinner. I didn’t want to ruin it. I went to get a bowl of spicy ramen, and he went for his usual: a pre-packaged salad. He always got that because there was no line, and he could eat it fast. For a guy like him, even eating was a waste of time. By the time I brought my steaming bowl to the table, he was already halfway done. He glanced at my food and frowned, but said nothing. The ramen was hot. I took my time, carefully picking out the cilantro. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liam raise his wrist and check his watch. One. I started counting. It was a habit of his, something he’d been doing since high school. Timing his meals. When he finished his salad, he checked it again. Two. I pretended not to notice his growing impatience. “Liam,” I said, trying to sound cheerful, “the university is having a small student art exhibition, and even though I’m not an art major, one of my paintings was selected! I’m so—” He lifted his wrist. Three. It was as if every single second he spent with me was a precious moment of his life slipping away, wasted. 9 “Maya, if you don’t start taking this seriously, you’re going to end up as nothing.” A month apart, and that was the first real sentence he’d said to me. I couldn’t believe it. I swallowed the noodles in my mouth and looked up at him, my gaze level. “You’re right,” I said calmly. “I am nothing. I don’t deserve you.” “Let’s break up.” I’d been thinking about it for a long time. Liam and I were just too different. He was serious and disciplined; he hated it when I was goofy or affectionate. The order and stability he craved were the very things that made me feel trapped. I despised the coding he excelled at. He disdained the passion I had for my art. We couldn’t even agree on food—I loved spicy, he wanted bland. Maybe Sophia was the one who was more his type. Liam’s brow, which had been furrowed in disapproval, tightened even more. “I’m just trying to help you.” There it was. That was always his line. He’d say it in that cool, detached voice—I’m just trying to help you—and it made me feel like I was the one being irrational. “You need to calm down.” He stood up. “I have to go.” He didn’t look back as he walked away, his figure disappearing into the crowd. I looked down at my bowl and kept eating. But then a tear fell, then another. I fumbled for a napkin, but the more I wiped, the more they came. 10 When I got back to the studio, my easel and canvases were tossed in the hallway like garbage. Dark, dirty shoe prints were stamped across several of my paintings. The tears I’d just managed to stop threatened to spill over again. I gathered my things, wiping away the grime, and carried everything back inside. I decided I would stay the night. Maybe I could channel all this miserable energy into a new piece. I had just started to sketch when the security guard came in. His face soured. “You again?” he grumbled. “Get out. You’re not supposed to be here.” The studio had a rule: if a student was working, a guard had to be on duty. Because my dorm cut the power at midnight, I often came here to work all night. And every time I did, this particular guard would make his displeasure known. “Great,” he’d mutter, loud enough for me to hear. “Now I have to stay late.” When he found out I wasn’t an art major, he started refusing to let me in at all. I had to sneak past him. I guess tonight was his shift. He seemed to be in a particularly bad mood. He reached out and grabbed my easel. I tried to reason with him, my voice shaking slightly. “The rules don’t say non-majors can’t use the studio, and I’m in the process of transferring. Please, can you just let me work? You don’t have to stay, you can just go.” He sneered. “I say you can’t, so you can’t. I’m in charge here. You think a student can tell me what to do? Now get out!” “I’m not leaving!” I sat on the floor, clutching my easel to my chest, a hot wave of anger washing over me. My parents told me not to paint. Liam told me not to paint. Now this stranger was telling me not to paint. It felt like no one in the world supported me except for myself. It was so hard. I felt like I was about to break. 11 In the middle of our standoff, a woman walked by, drawn in by the noise. “What’s going on?” I recognized her immediately. She was the professor for a class I’d been unofficially auditing. The guard’s demeanor changed in an instant. He put on a worried expression. “Professor Avery, I was about to lock up when I saw the light on. We’ve had some students report things missing from the studio lately, so I thought, you know, maybe it was a thief. I came in and saw this girl holding onto this easel for dear life. I tried to take her to campus security, but she refused to go…” There were security cameras in the studio. They would prove my innocence. But all the guard had to do was say he made a mistake, and he’d face no consequences. But if a rumor started that I was a thief, even if it was cleared up, the truth wouldn’t matter. People would just see me as trouble. I’d be barred from this place, my sanctuary. I was trembling with rage. “You’re lying!” The guard just smirked at me, a defiant look in his eyes. Professor Avery’s gaze shifted to me. She studied my face for a long moment, her brow furrowed. Then, her expression softened. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

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For five years, my genius husband saw me as an empty-headed trophy wife. He publicly humiliated me for his brilliant protégée—a woman my family’s charity put through college. But when he dragged me, nine months pregnant, up the stairs and risked our child’s life to defend her honor, he made a fatal mistake. He forgot my name is Sterling, and the Sterling empire doesn’t just get even. It gets biblical. 1 Five years of marriage, and I knew one thing for certain: my husband despised me. To him, I was nothing more than a “trophy wife,” a decorative piece from an old-money Manhattan family. He was Dr. Adam Cole, one of the country’s leading astronomers, a man who conversed with the cosmos. I was Charlotte Sterling, a woman who played Chopin and arranged peonies. He and the brilliant young student my family sponsored would lose themselves in conversations about nebulae and wormholes. I would be tracking the fall couture collections. While he stood at a podium at an international symposium with his protégée, I was making headlines for winning a bidding war at Christie’s over a diamond necklace—a bauble I needed for a single charity gala. When I once begged him to celebrate our anniversary, his voice was laced with ice. “I prefer not to engage too deeply with the world of finance and power.” “My work is sacred.” Then he turned around and spent the evening patiently teaching his student how to calibrate a new telescope. The breaking point came when he, in a fit of rage to defend that same student’s honor, dragged me—nine months pregnant—up the stairs, inducing a dangerous premature labor. That was when I finally signed the divorce papers. It was time to give us both back our freedom. Without him, I was still Charlotte Sterling, the most sought-after heiress on the Upper East Side. Without me… well, he was about to find out. … I dialed Adam’s number. “What is it?” His voice on the other end was cold, clipped, the impatience radiating through the phone. I rested a hand on my swollen belly, the skin stretched taut over the life inside. I’d called to tell him my due date was just a week away, to ask him to clear his schedule. Before I could speak, a chirpy, saccharine-sweet female voice cut through the background. “Professor, is that your wife calling to bother you at work again?” “Honestly, back where I’m from, pregnant women were still out working in the fields. She’s so delicate, acting like being pregnant gives her a right to call and pester you all day.” “She’s slowing down our research! Ugh.” It was his student, Maya Rivera. Adam’s tone softened into something warm and indulgent, a complete reversal of the frost he reserved for me. “Your ‘Mrs. Cole’ was spoiled from the day she was born, Maya. She isn’t like you—an independent, modern intellectual.” “Her days are empty. It’s just a cycle of spending money and then spending more money. How could she possibly understand the sacrifices we make for our research? She calls whenever the whim strikes her.” “Don’t worry. I’ll handle her. I won’t let her disrupt our progress.” He made no effort to lower his voice. He’d never bothered to hide his contempt for me. He conveniently forgot that his own parents had practically begged my family for this marriage, that the line of suitors for my hand had stretched from Park Avenue to Paris. I was about to fire back a retort, but he cut me off. “Charlotte, you heard that. This project is at a critical stage. I need you to stop calling me over every little thing.” “I don’t expect you to grasp the importance of this work—you’re a pampered socialite who has never worked a day in her life. But at least try not to drag me down with you.” And then, he hung up. The father of my child hadn’t asked a single question about him. I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, the silence of our cold, cavernous apartment pressing in on me. I wondered if there was anything left of this marriage to save. That evening, I waited up for him, as was my custom. It wasn’t about love anymore; it was about maintaining the facade, the basic respect a wife of my station was expected to show her husband, even if it was never returned in kind. And I needed to ask him one last time if he would be at the hospital when I gave birth. Not for me, but for my parents. I couldn’t bear for them to see the full, brutal extent of his neglect. But midnight came and went. Adam never came home. Just as I was about to turn in, a notification lit up my phone. A new post on his Instagram. The caption read: Celebrating my most brilliant student’s birthday with a view of the blood moon! The photo was a gut punch. Maya, her sun-kissed skin glowing in the moonlight, had her head resting on my husband’s shoulder. They sat close, gazing up at the crimson-stained moon like a pair of lovers. A comment from a mutual friend in our circle appeared almost instantly: Adam, Charlotte is over nine months pregnant. Don’t you think you should be home with her instead of watching the moon with your student? This doesn’t look right. Adam’s reply was as cold and arrogant as I’d come to expect: She is a perfectly adequate society wife, but she is not the wife of my heart. Our marriage was an arrangement. My parents valued the Sterling family’s influence and resources. I married her to secure an alliance, to stabilize my family’s position. It was a transaction. But Maya is the only one who speaks my language. Discussing the universe with her—that’s when I feel alive, when I know my worth. Maya is the kind of brilliant, intellectual woman I’ve always admired. My knuckles turned white as I gripped my phone. It wasn’t sadness that I felt, but the pure, unadulterated rage of public humiliation. I had tried, for the first six months, to build a real marriage with him. When I realized it was hopeless, I gave up. With a ten-billion-dollar dowry, a loveless marriage was an inconvenience, not a tragedy. But this… this public shaming was a declaration of war. As if on cue, Maya’s comment popped up right below his. Thank you for believing in me, Professor. <3 And please don’t be hard on your wife. A woman like her, who’s never known a single day of hardship, could never understand the passion that drives people like us! Heart.JPG The two of them, performing this little play for the world to see, stoked the fire in my gut. I opened my chat with Adam. The log was nearly empty. Our last exchange was six months ago. I hit the call button. He answered. “Delete the post,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “I don’t give a damn what’s going on between you and your protégée, but the Sterling family name will not be dragged through the mud. I don’t want my parents to see this and worry.” There was a pause, then a condescending laugh. “Charlotte, has playing the socialite finally rotted your brain? You spend all your time obsessing over these meaningless trifles. Your world is so pathetically small.” “I’m telling you, the post stays up. And my relationship with Maya is none of your parents’ damn business.” A sharp pain shot through my stomach. I was about to unleash a torrent of fury when Maya’s voice, dripping with false innocence, came through the line. “Mrs. Cole, the professor works so hard. You shouldn’t bother him with such trivial matters.” “Besides, he was just telling the truth. You really… you don’t understand our world. Denying it won’t change anything.” “Why don’t you just go back to being a pretty vase? The professor and I are busy observing the lunar eclipse. If you don’t understand, you shouldn't interfere.” I could hear Adam murmuring to her in the background, his voice a gentle caress. “Maya, what’s the point in talking to her? Her mind is filled with couture and galas. She can’t even begin to compare to you. Engaging with her only lowers your intellectual standards.” Every word was a carefully aimed dart. This was how he had seen me for five years. And the irony? How the Coles had courted my family, begging for this union? Dozens of families had wanted an alliance with the Sterlings. My parents, terrified I would be unhappy, chose the Coles, believing it was a safe match, that I would be marrying down and thus be cherished. What a bitter joke. I reached into my nightstand and pulled out the divorce agreement I’d had my lawyers draw up months ago. My hand went to my stomach. My resolve hardened. No amount of patience or compromise would ever change this man. There was no reason to maintain this farce any longer. He despised me but didn’t have the guts to ask for a divorce himself, wanting to have his cake and eat it too. I wondered how he would explain this to his parents. Adam’s voice snapped back onto the line, as if just remembering I was there. He spoke with that familiar, patronizing tone. “Charlotte, stop looking for trouble where there is none.” “If you’re that bored, go buy another couture gown. It’s a better use of your time than monitoring my life.” “Our marriage is what it is—a dynastic merger. Don’t ever expect love from me.” “The woman I love has a higher purpose, a brilliant mind. Not an empty-headed doll like you.” He hung up. Again. A slow, cold smile spread across my face. The anger was gone, replaced by crystalline clarity. The moment this baby was born, I was done. I would not let this self-righteous hypocrite poison another day of my life. The next morning, I walked downstairs to a shocking sight: Adam Cole in the kitchen. He was cooking breakfast. Adam, the man who claimed his hands were instruments reserved solely for scientific discovery, was standing over a stove. Before I could process it, Maya Rivera emerged from the guest bedroom, wearing one of Adam’s crisp white button-down shirts and nothing else. Her eyes met mine. On her, with her sun-kissed skin, the shirt was a statement, a flag planted on conquered territory. She scanned me from head to toe with the same arrogant, dismissive gaze as her mentor, a clear challenge in her eyes. She didn't greet me, the mistress of the house. Instead, she glided into the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Adam from behind, resting her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for making me oatmeal, Professor,” she cooed. “I feel so spoiled.” The irony was nauseating. His wife, nine months pregnant, hadn't received so much as a kind word, yet this student had him playing short-order cook. Adam chuckled, ruffling her hair. “As long as you like it. Just try to be more careful with your next data set. No more mistakes.” He glanced over at me. “You have a brilliant future, Maya. Don’t waste it and end up useless like your Mrs. Cole.” Their open flirting made my stomach turn. I started to head for the bathroom, but Adam finally noticed me standing there. The smile vanished from his face, replaced by a scowl. “Don’t just stand there blocking the way,” he snapped. “You have nothing to do all day, but Maya and I have important work. We can’t afford to be delayed by you.” I changed course. Instead of retreating, I walked directly to the dining table. This was my house. I was, for the moment, still Mrs. Adam Cole. Why the hell should I hide from this sordid little affair? “Maria,” I called to the maid, “please bring me my breakfast.” Maya’s eyes flashed with irritation. “You know,” she said, her voice dripping with faux concern, “where I come from, pregnant women are expected to help out. But you, you treat your pregnancy like a disability. You even have servants bring your food to you.” She sighed dramatically. “Mrs. Cole, the staff are people too. You should really show a little more respect for the working class.” I looked up at her, as one might observe a particularly loud insect. “My dowry was ten billion dollars. I can afford to employ ten thousand maids if I choose. Who are you—a woman my family’s charity put through college—to lecture me on morality?” The color drained from her face. Before she could form a reply, I pulled out my phone, dialed my family’s trust manager, and put the call on speaker. “Mr. Davis, good morning. Please immediately terminate all financial support for Maya Rivera.” “Furthermore, I want you to calculate the total sum the Sterling Foundation has provided for her education and living expenses over the years. Inform her she has three days to repay the full amount. If she fails to do so, you will initiate legal proceedings.” I paused, letting the words hang in the air. “The Sterling family does not sponsor traitors.” Maya’s face went chalk-white. She grabbed Adam’s arm, her voice a shrill cry. “Professor! She’s doing this to humiliate me! She looks down on me!” “This is all she knows how to do! Use her money to threaten people because she has nothing else!” Adam, ever her champion, immediately stepped in front of her. “Charlotte, that’s enough!” he roared. “Don’t you dare go too far!” “It’s a few hundred thousand dollars! I’ll pay it for her!” I laughed, a dry, humorless sound. “You’ll pay it?” “Adam, have you forgotten? When your parents were begging for this marriage, they were so eager that they didn’t bother with a prenup.” “Your money is our money. It’s community property. If you dare use our joint assets to pay her debt, I will have my lawyers sue her for misappropriation of marital funds. We’ll see how that looks on her academic record.” His face turned to stone. The trap had sprung. Just then, our maid, Maria, approached nervously with my breakfast tray. Adam’s rage found a new target. With a sudden, violent movement, he kicked the tray out of her hands. Porcelain shattered, and food splattered across the marble floor. CRASH! He whirled on the terrified staff. “Get her back to her room! Lock the door!” “She may have been a Sterling, but she lives in the Cole house now! My parents may indulge her, but I will not!” The servants stood frozen, looking from him to me. “This is my house!” he bellowed. “Who do you work for?” I shot to my feet, my voice ringing with fury as I pointed a finger at him. “Adam Cole, you dare?!” “If you lay a hand on me today, you can start preparing the eulogy for your family’s company.” But he had lost face in front of Maya, and his pride was a wounded, desperate animal. He threw all caution to the wind. “Dare?” he sneered. “Of course I dare!” “Why should a parasite who does nothing but spend money be allowed to destroy the future of a brilliant intellectual like Maya? Maybe some time alone in your room will give you time to reflect on your behavior!” Maya, seizing her moment, collapsed into his arms, sobbing. “Professor, I know I received their charity, but that doesn’t give her the right to insult me like this! I have my dignity! All my hard work, my dedication to science… she’s trying to reduce it all to a dollar amount!” Adam stroked her hair, murmuring comforting words. The staff, though employed by the Coles, knew where the real power lay. Not a single one moved toward me. Seeing their defiance, Adam’s face grew darker. “Fine! Fine! So my own staff won’t obey me anymore! You’re all fired! Every last one of you! Be out by noon!” He turned his glare back to me. “Maya and I are late for the observatory. We don’t have time to waste on your hysterics.” “If you won’t lock her up, I’ll do it myself!” He strode toward me. Before I could react, he grabbed my arm, completely ignoring my nine-month belly, and started dragging me toward the stairs. I struggled, fighting with all my strength, but he was too strong. In the scuffle, my stomach slammed hard against the corner of the wrought-iron banister. A blinding, razor-sharp pain ripped through my abdomen. I cried out, clutching my belly. “The baby…” “Adam! This is your child too! Let me go!” His eyes were bloodshot, his face contorted in a mask of madness. “A little pregnancy,” he hissed, his teeth clenched. “Women in Maya’s village are back in the fields the next day! I know you’re faking it!” “If I don’t teach you a lesson today, you’ll never stop bullying Maya!” A wave of pure despair washed over me. And then, I heard my father’s voice, a crack of thunder from the doorway. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DAUGHTER!” In the next instant, Adam was kicked violently to the ground. A second later, my mother was holding me, her own tears streaming down her face. I looked down. Blood was spreading, a dark crimson stain on my dress. Adam saw it too. The color drained from his face. He stammered, his voice a ghost of its former arrogance. “How… how is that possible? Your due date is still a week away…” “I… I was just trying to teach you a small lesson…” My father ignored him, scooping me into his arms and rushing for the door. But even through the haze of pain, I grabbed his arm. “Dad…” I gasped, “the nightstand… in the bedroom… give him what’s inside…” My words hung in the air. Adam froze, then scrambled to his feet and sprinted up the stairs. We heard the drawer being wrenched open. Then, a dead silence. When we glanced back, he had collapsed to the floor, his face a portrait of utter disbelief. “No…” he whispered. “You can’t do this to me.”

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The news broke on a Tuesday, splashed across every screen like a chemical spill. Oscar Winner Liam Carter: Secret Wife and Child Revealed. My first call was to my daughter. “Did you two have a baby without telling me?” The voice on the other end was a shattered wreck. “Mom,” she sobbed, each word a painful gasp. “I want a divorce.” 1 By the time I arrived at Claire’s penthouse, the place looked like it had been ransacked by a storm. The housekeeper had wisely locked herself in her room, a silent refusal to be caught in the crossfire. No one was cleaning this up. Liam was sitting on the sofa, his handsome face a blank mask, watching my daughter destroy their life together. Claire was hysterical. “Nine years, Liam! We’ve been together for nine years! Since you were a nobody waiting tables, I was there. I told you to chase your dream, and I paid the bills while you did.” She gestured wildly around the opulent room. “My own mother refused to even meet you for three years. I fought with her, I starved myself, I tried to kill myself twice just to make her accept you. And when she finally did? She bankrolled your career. She opened every door.” Her voice cracked, raw with betrayal. “The TV shows, the movies, that awful pop album you wanted to make… what have you ever wanted that my family didn’t hand you on a silver platter? How do you think you got that Oscar, Liam? Do you have any idea?” The dam of her rage finally broke. She sagged against the wall, the fight draining out of her, leaving only ragged sobs. Liam finally moved, rubbing a hand over his face. “Claire, just let me explain. I swear, it was just that one time. I was drunk, I was stupid… it was a mistake.” He glanced at me, then back at her. “She wouldn’t… she refused to get rid of the baby. What was I supposed to do?” I let the sound of my heels clicking on the marble floor announce my presence. I dropped my Birkin on the table with a thud and fixed him with a cold stare. “Talk. Now.” Claire collapsed into my arms, weeping. I held her for a moment, stroking her hair, then guided her toward her bedroom. “Go lie down, darling. I’ll handle this.” Once she was gone, Liam’s composure crumbled. He looked at me, his eyes filled with a pathetic sort of guilt. “Eleanor… I’m so sorry.” The story tumbled out of him, as predictable as it was sordid. It happened a little over a year ago, the night he won the Oscar. The entire studio celebrated until dawn. Claire was in London at the time, finishing her doctoral thesis, and they hadn’t seen each other in months. The combination of champagne, adrenaline, and loneliness, he claimed, led him into a “moment of madness” with his agent, Anya Reed. He said he’d been terrified of it coming out. He gave Anya a substantial sum to leave the agency and disappear. He thought that was the end of it. But she was already pregnant. She had the child in secret and then, a few months ago, reappeared, baby in tow, spinning a tale of a helpless single mother. Out of some misplaced sense of obligation to the child, Liam had been supporting them in secret ever since. The whole thing blew up a few nights ago when the baby developed a fever so high it triggered a seizure. He was rushed to the hospital. Liam, worried, snuck in for a visit. That’s when the paparazzi caught him. The photographer, a man named Vince Ray who ran a sleazy gossip site, had a personal vendetta against Liam after being publicly humiliated by him years ago. Ray didn’t even bother trying to negotiate a payout; he just ran the story. I listened to the entire pathetic saga without interruption. When he finished, I simply nodded. “Fine. My assistant will draw up the divorce papers. You and Claire are done.” To my surprise, Liam’s face crumpled. “No, Eleanor, please,” he begged, his voice cracking. “I never wanted to divorce Claire. I love her. I truly love her.” 2 A celebrated actor, Hollywood’s golden boy, adored by millions. And this is what he amounted to. I’ve always known the entertainment industry is a sewer. That’s why, when Claire first brought Liam home, I vetted him for five years before I allowed them to get married. Even then, my instincts screamed caution. I insisted they keep the marriage quiet, terrified of a day just like this, a day my daughter would be turned into a public spectacle, a laughingstock. Claire was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. For thirty years, she’s been coddled and cherished, her path through life paved with gold. But a flower raised in a greenhouse is fragile, and hers had grown a hopelessly romantic heart. You could say Liam Carter was the only storm she had ever known. And now, the secret marriage was out. Only the wife in the picture wasn’t my daughter. Claire, who had apparently been listening from her room, burst out, her face swollen with tears. “Mom…” “I told you from the beginning he wasn’t right for you,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even. “You complained that the heirs I introduced you to were shallow. You said my world, the world of business, was soulless. Well, now you see. The entertainment industry is just a playground for capital. Did you really think their morals ran any deeper?” She bit her lip, her eyes flashing with a familiar, stubborn resentment. Liam seized the opening. “That’s not true, Eleanor. This was an accident. My feelings for Claire have never changed.” He wrung his hands. “It’s just… the child is innocent in all of this. That’s why I didn’t know what to do…” I held up a hand, cutting him off. “I don’t care about your process. I only care about results.” Just then, the doorbell chimed through the apartment. This was a high-security building in a gated community. Unannounced visitors were impossible. My eyes snapped to Liam. His jaw tightened. He clearly intended to ignore it. But my daughter, never one to let a confrontation pass her by, stalked to the door and flung it open. Standing in the hallway was a young woman with a deceptively innocent face. In her arms, she held a baby boy, perhaps six months old. The moment her eyes met mine, her own filled with tears. I didn’t have to say a word. “Mrs. Croft,” she began, her voice trembling. “Please, don’t blame Liam. This is all my fault. It was my idea, I seduced him that night. I’m the one who decided to have the baby, and I’m the one who used the child to pressure him. It has nothing to do with him!” She was a performer, I had to give her that. The tears streamed down her cheeks, a perfect picture of tragic beauty. I could almost see how Liam had fallen for it. Almost. A slow, cold smile spread across my face. “Child, don’t you worry,” I said, my voice dangerously sweet. “You just give me a few days. I promise I’ll have the baby’s father right back where he belongs.” Liam’s face went pale. He started to speak, but Anya cut him off with her next move. She gently placed the baby on the expensive Persian rug in the entryway, stood up, and looked at us with a heart-wrenching sob. “Whatever I did, it was my mistake alone. The baby is innocent. Please… I beg you, raise him. I’ll disappear. I promise you will never, ever see me again.” And with that, she turned and fled down the hall, her silhouette vanishing around the corner before anyone could react. 3 The baby couldn’t even sit up on his own, yet she had abandoned him on a stranger’s doorstep. The audacity was breathtaking. I raised an eyebrow and looked back at my own daughter. Claire, who had never faced a crisis more complicated than a canceled flight in her thirty years, was frozen in shock. The infant lay on the rug, waving his tiny fists and wailing. He was, I had to admit, a pitiful sight. I knew my daughter. Her impeccable upbringing, her soft heart—it wouldn’t allow her to simply cast the child out. Liam knew it, too. He quickly recovered, rushing past Claire to fetch the housekeeper from her room, instructing her to take the baby inside and quiet him down. And my daughter just stood there, watching it happen. “Are you just going to stand there?” I asked, my voice sharp. “Mom, I… what…” She stomped her foot in frustration. Liam, sensing an opportunity to smooth things over, opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “The woman brought her illegitimate child into your home. Are you not going to pack a bag and leave with me?” The words finally pierced through her shock. A spark of anger ignited in her eyes. “He’s right,” she said, her voice laced with venom. “How do I know what else in this house has been… used by someone else? I have a thing about germs. I can’t stand it.” She turned on her heel. “I don’t need to pack. There’s nothing here I want. Let’s go, Mom.” I nodded. A glimmer of her old fire. Good. Of course, once we were home, she dissolved into tears again. But by the next morning, her sorrow had sharpened into a towering rage. I was having breakfast downstairs when Claire came storming down, looking haggard but energized by fury. She slammed her iPad down on the table in front of me. “Mom! Look at this!” I glanced at the screen. It was Vince Ray’s gossip site, Spill, with a new headline. They claimed to have identified Liam Carter’s secret wife: Claire Croft, heiress to the Croft Holdings fortune, a highly educated beauty just returned from her studies abroad. If I hadn’t pulled her out of that apartment yesterday, she would now be trapped, besieged by a wall of cameras and reporters. By then, it wouldn’t matter if the child was hers or not. The world believes the first story it hears. Once the public decided the baby belonged to Claire and Liam, any attempt she made to deny it would just make her look like a liar. The illegitimate child would be laundered into their legitimate son. I took a slow sip of my coffee. “Liam’s former agent,” I said with a thin smile, “is a very clever woman.” I met Claire’s confused gaze. “They’re not just trying to drag your name through the mud, darling. They’re trying to make you wallow in it.” 4 That same day, Croft Holdings’ official social media account posted a three-word statement: There is no child. Within thirty minutes, it had over a hundred thousand comments. “The shorter the statement, the bigger the scandal!” “Give me a break, you really believe the tabloids? Liam probably doesn’t even know who this Claire person is. This is obviously the woman’s family trying to create buzz for their company.” “Are you in middle school? Do you have any idea what Croft Holdings is? They’re a top 3 company on the NYSE. In front of Claire Croft, your precious Liam is barely qualified to polish her shoes.” I paid no attention to the pointless online squabbles. Liam himself was standing in my office, along with the head of his talent agency, who was practically bowing. “Eleanor,” the man said, forcing a smile, “look, this has all gotten out of hand. It’s really not necessary. No matter what, Liam and Claire have been together for so many years…” “Get to the point,” I said, glancing at my watch. I had a meeting with our European distribution head in ten minutes. Their presence in my office was undignified. Liam knew my temper. He knew that if I was sufficiently annoyed, I would have security physically remove them. He stepped forward, his expression one of profound remorse. “Eleanor, I know I was wrong. I’ve already spoken to Anya. I’m going to send them both abroad, and they will never be allowed to come back. As for the child, we’ll just say Vince Ray was lying, that it was a child from my extended family…” “That story might work for your fangirls,” I cut in, my voice dripping with ice. “But what about my family’s reputation? Do you truly believe everyone in our circle is a gullible teenager?” In the end, I had them escorted out. When I got home, Claire told me Liam had called her, too, promising her the world. “What do you want to do?” I asked her. “Mom.” She covered her face with her hands, her voice muffled. “I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.” Nine years. Her first love. It was never going to be an easy break, especially not for a hopeless romantic. Finally, I gave Liam two options. One: He retires from acting, moves into our home, and lives under our family’s complete control. His life and career would be dictated by us. Two: Divorce. He would leave with nothing but the clothes on his back. Claire thought I was being too harsh, but I made her re-watch the security footage of Anya abandoning the baby on her doorstep three times. After that, she fell silent and acquiesced to my decision. But the next day, Liam made his own move. He posted their marriage certificate online, accompanied by a long, saccharine caption full of ambiguous, romantic drivel. It was a calculated strike, designed to cut off any path of retreat for Claire. By confirming the marriage himself, he was cementing the lie that the child was theirs, painting a false portrait of a happy, unified family. A bold, preemptive strike. I hadn’t thought he had it in him. Claire was stunned. The shock seemed to jolt her out of her melancholy. She rushed into my office, her face a mask of disbelief. “How could he do this?!”

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I used to have a rule: never get attached. He was a college boy, a conquest. I broke his heart and never looked back. Years later, after my family went bankrupt, he found me. By then, he was Cole Hayes, a man who had built an empire from nothing. He married me. Everyone said I’d hit the jackpot. What they didn’t know was that every night, Cole brought a different woman to our home. I never cried, never made a scene. My silence seemed to drive him madder than any tears could have. So he escalated, planting his seed in the belly of Chloe, the girl he could never forget, his first love. When I remained placid, he finally cornered me, slamming his hand against the wall beside my head. “Stella, don’t you love me? Do you feel anything at all?” Tonight, Chloe and I both went into labor. As my water broke, I fell to my knees, finally telling him the words he wanted to hear. I begged him, told him I loved him, pleaded with him to take me to the hospital. He pulled me into a fierce hug, a triumphant smile on his face. “I knew it,” he whispered. Then he shoved me away. “You’re a liar.” He lifted Chloe into his arms and walked out without a backward glance. “A little later,” he called over his shoulder, his voice laced with ice. “The pain of childbirth is your punishment, Stella.” 1 His retreating back was the last thing I saw. My abdomen seized, a brutal fist clenching inside me, stealing my breath and my strength. I collapsed onto the cold marble floor. The amniotic fluid gushed from between my legs, pooling beneath me in a dark, spreading stain. I lifted a trembling hand toward the housekeeper, Maria, who stood frozen by the doorway. My voice was a raw whisper. “Get me to a hospital… please.” Her face was a mask of conflict. “Ma’am, Mr. Hayes gave specific orders. I have to wait for him to return. I can’t…” “You can’t?” The pain was a jagged knife, and my voice shook with it. “If anything happens to me or this baby, do you really think Cole will spare you? Take me. Now.” Fear finally broke through her paralysis. She scrambled for the door, but Cole’s personal assistant, Mark, blocked her path. “Mark, she’s in labor. We have to get her to the hospital,” Maria said, her voice small. Mark’s gaze flickered from the fluid on the floor to my contorted face. His tone was unnervingly calm. “Mr. Hayes was clear. We wait. He believes Mrs. Hayes is merely using the pregnancy to create drama. Help her back to her room.” “The baby will die if you wait! Do you want that on your conscience?” I summoned every last bit of my strength, pointing a shaking finger at him. Mark offered a practiced, empty smile. His eyes were devoid of warmth. “Ma’am, Mr. Hayes is at the hospital with Ms. Summers. He’s ensuring her pregnancy is stable. He said to wait for him. You know his temper. No one disobeys his orders.” “I’m in labor! The baby can’t wait!” Another contraction ripped through me, more violent than the last. It felt like a drill boring into my womb. I curled into a ball on the floor, a guttural sob escaping my lips as cold sweat soaked through my dress. “What are you waiting for? Get her to bed,” Mark commanded sharply. Two maids rushed forward. Ignoring the agony in my belly, they hooked their arms under mine and began to drag me toward the bedroom. That’s when I felt it—a new, terrifying warmth. I looked down. It was blood. “Blood! I’m bleeding!” I screamed, grabbing one of the maid’s arms with a desperate strength. “Take me to the hospital! The baby is in danger, don’t you understand?” “Ma’am, it’s not my decision,” the maid whispered, her eyes filled with a useless pity as she pried my fingers from her arm. “I’ll… I’ll call the family doctor.” “I don’t want the doctor, I need a hospital!” “Please, ma’am, don’t get agitated. I’ll go speak to Mark again right now.” She fled the room as if escaping a fire. The pain was bone-deep now, a relentless, grinding agony. The plush velvet carpet beneath me was soaked with a grim cocktail of sweat, blood, and amniotic fluid. Minutes stretched into an eternity. No one came. I dragged my bleeding body across the floor, inch by painful inch, until I reached the bed. Maria had just re-entered the room. I clutched the hem of her uniform, my voice breaking. “Maria… please, check on them. I can’t hold on much longer…” She gave a small, pained nod. “I’ll go hurry them, ma’am. Just try to breathe.” She turned, only to be stopped by Mark at the door. He walked slowly toward me. His eyes flickered to the blood-soaked carpet, a hint of hesitation in their depths, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by cold resolve. “Let Dr. Evans take a look first.” On cue, the doctor entered with his medical bag. The maids moved in again, pinning my thrashing limbs to the bed. “Let me go! I need the hospital!” I twisted wildly, tears and sweat streaming down my face. “My baby can’t wait!” Dr. Evans examined me with a blank expression, then produced a small vial of white pills and handed them to Maria. “What is that?” I shook my head frantically. “I won’t take it! Are you trying to kill my child?” “It’s to delay labor,” he said, his voice monotone. “It will ease the contractions.” “No! It will cut off the oxygen! The baby will suffocate!” He remained silent, his face a stony mask. “Dr. Evans,” I gasped, clutching at any shard of humanity I could find in him. “Your wife is pregnant, isn’t she? If she were the one lying here, would you give her these pills? Aren’t you afraid of karma, of what you’re doing?” I turned my desperate gaze to Mark. “Mark, if anything happens to us, you will be the one responsible. Cole will not let you get away with this!” Dr. Evans and Mark exchanged a look. For a moment, I thought I’d broken through. They were about to agree when Mark’s phone buzzed. It was Cole. He answered, his voice instantly deferential. As he listened, the last flicker of doubt on his face was extinguished. “You heard, ma’am,” he said, his tone now laced with a chilling finality. “Mr. Hayes insists that we wait for his return. It’s not that I won’t help you. It’s that I can’t.” He gave Maria a sharp nod. The maids seized my shoulders, forcing my jaw open. Maria shoved the pills into my mouth. I gagged, trying to spit them out, but they slid down my throat.

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Years after graduation, Caleb Howard was a name everyone knew. At our high school reunion, someone decided to play matchmaker, nudging him towards me. “Caleb, my man! Remember the little shadow who used to follow you around everywhere?” he slurred, reeking of whiskey. “You’re single, she’s single… why not give it another shot?” Caleb slowly raised his left hand, a humorless smile on his lips. “I’m married.” The table erupted in shocked whispers. Only I stayed silent, my head bowed. I couldn’t understand why he was still wearing that ring. We’d been divorced for three years. 1 The reunion was in full swing when the class president burst through the door, his voice booming with excitement. “Everybody, look who’s here!” I followed their collective gaze, and my breath caught in my throat. It was Caleb. Three years had carved a new maturity into his features. As he greeted old classmates, the corners of his eyes crinkled into a subtle, charming arc. He carried himself with the quiet confidence of a man who knew his own worth. I’d heard he was recently named the city’s “Outstanding Young Entrepreneur of the Year,” already a multimillionaire before thirty. While the others swarmed him with handshakes and back-pats, I ducked my head and pretended to be absorbed in my phone. From the corner of my eye, I saw him take the empty seat diagonally across from me. His gaze swept over me without a flicker of recognition, not lingering for even a second. But I noticed something he didn’t. Against the dark fabric of his trench coat, I saw a dusting of crystalline flakes clinging to the shoulders. It was snowing outside. My phone buzzed again. The woman next to me, a former classmate whose voice had always been two decibels too loud, leaned in with a smirk. “Carol, is that your boyfriend? Someone’s keeping you on a tight leash.” My eyes instinctively shot toward Caleb. He was deep in conversation, his expression calm, as if he hadn’t heard a thing. I forced a smile and shook my head. “No, it’s just my mom. She’s reminding me about the blind date she set up for next week.” We were all in our late twenties. Some were married with kids, but most, like me, were fielding the relentless pressure from our parents. A few women at the table groaned in solidarity. “I swear, my mom’s in such a rush, you’d think she was breeding prize livestock,” one of them griped. “As long as it’s the right gender and looks healthy, nothing else matters.” “You’ve gotta be careful, Carol,” another warned. “All the good ones get snapped up before they even hit the open market.” Just then, a burly guy, flushed with alcohol, slammed his hand on the table and staggered to his feet. “Caleb, my man!” he bellowed. “Remember the little shadow who used to follow you around everywhere?” Caleb said nothing. The guy, assuming Caleb’s memory needed jogging, pressed on. “You know! The one who spammed you with, like, a dozen love letters and confessed to you in front of the whole damn school at the graduation party—Carol Vance!” It took me a moment to recognize him under the extra weight. It was Big Mike, our old football captain. His favorite pastime back then was stirring up drama, and apparently, some things never change. “You’re single, she’s single… why not give it another shot?” In an instant, every curious, gossiping eye in the room swiveled between Caleb and me. A decade hadn’t been long enough for them to forget. They were all waiting, hungry for the next chapter of the story that had been the backdrop to their own teenage years, no matter how it ended. Caleb finally turned to look at me, his expression unreadable. Our eyes met. He slowly raised his left hand, a humorless smile playing on his lips. “I’m married.” The words dropped like a bomb. “What? Caleb, when did you get married? You didn’t even invite us to the wedding!” “Seriously, man, you kept that under wraps! We haven’t even seen a picture of the lucky lady on your feed!” Only I stayed silent, my head bowed, staring into my lap. I couldn’t understand it. Why was Caleb Howard still wearing that wedding ring? Except… we’d been divorced for three years. 2 Looking back, our divorce felt inevitable. There was no proposal, no wedding ceremony, not even a single wedding photo. The year we graduated from college, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. I had just visited her in the hospital, my arms aching from a heavy basket of fruit. As I was leaving, Caleb grabbed my hand in the sterile hallway. “Carol,” he said, his voice flat. “Let’s get married.” The words, completely out of the blue, were like a winning lottery ticket dropping into my lap. I was stunned. Terrified he might change his mind, I blurted out “yes” before he could take it back. We got our marriage license on a perfectly ordinary weekend. City Hall was quiet. The clerk motioned for us to get closer for the photo. “Okay, groom, a little closer to the bride. And groom, lose the poker face. Try to smile like she is. Good.” That small, red-backed photo on our marriage certificate became our first picture together. After a brief, sterile ceremony, I’d skipped the role of girlfriend and gone straight to being Caleb’s wife. He was in the grueling start-up phase of his company back then. To avoid a long-distance relationship, I turned down a good teaching position at a private school out of state. On his advice, I started studying for the state teaching certification exams instead. He must have known he was asking a lot of me. When we went to buy rings, he promised we’d have a real wedding once things settled down. Wanting to be the supportive, understanding wife, I picked out a simple, unadorned band that didn’t cost much. It was never about the money; it was about his heart. After we were married, we rented a tiny 400-square-foot apartment. It was small, but our life was sweet. We were like any other young couple, holding hands at the grocery store on weekends, losing ourselves in each other’s arms late at night. A year later, his mother passed away. He held me and cried for the first time. “Carol,” he whispered, his voice cracking, “I don’t have a family anymore.” His parents had divorced when he was young, and his mother, fiercely ambitious for him, had always been controlling. People saw Caleb as cold and distant, but I knew that deep down, he was just a man desperate to be loved. I held him tighter, murmuring again and again, “You have me. I’m your family now.” To cope with his grief, Caleb threw himself into his work, spending every waking hour at the office. The long hours and irregular meals took their toll, and soon he was hospitalized with a stomach ulcer. From that day on, I started bringing him home-cooked meals at his office. And that was the first time I met Vivian Chen. 3 By then, Caleb’s company was gaining traction. He’d recruited several talented alumni from our university, and Vivian, a brilliant programmer who had been a few years ahead of him, was his star hire. She had a decorated history of winning software design competitions and a wealth of project experience. Caleb was immensely grateful that she’d left a lucrative job at a tech giant to join his fledgling team. I stood outside his glass-walled office with the insulated lunchbox, listening in silence as they volleyed terms and concepts I couldn’t begin to grasp. The energy between them was electric. Finally, their intense discussion ended. They’d reached a breakthrough. “That’s it,” Caleb said, his eyes shining with an admiration I’d never seen him direct at me. “We’ll go with your plan.” A hollow feeling opened in my chest. As I stood there, frozen, Vivian noticed me and gestured with her chin. “Caleb, your girlfriend’s here.” He glanced over, his expression shifting. “She’s my wife,” he corrected. “Oh, right. My mistake,” she said with an easy laugh. “You just don’t meet many guys who get married so young.” I stepped inside, feeling clumsy and out of place as I set down the lunchbox. I was an intruder in their world. As I turned to leave, I heard Vivian ask, “Your wife doesn’t seem like she’s in tech. What does she do?” “She’s a teacher.” Caleb’s tone was clipped, as if he was reluctant to discuss his personal life at work. But Vivian was persistent. “I have friends who teach at the university. Maybe they know each other. Is she a high school teacher? Or college?” “She’s still studying for her certification.” “Oh, that explains it,” Vivian said, her voice bright and cheerful. “No wonder she has time to bring you lunch. Don’t worry, those exams are a breeze these days…” But what was a “breeze” for someone like Vivian was a hurricane for me. I failed. My old college advisor, hearing I was still unemployed, called with a job opportunity. But it was out of state, and Caleb was firmly against it. He picked up one of my discarded test-prep books, flipping through the pages. He chuckled, trying to be encouraging. “Carol, this stuff isn’t that hard. Just focus a little more next time, and you’ll nail it.” I bit my lip, the words catching in my throat. He seemed to have forgotten that I wasn’t born with a mind like his. Math problems that others understood after one try took me ten. My only real talent was my persistence—especially when it came to him. He was the genius, the valedictorian who aced every exam. I was the art student who scraped by at the bottom of the class. I had only gotten into the state college next to his prestigious university by spending countless agonizing hours in the art studio, practicing until my fingers were raw and blistered. When he said “it isn’t that hard,” whose standard was he using? It was painfully obvious. 4 The dreams started. Night after night, I saw him standing beside someone else. Not me, but Vivian—someone who was his intellectual equal, who understood him in a way I never could. In my dreams, I was always running, but I could never catch up to him. I’d call his name, but he would never turn around… He must have noticed my spiraling mood. One night, after we made love, he pulled me close, his arms wrapping around me. “Honey,” he whispered, “work has slowed down a bit. How about we finally plan that wedding?” He traced a line down my spine. “I can take a couple of weeks off. We can go on a proper honeymoon, get away from everything. How does that sound?” Just like that, with a few soft words, he reeled me back in. But planning a wedding was far more complicated than I’d ever imagined. Even with a wedding planner, I obsessed over every detail: the venue, the menu, the flowers. This was my one and only wedding, and it had to be perfect. Just designing the wedding favor boxes had me pulling all-nighters, pouring more of myself into it than I ever did for my final thesis. That evening, I excitedly showed Caleb the final designs. He was on his laptop, but he glanced up for a fraction of a second. “Yeah, looks good. They’re fine.” I hesitated, chewing on my lip. “I can’t decide between these two. This one holds more, but this one is more elegant… what do you think?” He was typing a message to someone, a faint smile on his face, but he remembered to answer me. “Either one is fine.” Suddenly, I had nothing left to say. Sensing my silence, he closed his laptop and pulled me onto his lap. “Honey, what were you saying?” I forced a smile. “It’s nothing. Go on, finish your work. It’s not important.” A week before the wedding, I dropped off his lunch as usual. I had just gotten home when the wedding planner called. There was a last-minute change to a crucial part of the ceremony, and I had to choose between two options immediately. I couldn’t decide, and Caleb wasn’t answering his phone. Panicked, I rushed back to his office. But as I reached the entrance, I froze. I saw Caleb, his face a mask of indifference, scraping the meal I’d made for him into the trash. Vivian was leaning against the wall nearby, arms crossed. “You really don’t know how good you have it, do you?” she teased. “Your wife treats you like a king, and you’re still not satisfied?” Her words were playful, but his reply was dead serious. “Do you think I wanted to waste it? We got so caught up in the project review that it was ice-cold by the time I got to it.” “Alright, alright, I get it,” she said, laughing. “My treat today. What are you in the mood for?” Caleb set the now-empty lunchbox aside, his movements clean and practiced, as if he’d done this a thousand times before. He sighed, a strange look on his face. “Sometimes… she’s just too good to me. It’s so much that it… it feels like pressure.” In that moment, the sour, rotten stench of discarded food seemed to rise from the bin. A wave of nausea hit me, and I fled. 5 Caleb called me again and again. Before, I would have answered on the first ring, no matter where I was or what I was doing. This time, I turned my phone off. When he finally rushed home, he found me sitting on the living room floor, my eyes swollen and red, surrounded by a mountain of shredded paper. They were the love letters I’d written him in high school. Eighteen of them. Each one filled with every ounce of love I had. He recognized the scraps immediately and lunged forward to stop me. “Carol, what are you doing?!” he demanded. “And what the hell was that call from the wedding planner? Why did you cancel everything?” I fought him off, my strength fueled by a cold rage. I snatched up one of the few intact letters and, looking him straight in the eye, ripped it in two. A perfect metaphor for us—a relationship that looked whole but was already torn to shreds. “Maybe, in your eyes, I’m no different than a stray cat,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet. “You pet me when you’re in the mood, and when you’re not, you just push me away. You never bothered to put any real thought into me. What I think doesn’t matter. What I feel doesn’t matter.” My voice rose with every word. “Caleb, do you see marrying me as some kind of noble charity on your part?” His hand clamped around my wrist, his grip like iron. “Is this about Vivian? Someone saw you at the office this afternoon…” I just shook my head. It wasn’t about Vivian. If it wasn’t her, it would have been someone else. A Sarah, a Jessica… He didn’t believe me. He tried to explain, his voice strained with forced patience. “I told you, we’re just colleagues. We have never been alone together outside of work. You can check my phone, my messages, anything you want.” I kept shaking my head, and his patience finally snapped. “Carol, why can’t you just trust me? Are you really going to throw everything away over something so small?” Suddenly, a strange calm washed over me. “You see? Even now, you think I’m just being hysterical.” “Sometimes,” I continued, my voice hollow, “I think we were never right for each other. It was always just me, forcing it.” “I’ll never understand your algorithms and your technical jargon, and you have zero interest in the comics and movies I love. You hate it when I touch your things, and you never share anything about your work with me. If I talk for more than a minute to one of your male friends, you give me the silent treatment all night.” “My heart is made of flesh and blood, Caleb. It can be hurt. It can break.” “And even with all that, I tried my best to be good to you, because you said I was the only family you had left in the world.” My nose stung, and tears began to stream down my face. “But I’ve walked ninety-nine steps toward you, and you won’t even take that final one. In fact, you’re backing away.” “Caleb,” I choked out, the words tearing through me. “I’m so tired.” All these years, I had chased after him with everything I had. He was the one who reached out his hand. He was the one who said he wanted to spend his life with me. And I believed him. I gave him my whole heart, without reservation. But my devotion was like throwing stones into the ocean—no echo, no ripple, just a deep, despairing silence. I had become lost, insecure. Jealous and ugly. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. I didn’t see the point of a marriage like this. As he stared at me, his eyes wide with a dawning horror, I slowly slid the simple band from my finger. It took all the strength I had left to force out the final words. “Caleb, let’s get a divorce.” His eyes reddened, and his voice trembled when he spoke. “Are you sure?” He was such a proud man. He would never beg, never ask me to stay. I knew that. I watched as the warmth in his eyes froze over, replaced by a glacial cold. “Fine,” he bit out. “You said it. Carol, if you want a divorce, you’d better not live to regret it.” 6 The reunion party was winding down when a blizzard swept in, trapping us at the mountain lodge. My plan to drive home was shot. I’d have to stay the night with everyone else and wait for the snow to let up in the morning. Later, soaking in the hot springs, the women chatted lazily. “I had the biggest crush on Big Mike in high school,” one sighed. “Now… well, time is a cruel, cruel thing.” “I know, right? And the class clown is a dad now, so responsible. Caleb’s the only one who hasn’t really changed, married or not.” “Speaking of Caleb,” another chimed in, “he wasn’t even on the original guest list. The class president told me he canceled a huge project launch meeting just to be here tonight.” “That’s so weird. Caleb was always such a loner back then. I can’t think of anyone he was close enough with to go to all that trouble for…” On impulse, my fingers found his number in my contacts. In the three years since our divorce, Caleb had texted me exactly three times. The first was a month after we separated. You left some clothes in my closet. Want to pick them up this weekend? The second was on Christmas the following year. I brought some gifts for your parents. I’m downstairs. The third message, sent sometime last year, contained only two words. Carol Vance. He must have regretted sending it instantly, because nothing followed. I never replied to any of them. The moment the clerk stamped our divorce papers, I had resolved to sever every last emotional tie to him. If it hadn’t been for this reunion, we probably would have gone the rest of our lives without ever seeing each other again. After the hot springs, I said my goodnights in the main lobby. The others were heading off for more drinks and games, but I was ready for bed. As I walked down the long, quiet hallway, I saw him. Caleb was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, as if waiting for someone. I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead, pretending not to see him as I walked past. “Carol.” I ignored him, fumbling with my key card. But just as I inserted it into the lock, a hand clamped down on the door handle, holding it shut. “Carol,” he said, his voice finally losing its composure, his tone sharp and demanding. “Tell me something. What’s this about a blind date?”

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The day I was diagnosed with cancer, my boyfriend asked for a breakup. Again. I smiled and told him to wait a little longer. He flew into a rage, smashing everything in the room. “Why couldn’t it have been you?” he screamed. Three months ago, his first love died in a car crash. He blamed me, said my jealousy stopped him from driving her home. I lowered my eyes, my voice a soft echo of itself. “Just wait a little longer.” Just wait. Soon enough, it will be. 1 Leo was drunk again, that deep, sloppy kind of drunk that saturated the air with the stale stench of whiskey and smoke. I wrestled him into bed, cleaned up the mess, and only then, in the suffocating quiet, did I let myself look at the diagnosis report again. His slurred whispers drifted from the bedroom, his ex-girlfriend’s name a ghost on his lips. A laugh, brittle and humorless, escaped me. I could recite every word on that paper, but the brutal truth of it still felt like a language I couldn’t comprehend. The living room light flickered on, jolting me from my trance. I crumpled the report into a tight ball and shoved it deep into my pocket. It didn’t matter. Leo wasn’t even looking at me. He scrubbed at his temples and walked straight to the mantelpiece. To her picture. He lit a candle, his movements reverent, his head bowed in worship. After Cassie died, Leo had insisted on displaying her portrait—a large, smiling photo from their college days—in the middle of our living room. “I want you to look at her every day,” he’d said, his voice cold. “And repent.” Repent for what? The night of the accident, at a college reunion, Cassie had gotten wasted. She’d thrown her arms around my boyfriend, sobbing about how she’d never gotten over him. She ignored me, the actual girlfriend, with a blatant, drunken disregard that made everyone else uncomfortable. I finally snapped. I pulled her off Leo and shoved her away. When he insisted on taking her home, I’d sneered, “Look around, Leo. There’s a dozen people here. Why does it have to be you?” The standoff ended when one of Cassie’s admirers offered her a ride. It was supposed to de-escalate things. Instead, they crashed. Neither of them survived. And Leo laid all the blame, all the guilt, all the crushing weight of it, right at my feet. It was absurd. Did he wish he’d been in that car, too? 2 After his silent vigil, Leo turned to me, his shadow falling over me as he stood there, looking down his nose. “Your turn,” he commanded. I let out a soft, tired laugh. “How long are you going to keep playing this game?” His brow furrowed, a storm gathering in his eyes. He kicked the small table in front of me, sending it crashing against the wall. “You don’t want to? Then let’s break up. But you wouldn’t dare, would you? Not when I’m your precious cash cow.” That was his favorite threat. His new addiction. We’d been together for four years. Our online persona as the perfect influencer couple had netted us over six hundred thousand followers. They all said we were meant to be. They said the way Leo looked at me was proof of true love. He used to say it, too. “The way I look at Elena will never change, not even when we’re old. Actually, at eighty, my eyes will probably be so bad I won’t be able to see my little old lady clearly anymore.” But people change. Especially as the years pass, as the initial fire cools into embers. It’s then that other thoughts, other possibilities, start to creep in. I never realized how much he still thought about his ex until that reunion. The ghost of a first love, the one that got away—it’s a powerful thing. His ghost had never forgotten him, and suddenly, he remembered all the reasons he’d loved her. And me? I was just the familiar face, the one who’d grown older alongside him. Less exciting. Maybe, after I’m gone, he’ll talk about me with this much tortured passion to his next girlfriend. At first, I played along with his bizarre mourning ritual out of pity. He was being eaten alive by guilt and regret, and I thought if he could displace that onto me, maybe he could breathe again. I just never expected him to get so lost in the role. 3 “Just wait a little longer,” I said with a smile, getting up to head for the shower. He took my dismissal as a final insult. The rage was instantaneous. He started breaking things. Not random objects, but our things. The furniture we’d picked out together, the little trinkets we’d bought on trips, each one a vessel for a shared memory, a private joke. He raged, a storm of flailing limbs and guttural roars, his voice tearing through the chaos, “Why couldn’t it have been you?” Looking at the wreckage, a strange, unnerving calm settled over me. My smile felt genuine. “Just you wait.” Really. Just a little longer. Liver cancer. They gave me three to six months. Leo didn’t understand the meaning behind my words. He lunged, grabbing my shoulders, shaking me so hard my teeth rattled. “If you don’t want to break up, then you’ll pay your respects to her. Do it!” In the end, I did. Because his screaming was giving me a headache. And when a child throws a tantrum, you learn it’s easier to just give in. 4 That night, sleep was a stranger. I gave up trying and sat up, watching Leo’s back. He always slept facing away from me now, a chasm of cold sheets between us. I had to prop myself up on an elbow, leaning precariously over the gap just to see his face. He slept fitfully, his brow furrowed into a tight knot. The boyish face I loved was etched with a premature weariness. His lashes, long enough to be a sin, cast spidery shadows on his cheeks. His perfect nose was a sharp line in the dim light, and a fine, dark stubble was already shadowing his jaw. I drank in the sight of him, my mind drifting back to the day we met. He was eighteen, a freshman overflowing with boundless energy, sweat glistening on his skin as he dominated the university basketball court, a chorus of adoring girls screaming his name. I was twenty-three, back on campus for an alumni event, and I’d wandered over to the courts, drawn by the noise and the sea of fresh faces. When he sank the winning three-pointer, I screamed with the rest of them, a jolt of pure, youthful excitement shooting through me. He spotted me in the crowd, his eyes locking with mine, a proud, cocky grin spreading across his face. I gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. He tucked the basketball under his arm and jogged right over. “Hey,” he said, slightly breathless. “Are you one of the professors?” Under the bright afternoon sun, his skin was almost translucent, his amber eyes clear as a stream. He was so close I could smell the clean, boyish scent of his sweat and the grass. “Professors don’t get called ‘hey,’” I teased, tilting my head back to meet his gaze. I held it, watching a faint blush creep up his neck and tint the tips of his ears, before I let him go. Back then, our intentions were perfectly clear. I wanted to flirt with him. He was interested in me. Neither of us expected it to detonate into real love, a chaotic, beautiful four-year journey. Because I was the older one, I naturally indulged his moods, his immaturity. In return, he gave me the fierce, untainted romance that only a young man can offer. But lately, his tantrums had gone too far. And he’d forgotten to give anything back. 5 I didn’t sleep at all. When I finally drifted off, it was already dark again when I woke. Moonlight streamed through a gap in the curtains, painting a ghostly stripe across the floor. Habit took over. I grabbed my phone, checking the backend of our social media accounts. The team had posted the scheduled content, and the affiliate sales numbers were stable. I’d started this influencer agency with Leo. I put up the money, and I ran the business. All he had to do was show up, look handsome, and follow the script. I often thought he was born in the right era. A man who could genuinely make a living off his face. A very, very good living. But early success, easy money—it’s rarely a good thing. It had warped me, and now I saw it had warped him, too. I called his name a few times. Silence. I got up to go to the bathroom and flinched as Cassie’s smiling face caught me by surprise again. I grabbed a few tissues and draped them over the photo before continuing on. A harsh voice cut through the silence from behind me. “What are you doing?” I froze, then turned. I hadn’t even noticed Leo on the balcony, a cigarette glowing in the dark. The cherry-red tip flared as he inhaled, smoke momentarily obscuring his face. He was clearly furious about my disrespect to Cassie’s portrait. “Thought she might be cold,” I mumbled, stepping into the bathroom. He stormed to the doorway, his eyes bloodshot. “She’s dead. Why do you still have to humiliate her?” A real laugh escaped me this time. “Humiliate her? Oh, sweetheart. If I wanted to really humiliate her, I would have stood up at her funeral and told everyone she was pregnant with your child.” I’d spent the whole night thinking. It was time to lay the cards on the table. In my condition, there was no point in playing dumb anymore. I’d found out two days ago. Leo had been blackout drunk, spilling his guts, and had no memory of it the next morning. No memory of me slapping him twice, stripping him naked, and leaving him on the balcony to freeze for half the night. That’s when it all clicked. The depth of his guilt, the desperate need to make me the villain so he could keep living. My original plan had been to methodically untangle our business finances, minimize my losses, and then break up with him. But a cancer diagnosis tends to change one’s plans. Time for a new game. I might be a sugar mama, but I wasn’t a pushover.

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My childhood sweetheart, the prodigal son, had returned—all for a good girl. To prove his sincerity, he bought a box of condoms for when we were together. As I tore open the wrapper, I feigned indifference. “Who is she?” Andy Wheaton leaned against the headboard, a smirk playing on his lips. “Your stepsister. Never thought I’d be the one to fall for her.” “The little innocent… she doesn’t even know how to smoke. I gave her a shotgun, and she coughed for ages.” “Innocent as hell.” 1 My hand trembled violently, the condom falling from my fingers onto the bed. For a moment, my mind went blessedly, terrifyingly blank. For years, Andy had been surrounded by a revolving door of beautiful women, but not one had ever made him want to settle down. Not even me, who had chased him for five years, only ever earning the title of “friend with benefits.” But I never imagined he would end up with my stepsister. And I certainly never imagined he would change his ways for her. Perhaps the helplessness was written all over my face. Andy let out a short, mocking laugh. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?” “Never thought I’d be the one to fall for her, either.” He took a drag from his cigarette, as if savoring a memory. “That clueless girl… doesn’t even know how to smoke.” “I gave her a shotgun, and she coughed for ages.” “So damn pure.” He shook his head, a genuine smile on his face. I swallowed the acid rising in my throat. “Why her?” I managed to ask. Andy stubbed out his cigarette, his voice unusually serious. “Zoe is a good girl. I don’t want to let her down.” My heart stuttered. It felt as if all the strength had been siphoned from my body. “Forget it. You can just take the pill tonight,” Andy said, pushing me down onto the bed and expertly unclasping my bra. “Zoe’s too innocent. I’ve been holding back for days, afraid to even touch her.” It was the same practiced foreplay, the same familiar moves, but my body was cold, devoid of any desire. I pushed him away and stood up in silence. I put on my clothes, my shoes. Then, steeling myself against the pain, I feigned a casual air. “Andy, we’re done.” He paused for a beat, then scoffed, unconcerned. “Stella, you think you can just walk away from me?” I didn’t answer, just grabbed my purse and started packing my makeup. “Fine. Get the hell out,” he snapped, his voice turning cold, laced with the annoyance of a man whose fun had been interrupted. My nails dug into my palms, but I walked out of that room. Andy could fall for anyone. But it couldn’t be Zoe Lynn. Zoe and I were polar opposites. I loved to party, to chase thrills. I was just like Andy—wild and untamable by nature. Zoe, on the other hand, had always been the quiet, obedient good girl who followed all the rules. That’s why I’d gone to rescue her when some lowlifes lured her to a bar. That day, they forced drinks down my throat until I was blind drunk, but I managed to get her out of there. But she, panicking about a homework assignment her teacher had just announced, abandoned me, drunk and disoriented, at a bus stop. The thugs who’d been chasing us dragged me back to a hotel room. Even after all these years, I can’t bring myself to relive that night. I’d always scoffed at the idea of virginity, but there’s a world of difference between choosing to and being forced. Afterward, my body broken and weak from the night-long assault, I found Zoe and slapped her across the face. She burst into tears, her voice a hysterical accusation. “All you ever care about is yourself! If I didn’t turn in that assignment, my teacher would have punished me!” From that moment on, I despised her. And Andy knew all of this. 2 I couldn’t accept that he was with her. My only option was to tune out, to avoid any news of him. But on his birthday, he sent me an invitation as if nothing had changed. Maybe I just needed to see it with my own eyes. Maybe I just couldn’t let go. I went. But when I pushed open the door to the private room, my heart skipped a beat. On the sofa, Andy had Zoe pinned against the back, kissing her with a fierce, brutal passion. I could see the veins on the back of his hand standing out from the force of his grip. The room was full of their friends, cheering and hollering. I was the only one whose face was drained of color. For all the years we’d been together, Andy had always been in control, coolly watching me lose myself in pleasure. This was the first time I had ever seen him lose himself, swept away by his own desire. When the kiss finally ended, Zoe’s face was flushed, her body limp as she leaned against his chest. Andy’s throat bobbed. “How are you so damn innocent?” he chuckled, his voice thick with affection. And then he saw me. The smile on his face faltered, just for a second. I said nothing, my face probably a ghostly white. Someone pulled me into a drinking game. The next round, Zoe lost. The penalty was a pole dance. Zoe had always been conservative. At the suggestion, her face went pale, and she looked to Andy for help. The crowd buzzed with excitement. “Come on, Andy, you’re not gonna let your girl do that, are you?” He wasn’t. He tilted his chin at me, his posture lazy and arrogant. “Zoe’s too shy for that kind of thing.” “You do it for her.” Zoe was too shy. And what was I? A stone settled in my chest, heavy and suffocating. I forced the bitterness down and sneered, “If you can’t handle the stakes, why play the game?” Zoe’s face paled further. She bit her lip and then, her voice trembling, she said, “Stella… are you still holding a grudge because I got you raped?” She emphasized the word raped, making it impossible to miss. A wave of murmurs went through the room as all eyes turned to me, filled with a strange, prurient curiosity. I froze, shocked that she would rip open that wound in front of everyone. She wasn’t done. “How long are you going to hate me for that? I didn’t have a choice! You can’t make it all about you!” “Besides,” she added, her voice rising in self-pity, as if I were the one attacking her. “You sleep around anyway. What’s one more or one less?” The agony of that night washed over me again, a phantom pain that made my whole body tremble. I snapped. Before anyone could react, I grabbed my glass and threw the drink in her face. “Ah!” Zoe shrieked, dissolving into tears as she threw herself into Andy’s arms. I laughed, a cold, sharp sound. “Zoe, you’re as selfish as you’ve always been. I was trying to save you—” “That’s enough.” Andy cut me off, his voice unreadable. He took off his jacket and draped it over Zoe’s shoulders. Then he looked at me, his smile still roguish and charming, but the impatience in his eyes was a blade. “Stella, that was years ago.” “Are you really still hung up on that?” My heart didn’t just sink. It shattered. 3 When it first happened, I wasn’t like the girls in the movies who felt they’d lost their purity and tried to end their lives. But the whispers, the judgmental stares from everyone around me… they left me feeling lost and utterly alone. The worst moment was when a group of thugs from school cornered me at the gate and asked me if being raped felt good. Everyone else just stood by and watched. Everyone except Andy. He flew at them like a man possessed, fighting them all at once. He was beaten until he could barely see straight, but he never stopped shielding me. He broke his hand that day. A few of the thugs ended up in the emergency room. And for me, a desperate, foolish love began to bloom, filling every corner of my teenage heart. Later, during our senior year, the most critical time for our studies, he transferred schools just to be with me, to help me through that dark period. Once, lost in a fog of self-doubt, I whispered to him, “Was it really my fault? Am I… dirty now?” He had just laughed, a wild, reckless sound. “Dirty? Hell no. The moment that bastard gets out of prison, I’ll kill him myself.” And just like that, I became a moth, flying straight into the flame that was Andy Wheaton. Even when his philandering left me burned and broken, I refused to let go. But now, he was asking me if I was still hung up on it. In that moment, looking into the careless cold of his eyes, I suddenly felt tired. So incredibly tired. I don’t remember how I got out of that room. It must have been a pathetic sight. I had chased Andy for so long. I had even stayed in this city, alone, just for him. It was time to let go. I quit my job and, on a whim, bought a ticket home. After packing up my life, I went to Andy’s villa one last time. I had a lot of things there, things that now needed to disappear, along with all the love and lust. But when I opened the door, I froze. The living room was a scene of debauchery. Clothes and used condoms were strewn everywhere. One, two, three… each one a testament to the intensity of their passion. From the bedroom, I could hear the soft, sultry moans of a woman, punctuated by a man’s guttural groans of pleasure. I blinked, my eyes dry, and took a long moment to suppress the wave of pain churning in my stomach. Maybe it was because the woman with Andy was Zoe, the person I hated most in the world. That’s why this, something I should have been used to, felt like a knife twisting in my gut. A few moments later, the bedroom door opened. Zoe gasped, clutching at her naked body. “What are you doing here?!” I forced myself not to look at the raw, love-bitten marks covering her skin. Just then, my phone buzzed. Before I could even look at it, Zoe snatched it from my hand. “Are you taking pictures of me?!” she demanded, her voice rising. Her reaction was so absurd I let out a cold, mocking laugh. “Do I need to?” But she reacted as if I’d struck a nerve, slapping me hard across the face. “You just want to ruin my reputation! You want to make me as dirty as you are!” My head snapped to the side, my cheek burning. I couldn’t understand it. If it weren’t for me, she would have become the “dirty woman” she was so terrified of being. How could she treat me like this? 4 I snatched my phone back and raised my hand to strike her. I was never one to take a hit without giving one back. But in the next second, a hand clamped down on my wrist. Andy’s voice, cold and sharp, cut through the air. “Stella, what the hell are you doing?” Zoe threw herself into his arms, sobbing. “Andy, she took pictures of me. I’m so scared. Can you make her delete them?” Andy’s brow furrowed. “Delete them,” he commanded. The sting on my cheek intensified, becoming unbearable. He actually believed I would do something like that. I clenched my jaw, fighting back tears. “Let go.” “Stella, Zoe isn’t like you,” he said, his voice taking on a menacing edge. “She’s not that kind of girl. Are you trying to ruin her with these disgusting tricks? Delete them now, or don’t force me to get rough.” Every word was a calculated blow, striking right at my deepest pain. Something inside me finally broke. I threw the phone at his face, my eyes red and wild. “Andy, open your eyes and look!” I screamed. “If I had ever wanted revenge on her, I would have taken it years ago!” He flinched, his expression changing as he saw the raw desperation on my face. He picked up the phone and checked it. There was nothing. Zoe felt no guilt. She just pressed herself against him, whimpering. “Andy, I didn’t mean to accuse her. I just… I don’t want to be dirty like her. If anyone knew I’d had sex before marriage, I think I would just die. I’m so, so scared.” Andy stroked her hair, seemingly helpless against her tears. A sarcastic smile touched my lips. I took my phone and turned to leave. Behind me, I heard Andy’s soothing voice. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re not like her.” “You’re not dirty.” I froze. And just like that, the last embers of hope died. All the years I’d spent chasing him, all the memories, shattered into dust. As I sat on the train home, I looked out the window, a strange sense of calm settling over me. Leaving this city meant leaving Andy behind for good. I wasn’t completely without a place to go. Back in my hometown, my mother, long dead, had left me a house. I closed my eyes, hoping for a moment of peace. But a second later, someone tapped my shoulder. A man in a white button-down and gold-rimmed glasses stood in the aisle. He had a gentle face and a shy smile. “Hello, is this seat taken?” I nodded curtly and closed my eyes again. A moment later, he spoke again. “This might be a bit forward, but I took a picture of you just now. Would it be alright if I kept it?” His name was Ethan, and he was a photographer who traveled the world capturing landscapes. The photo he showed me was of my profile, leaning against the window, bathed in sunlight. My expression was… peaceful. I was surprised. I had just made the decision to leave Andy, and my first feeling was relief? “The composition is perfect,” he said, looking a bit shy after his explanation. “If I crop you out, it will ruin the whole structure. But if you’re not comfortable with it, I’ll delete it right away.” I smiled. “It’s fine. You can use it.” Maybe it was because we were sitting next to each other, or maybe I was just bored, but we ended up talking for the rest of the journey. I learned that we lived in the same neighborhood. Even more surprisingly, we had gone to the same kindergarten. “Well, I guess that makes us old classmates,” Ethan smiled. “I have a younger brother who’s always lived in the neighborhood with my dad. I don’t know if you know him. His name is Andy Wheaton.” I froze. The world was impossibly, cruelly small. Andy had an older brother. Smarter, more responsible. When their parents divorced, his mother had only taken Ethan. It had always been a sore spot for Andy. But this incredible coincidence sparked nothing in me. I just smiled faintly. “I know him. We’re not close.” Just then, my phone rang. It was Andy.

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My estranged daughter suddenly appeared on a popular daytime talk show. “Before I was fifteen, I was the happiest kid in the world,” she told the host, her voice trembling. “But then, my mother just… changed.” “When I was so depressed I wanted to kill myself, my own mother told me to go ahead and die.” “From that year on, she barely spoke to me. She didn’t even come to my wedding, or see her own grandchild.” “I don’t know why she did it,” she sobbed, looking directly into the camera. “But no matter what, I want to say, ‘Mom, I will always love you.’” Later, the show’s producers contacted me, hoping to orchestrate a televised reconciliation. I refused without a second thought. Watching her fraudulent performance, I scoffed. “That piece of trash,” I muttered to the empty room. “She doesn’t deserve a mother.” … I had just gotten home when my old friend called. “Sarah, your Jessie is on TV. It’s The Ashton Pierce Show. You need to see this.” I turned on the television. I hadn’t seen my daughter, Jessica, in years. She was only twenty-eight, but she looked haggard, more like forty. What came out of her mouth next, however, was a fresh reminder of her bottomless capacity for deceit. “I was fifteen, I was a teenager,” she wept to the host. “Isn’t it normal to be a little rebellious?” “I just suddenly didn’t want to go to school anymore. There was no other reason. I wasn’t getting into any real trouble.” “My mom is a teacher. She’s supposed to be the best at educating people, but with me… she had no patience at all.” “I talked back to her a few times, and I joked that I didn’t want to live anymore. But she just looked at me, cold as ice, and told me to go die.” I remembered that day. It was our first truly terrible fight. After I said those words, she had thrown on a jacket and run out. We lived on the fourth floor. She climbed out the hallway window and jumped. There was a pile of junk the neighbors had put out for collection down below. She landed on it. There was blood everywhere, but she didn’t die. Her father had run down in a panic, calling an ambulance to rush her to the hospital. Now, she recounted it with a tearful, wounded voice. “My own mother… while I was lying in a pool of my own blood, dying… she just walked past me without a word. She went to work like it was any other day.” “I was in the hospital for over a month. My mother never visited me. Not once.” The live comments on the screen exploded. [How can anyone be that cold-blooded? That’s her own daughter.] [Suddenly my mom seems like an angel, even when she grounds me for a month.] [And she’s a teacher? Someone doxx this woman and get her fired!] I trembled as I read the venomous comments. How did she have the audacity to say these things? The host offered some comforting words. Jessica wiped her tears and continued. “When I finally came home, my mom just stopped talking to me completely. And because of her, my dad became distant, too.” “Before I was fifteen, we went on a family vacation every year. After that, we didn’t even go to the mall together on a weekend.” She claimed she spent her entire high school life suffering under my silent, cold abuse. “After graduation,” she went on, “I wanted a laptop for college. The only thing she said to me was that I didn’t deserve one.” “Later, she told me I was an adult and she didn’t have to support me anymore. She threw me out of the house.” “It’s been over a decade. My graduation, my wedding, the birth of my child… she wasn’t there for any of it. My dad gave me a check for a thousand dollars for my wedding, and that was it.” She turned to the camera again, her eyes pleading. “Mom, I really do love you. It’s been so long. Can’t we let go of whatever grudge this is?” “Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Can’t we please be a family again?” She sobbed so hard she could barely breathe. The live feed went wild with a fresh wave of vitriol. The producers quickly disabled the comments. It would be a lie to say the hateful words didn’t hurt. But if I had to do it all over again, I would make the same choice. The pain of a toxic family has always been a hot-button issue. After the live broadcast, clips of her interview went viral. As expected, I, the heartless mother, was subjected to a brutal online mobbing. Netizens figured out which university I taught at, even though I was already retired. The school’s official website, forums, and alumni pages were flooded with condemnations and insults. [This university is cursed to have a teacher like her.] [You need to vet for character, not just academic credentials. Otherwise, you’re just producing garbage.] [To give birth but not to raise is to be less than human!] [She has a good public reputation, but she tortures her own child at home. She’s a monster.] A few former colleagues and students tried to defend me, but their voices were drowned out in the deluge of hate. The university called me in. In the president’s office, he looked pained. “Sarah, given the public outcry, we’re temporarily removing your profile from the distinguished faculty page. I hope you understand.” “But rest assured,” he added quickly, “we’ve worked together for decades. We know the kind of person you are. The truth will come out eventually, and we will restore your honors.” I told him I understood. But when I saw my name vanish from the school’s website, a career of over thirty years of hard work erased in an instant, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. When I got back to my apartment building, the scene outside my door made me freeze. The door was covered in red spray paint. Words like MONSTER and TRASH were scrawled across it, with vile curses covering the entire wall. The floor was splattered with some foul-smelling, unknown liquid. I didn’t dare go inside. I hid in the nearby stairwell, my hands shaking as I called my husband, Rob. He rushed home immediately. Our next-door neighbor heard the commotion and peeked out. Seeing us, she let out a sigh of relief. “Sarah, those people were awful. If I hadn’t threatened to call the police, they were going to wait for you.” “I recorded them,” she said, handing me her phone. “If you want to report it, this is evidence.” I looked at the video. The man leading the pack was horribly familiar. It was that troublemaker from years ago. My daughter’s husband, Kyle. “I don’t know what happened between you and your daughter,” our neighbor said kindly, “but you two are good people. I know you’re not like that.” After thanking her, I copied the video to my computer. My husband, Rob, a typically mild-mannered man, was seething. “Sarah, we have to call the police.” Two days of online harassment had sent my blood pressure soaring. My head was spinning, but I knew it wasn’t time yet. “Let’s just wait,” I said. Rob hesitated. “Sarah… my office saw the interview. And some people showed up there, too.” “The director… he suggested I take some time off. A leave of absence.” “What?!” I cried out. “But you’re retiring in two months! A leave of absence now will affect your pension, your record!” “This is a nightmare,” Rob sighed, his voice full of despair. “We never should have had her.” He was never good with words, but he held me close. “It’s okay. The pension will be a little less, but we have enough to live on.” He knew it wasn’t the money I cared about. It was his reputation, built over decades of dedicated work, now tarnished. The events of the past few days stoked the embers of resentment I held for my daughter into a raging fire. “Honey,” Rob said quietly. “Do you think… maybe Jessie is in some kind of trouble?” “Does she not have our address? Does she not have our phone number? No, Rob! She’s using public opinion to force our hand!” “Have you already forgotten the lesson we learned the last time we were soft-hearted?” At the mention of that, he fell silent. For the next few days, I felt the stares and heard the whispers whenever I went out for groceries. I decided to stop leaving the apartment altogether. The vandalism incident had prompted the building management to tighten security, so at least we had a couple of days of peace. Buzzzzzzz. A loud humming sound from outside the window caught my attention. A drone was hovering right outside our living room. Hanging from it was a banner. The words made the blood rush to my head. Printed in blood-red letters on a white cloth, it read: DAUGHTER ABANDONER DESERVES TO DIE! The world tilted. I felt a wave of dizziness, and then everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital room. Rob was by my side, his face etched with worry. He let out a huge breath when he saw I was awake. “The person flying the drone has been arrested, honey. I called the police. Don’t you worry.” At the police station, the drone operator admitted he was just paid to do it. He’d seen the story online and thought I was a terrible mother. Seeing me collapse and the ambulance arrive had scared him half to death. “I just thought I was helping fight an injustice!” he’d told the police. “It was that guy, Kyle. He said we were using righteousness to defeat evil.” “I thought it was just a banner! I never meant to hurt anyone!” He’d even handed over the cash Kyle had paid him. The police relayed the story to us and asked how we wanted to proceed. I knew who the real source of the problem was. I didn’t want to press charges against the drone operator. After a fine and a formal statement, they let him go. Seeing my pale face, Rob squeezed my hand. “Sarah, maybe we should move.” “That rotten kid… what in God’s name is he trying to do?” I shook my head. “With the internet, where could we possibly move that they wouldn’t find us?” My collapse was due to high blood pressure, so the doctors wanted to keep me for a week of observation. I had a sinking feeling. If they could get to me at home, the hospital wouldn’t be a sanctuary. “Rob,” I said, “go home and get that folder from my desk. I have a feeling I’m going to need it soon.” He nodded without question and left. I had barely closed my eyes to rest when a commotion erupted outside my room. A moment later, a familiar voice cut through the noise. “Mom! Are you okay, Mom?” I opened my eyes to see Jessica kneeling by my bedside, clutching my hand. Behind her stood the camera crew from the TV show. I tried to pull my hand away, but she gripped it tighter. “Mom, please,” she wept. “Stop being stubborn with me, okay?” A surge of anger shot through me. “Are you blind? You’re pressing on my IV!” She looked down and saw the tube backing up with blood. She let go with a sheepish smile. “I was just so worried about you. I got carried away. Can’t you just talk to me nicely for once?” There were other patients in the room, and a small crowd had gathered at the door. I didn’t want to engage with her. I just turned my head away. The reporter stepped forward. “Mrs. Miller? Hi, I’m from The Ashton Pierce Show. We were contacted by your daughter, Jessica. It seems there’s been a terrible misunderstanding between you two.” “It’s clear she loves you very much. Perhaps now is a good time to clear the air? With Thanksgiving coming up, it would be wonderful for your family to reunite.” I closed my eyes. “There is no misunderstanding. Please leave. I don’t have a daughter.” “Mom!” Jessica cried out, desperate. I saw the man lurking by the door—Kyle—and all the recent events flashed through my mind. I looked Jessica straight in the eye. “I said, you are not my daughter. You two pieces of trash are not worthy!” A collective gasp went through the room. The other patients began to whisper. “Wow, what kind of hate is that? To say something so awful on camera.” “The internet was right. She doesn’t deserve to be a mother. Calling her own daughter trash.” “Yeah, if her daughter is trash, what does that make her? The whole dumpster, hahaha.” The crowd snickered. The words hit me like a physical blow, and my face went pale. The reporter’s expression soured. She clearly hadn’t expected me to be so blunt. “Mrs. Miller, I should remind you, this is a live broadcast. Everything you’re saying is going out to thousands of viewers. Please choose your words carefully.” Jessica remained kneeling, momentarily speechless. The man at the door, Kyle, cleared his throat. That was her cue. Jessica snapped back into character. “Mom, what did I do wrong? You used to love me so much, didn’t you?” She pulled a small, worn doll from her bag. “Mom, look. You made this for me when I was a little girl. I’ve kept it safe all these years.” I stared at the little stuffed monkey. For a moment, I was transported back. I had made that for her twelfth birthday. Then, I snapped. I snatched it from her hand and hurled it out the open window. “Get out! I will never acknowledge you as my daughter!” Jessica shrieked and lunged for the window, pretending she was going to jump out to retrieve the doll. The reporter grabbed her. “Mrs. Miller, are you really this heartless?” the reporter yelled, holding Jessica back. “She cares about you so much!” “Let her go,” I said, my voice flat. “She’s faking it.” The reporter hesitated. Jessica, realizing her bluff was called, sank to her knees in front of me again and started slapping her own face. “Yes, that’s right! In your eyes, I’m always faking it!” she cried. “When I jumped from our building at fifteen, fractured my skull, and bled all over the pavement, was I faking it then, too?” “When you threw me out of the house and I had to live without a mother or father, was that also an act?” With just a few sentences, she had perfectly cemented my image as the cruel, unfeeling monster. I could only imagine what the live comments looked like now. A woman from the next bed rushed over and held her arms. “Honey, stop! There’s no grudge between a mother and daughter that can’t be fixed. This has gone too far.” A nurse, drawn by the noise, came to tell us to be quiet, then stopped dead in her tracks at the scene. “Excuse me, coming through.” Rob had returned. He looked startled by the crowd. Seeing I was okay, he relaxed, but then he saw our daughter kneeling on the floor. His soft heart took over, and he moved to help her up. “Don’t you touch her!” I commanded. I glared at Jessica. “I’m asking you one last time. Are you leaving, or not?”

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1 Everyone knew I was Damien Vargo’s weakness. His one sacred, untouchable thing. Years ago, when I was kidnapped, Damien walked into the lion’s den and laid down his arms, risking a bullet to the head. He liquidated his entire fortune, a king’s ransom, just to get me back. To shield me from the brutality of his world, he danced on a razor’s edge between the law and the underworld. And when I became pregnant, he treated me like fragile glass, a queen confined to her throne. He waited on me hand and foot, barely letting my feet touch the floor. Whispers of a pampered little canary he kept on the side swirled through the city, but I never believed them. I couldn’t. But his canary wouldn’t stay in her cage. She brought the scandal to my doorstep, and to beg for my forgiveness, Damien took a cleaver to his own hand and chopped off his little finger. The very next day, the canary was back, shoving a new piece of paper in my face. Her pregnancy test, with Damien’s name on it. “Damien is just desperate for a child with me,” she cooed. “He simply can’t get enough.” My body, already frail, couldn’t take the shock. The words, the proof, the betrayal—it all hit me with the force of a physical blow, and I miscarried. … “Damien is just so desperate to have my baby,” Crystal purred, her voice dripping with venomous sweetness. The fresh love bites on her neck were a violent purple against her skin, a stark contrast to the clinical black and white of the ultrasound photo in her hand. “We went at it all night. The results just came in. Guess what they say?” Seeing her, seeing the marks of my husband’s passion on her throat, felt like Damien himself had driven a knife clean through my back. This was her second visit. The first was yesterday. She’d sauntered in, all swagger and cheap perfume, and tossed a video of her and Damien, tangled in silk sheets, onto my coffee table. It was followed by a black Centurion card. She sank into my favorite chaise lounge, adjusting her oversized sunglasses just enough to peer at me through the gap, her gaze sweeping over me with undisguised contempt. “No wonder Damien’s tired of you. God, you’re so washed-up. There’s ten million dollars on this card. Take it and disappear.” She paused, letting the insult hang in the air before delivering the final blow. “Normally, I wouldn’t bother. He’s clearly over you. But Damien wants to give me a wedding, a real one. And for that to happen, you two have to get divorced.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. A wedding? We have to get divorced? “Does Damien know you’re here?” I asked, my voice deceptively calm. She tossed her bleached-blonde hair, her confidence absolute. She pulled out her phone and dialed. “Damien, baby,” she chirped. “Could you come over? There’s a woman here who needs… dealing with.” And just like an obedient dog, he came. A few minutes later, Damien strode in. The moment he saw me, his face went rigid, the color draining from it. Crystal, oblivious, preened like a peacock, high on the power of summoning the most feared man in Port Sterling. She snatched a cup of hot tea from the table and, with a triumphant smirk, flung its contents at me, soaking me from head to toe. I just smiled, a cold, dangerous smile. “Who gave you the courage to provoke me?” In the next second, Damien was a blur of motion. Crystal turned to him, her face lit with expectation, thinking he was coming to her defense. Instead, his hand shot out, grabbing a fistful of her hair. He slammed her to the floor, his boot connecting with her ribs in a series of sickening thuds. Crystal crumpled, gasping, her face a mask of shocked disbelief. One of Damien’s men dragged her away, whimpering. Before yesterday, I’d heard the rumors. The whole city was whispering that Damien Vargo had a gorgeous new canary, one he took everywhere. A girl so delicate she fainted at the sight of blood, so he kept her shielded from the ugliness of his work. They said he spoiled her rotten, let her get away with murder. I never believed it. I remembered the kidnapping, the terror, and Damien throwing down his guns for me. I remembered the time I went missing on the outskirts of the city, and he’d torn through the wilderness for seven days and seven nights, returning with his leg mangled by some wild animal, just to hold me and whisper, “Lena, don’t be scared. I’m here.” All those years of dancing on the knife’s edge, all the pain and scars he endured—he did it all so I would never have to be afraid. Those memories were etched into my soul. So when Crystal showed up that first time, I showed him the video. My voice was a choked whisper. “Are the rumors true?” He looked utterly lost, scrambling for words. “I’m sorry. I’ll get rid of her. I’ll have her taken care of right now, I swear. Just forgive me… Lena… please…” The world spun. The shock and grief sent me straight to the hospital. My health was already precarious, and the pregnancy made it worse. The doctor had warned me that any severe emotional distress could lead to a miscarriage. Damien’s iron grip on the city meant no one dared to breathe a word that might upset me. And now, he himself had put me here. Lying in that hospital bed, waiting for the doctors, I thought one thing over and over: This Damien is filthy. I don’t want him anymore. But when I was wheeled out of the treatment room, he was there. Kneeling on the cold linoleum floor. In one swift, brutal motion, he raised a butcher’s knife. Right there, in front of me, he brought it down, severing the little finger from his right hand. A blood offering. A penance. “Lena, it was my fault,” he choked out, his face pale with pain and regret. “I betrayed you. Forgive me, please? Just this once. I’m begging you, Lena.” Ten years. We had loved each other for ten years. How could my heart not ache for him? I gave him another chance. And now, today, I stared at the fresh bruises on Crystal’s neck and the pregnancy report she’d slapped across my face. When Damien left yesterday, he’d said he was going to “deal with” Crystal. Apparently, “dealing with her” meant falling right back into her bed. Reality was a slap in the face, shattering every last ounce of my compassion, every shred of my love. The heartbreak was a physical agony, a shard of glass twisting in my gut. The pain in my heart mirrored a sharp, cramping pain in my belly. I was going to die from this, I was sure of it. Then, a sudden, horrifying warmth spread between my legs, a torrent of crimson. I knew. I’d lost the baby. I had my doctor, Leah, cover it up. I’d found her on the streets years ago; her loyalty was to me, and me alone. Then, I booked a one-way ticket for a cruise liner heading to the southern isles. I pressed a hand to my empty womb, a hollow ache echoing through me. Ten years, Damien and I had waited ten years for this child. I had pictured our life together, the three of us, a thousand times. I had swallowed my pride and forgiven you. All I asked was that you didn’t do it again. Was that too much? On the drive back from the clinic, I got a text from Damien. : Threw a party for you tonight. To celebrate. I’ll come pick you up soon. The route took me past the main hall of our estate. The windows blazed with light, and as I drew closer, I could hear a familiar, sickly-sweet voice drifting out. “I’m so jealous of Lena,” Crystal was saying. “Damien throws her a party just for being pregnant. When will it be my turn for a party like this?” I peered through a crack in the door. I saw Damien’s expression darken. He grabbed Crystal’s chin, his voice a low growl. “As long as you never, ever let Lena find out about us, I’ll give you anything you want. Anything but my name.” Crystal pouted. “I want that pigeon’s blood ruby necklace Lena wears. Can I have it? Please?” “As long as you’re not stupid enough to show your face to her again,” Damien replied without hesitation, “anything she has, you’ll have too.” So, the fury he’d shown me was just an act. A performance for my benefit. I thought he would have learned his lesson. I thought he would cherish the chance I gave him. But he never thought he was wrong. He only thought he hadn’t been careful enough to hide it. My phone buzzed. A call from an unknown number. It was Crystal. She wanted to make sure I had a front-row seat to their little play. “Alright, I have to go get Lena now,” Damien’s voice said through the phone. I heard a rustle, then Crystal’s voice, husky and close. She had clearly pulled him into an anteroom. “Stay with me a little longer. Please? Once Lena gets here, you’ll have to be with her all night.” “No. I have to go. She just got pregnant, and she’s fragile. It’s too easy for her to miscarry.” “You only care about her baby,” Crystal whined. “Did you forget? I’m carrying your child, too. Don’t I deserve some of your affection?” “Of course I care about you,” Damien soothed. “You’re my little treasure, aren’t you?” I stepped into the doorway of the main hall, making my presence known. “What are we celebrating?” “The boss was worried you might be feeling down during the pregnancy,” one of the men said. “So he prepared a celebration for you.” How laughable. They were all in on it, all helping him lie to my face. My eyes drifted to the partition separating the main hall from the anteroom. I couldn’t see them, but their shadows danced on the polished floor, intertwined in a way that left nothing to the imagination. Damien must have heard my voice. His shadow pulled back. “That’s enough,” he hissed. “If Lena finds out, it’s over. I can’t afford that.” “I know, I know,” Crystal murmured. “But it’s been so long… If Lena knew we’ve been together for three years, she’d be furious, wouldn’t she?” “If you keep being a bad girl, I’ll have to punish you.” Then, through the phone, Damien’s voice dissolved into muffled sounds. My nails dug into my palms, the pain a dull echo of the agony in my chest. This, Damien, is how you trample on me. Again and again. A full thirty minutes passed before he emerged, pretending he’d been caught up with business. His face was still flushed with the afterglow of his tryst with Crystal. The gentle smile he offered me was so vile it made me want to retch. He placed a hand on my stomach, his touch a brand of fire. His palm, still warm from another woman’s body, moved in a gentle caress. “Is our little one behaving? Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted this baby, Lena?” He had wept with joy when I first told him I was pregnant. But it never stopped him from touching me with filthy hands, from playing the part of the devoted husband. The love and happiness I thought were my life were nothing but a web of secrets and lies. Once you peeled back the glittering surface, the truth was just despair. After the “celebration,” Damien made an excuse about urgent business and left early. I knew where he was going. Back to the anteroom, back to the woman he had hidden there. Bang! Bang! Two gunshots echoed from the hillside. I looked up, my senses numb, and saw them—men from a rival territory, walking straight towards me. I watched, frozen, as one of them raised a pistol, the barrel aimed squarely at my face. Just as I braced for the end, a familiar shape slammed into me, shielding me. It was Damien. More shots rang out, several bullets tearing into his back as he tackled me. He wrapped his arms around me and threw us down a steep embankment, his body a shield over mine the entire way down. He’d taken a bullet to the left side of his chest, and his body was a mess of bloody scrapes from the rocks and gravel. But all he did was hold me tight and whisper, “Don’t be scared.” The intruders were quickly subdued. They were just scouts who had stumbled upon me by chance. Years ago, Damien had killed the wife of a rival boss—she’d been pregnant. Ever since, the man had been hunting for revenge. In the hospital, I stared at Damien’s unconscious form, my mind a blank. You would literally die for me. So why? Why would you do this to me? His injuries were severe, but on the third day, he insisted on getting out of bed. He said he had a business negotiation with a rival crew leader. Hearing those words, the flicker of pity I’d felt turned to ash in my mouth. He saw me staring and a flicker of guilt crossed his face. “It’s… it’s really important. I have to go.” “Fine,” I said, my voice flat. For days, I’d been seeing wedding decorations being smuggled into the compound. Last night, Crystal had sent me a digital wedding invitation. I knew exactly where Damien was going. Maybe Crystal was right. Maybe he just didn’t love me anymore. And when I looked at his face now, all I could see was him tangled up with her, and a wave of nausea washed over me. Soon after, I was on the deck of the cruise ship, pulling away from the shores of Port Sterling. Ping. A text from Damien. At the meeting now, Lena. Attached was a picture of him sitting at a table in a warehouse, looking serious. A pathetic attempt to prove his lie. I knew it was fake because I was watching the real event. Live. On a video call from Crystal. The wedding was being held in a secret, underground chamber, hidden away from my eyes. Damien was in a black tuxedo, the groom. The blood from the bullet wound in his chest had already soaked through the pristine white shirt and was staining the dark fabric of his jacket. But even that couldn’t stop him from marrying her. On the screen, Damien stood at the altar. After the officiant spoke, Damien took Crystal’s hand, kissed it, and looked into her eyes with a tenderness that used to be reserved for me. “I do,” he said. And in that moment, I laughed at my own pathetic foolishness. This morning, when he’d told me about his “negotiation,” a tiny, stupid part of me had held onto a sliver of hope. Maybe it’s real. Maybe it’s something life-or-death. But with Damien, the more you trust him, the bigger the fool he makes you. He sent another text after stepping down from the altar: Deal went smoothly. What do you want for dinner tonight? I replied: Are you really in a negotiation? On the live feed, I saw his face drain of all color. My phone immediately began to ring, over and over. He didn’t wait for an answer. A new text came in, frantic: Yes. I am. I’ll explain when I get back. I promise. I ended the video call with Crystal. I was already on a ship, sailing toward the open sea, leaving the shores of our country, and him, far behind.

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