Category: English

I had spent ten years of my life quietly in love with the boy next door. The night the Sinclair family went bankrupt, Chloe Sinclair spent twenty-four hours on her knees outside the Miller estate, begging for mercy. I was terrified that Mike would let his heart soften for her lies, so I made up an excuse. I told him it was my birthday and begged him to take me to the pier. I led him away to the bright lights and the loud music of the carnival, anywhere far from her. The next morning, the headlines broke. Chloe Sinclair had been driven to the edge by her creditors; she’d jumped from the roof of a high-rise. Mike didn’t say a single word. He was a ghost, a hollow shell of a man as he handled her funeral arrangements in absolute silence. Then, with that same haunting silence, he agreed to marry me. On our wedding day, the chapel was swallowed by an inferno. Everything we were supposed to be turned to ash in that sea of fire. He saved me—he dragged my body through the smoke, risking his life to pull me out—but he didn’t survive the heat. With his final ounce of strength, he reached out and shredded our wedding portrait, his fingers clawing at the canvas until his nails bled. “Meeting you,” he wheezed, his eyes burning with a hatred I had never seen, “is the only thing I regret about this life.” It was in that moment, as the life left his eyes, that I finally understood. He didn’t just resent me. He hated me. After he was gone, I became the pariah. I was the “black widow,” the woman who had brought nothing but bad luck to the Millers. At his funeral, his relatives didn’t hold back; they kicked and screamed at me while I sat in the dirt. Even his parents, who had always treated me like their own daughter, looked at me with nothing but icy indifference. “If it weren’t for you, Mike would still be alive,” his mother whispered, her voice like a knife. “Your existence was never anything but a burden to him.” I wandered the streets like a soul without a body until a truck sent me over the side of a bridge. I died the moment I hit the water. But then, I opened my eyes. I was back. One week before the wedding. This time, I’m letting go. 1 Inside the high-end bridal boutique, Mike Miller sat on the velvet sofa in his tuxedo. There wasn’t a flicker of groom-to-be excitement in his eyes—only a cold, simmering resentment. “Are you satisfied now, Grace?” he asked, his voice dripping with venom. “I never realized that when my parents took you in out of pity, you were actually plotting to force your way into my bed. You think a ceremony is going to make me love you? You’re dreaming.” I looked down at my phone. The date was exactly one week before the wedding. The Sinclairs hadn’t officially filed for bankruptcy yet. Chloe was still alive, still haven’t reached the point of no return. There was still time to fix everything. A wave of phantom pain from my past life washed over me, but I pushed the bitterness down. I looked at him and forced a small, tired smile. “I know,” I said softly. “I know your heart belongs to someone else.” I took a breath. “This time, I’m letting you go.” He blinked, a flash of genuine surprise crossing his face before he let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Letting me go? What is that supposed to mean? The invitations are out, the venue is booked. You think saying that now changes anything?” He stood up, towering over me. “I used to think of you as my sister. I looked out for you. I even let you into the inner workings of the company. But you? You’re a two-faced snake, Grace. It makes me sick.” He stepped closer, his shadow swallowing me. “If you hadn’t poisoned my parents’ minds against Chloe, they wouldn’t have such a prejudice against her. You got exactly what you wanted. Don’t start acting like a martyr now.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He stormed out of the boutique and stood on the sidewalk, lighting one cigarette after another. I looked at my reflection in the three-way mirror. The white lace felt like a shroud. I called the attendant over and gave her a new set of measurements—Chloe’s measurements. Then, I called the wedding planner and told them to change the bride’s name on everything to Chloe Sinclair. My phone wallpaper was still a photo of us from ten years ago. Back then, my parents had just died in a tragic accident, and my world had ended. Mike was the one who pulled me out of the wreckage. Our parents had been lifelong friends, and it was Mike who begged his parents to adopt me so I wouldn’t be lost to the foster system. He protected me from every bully at school. He kept me tucked under his wing, day and night. When classmates teased that I was his “little shadow,” he’d just offer a soft, indulgent smile. When a group of older boys tried to corner me once, Mike didn’t hesitate. He fought them until his knuckles were raw and his face was smeared with blood. I stood there, sobbing in terror. He took my hand, pulled me close, and covered my ears. “It’s okay, Gracie. Big brother is going to protect you forever.” He had kept that promise for a long time. Once I joined the company, I was his only “plus-one” at every gala, every event. Everyone whispered that the cold, arrogant Mike Miller only had a soft spot for his little sister. The rumors grew so loud that I started to believe them myself. When his parents found the journals where I’d poured out my teenage pining, they started pushing us together. But that fire in the chapel… that fire taught me the truth. I was never his heart. I was just a weight around his neck. I changed back into my street clothes and walked out of the shop, keeping my face carefully blank. The dress was handled. Now, I just needed the rings. “Mike,” I said, catching him as he blew out a cloud of smoke. “I want to pick out the rings. Come with me.” He knew Chloe’s taste better than anyone. He was busy staring at his phone, a faint, rare smile touching his lips as he typed a message. When he looked up at me, his gaze turned back to ice. “The dress wasn’t enough? You need the rings today, too? My god, Grace, you’re desperate to lock this down, aren’t you?” He checked his watch. “I don’t have time. Chloe’s family is having a crisis. I need to go to her.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and reached out to open his car door for him. “Go. Go to her. I’ll tell your parents there was an emergency at the office. I’ll cover for you.” Mike paused, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “What’s wrong with you today? Usually, if I even mention Chloe, you turn into a brat. I guess now that the wedding is a week away, you finally feel like she’s not a threat anymore?” I didn’t answer. I just gave him a sad, tight smile. He didn’t wait for a response; he peeled away from the curb without looking back. 2 I walked through the biting wind for hours before I finally headed home. When I walked through the front door, his parents saw the look on my face and immediately knew something was wrong. “Oh, Gracie, honey, don’t look like that,” his mother said, rushing over to pull me into a hug. “Mike is just being difficult. He’ll settle down once you’re married.” “Look,” his father added, trying to cheer me up. “He says he doesn’t care, but he sent over these ring designs this afternoon. Pick whichever one you want. Don’t worry about the price—it’s on us. We’re going to make sure our Grace has the grandest wedding New York has ever seen.” They thought he was just being stubborn. They thought his heart would eventually follow his duty. But I knew better. Mike was only doing this to maintain the family’s image. If the fire hadn’t happened, we would have lived a life of polite, chilling distance. Everything would have been perfect on paper, and completely dead inside. I looked at the designs and pointed to the most extravagant, ornate diamond in the collection. It was exactly Chloe’s style. When word got back to Mike about the choice, my phone immediately buzzed with a call. “So the act is over?” he snapped as soon as I picked up. “You picked the most expensive one, of course. Let me make one thing clear, Grace: after the wedding, you can spend all the Miller money you want, but stay the hell out of my personal life.” I tilted my head back, staring at the ceiling to keep the tears from falling. “Okay. I promise.” The line went dead. A few minutes later, the family chauffeur sent Mike’s father a GPS notification for the Maybach. His father’s face turned a deep, angry red. “That boy… is he at the Sinclair house again?” He slammed his fist on the table. “Don’t you worry, Grace. We’re going to handle this. I’ll break his damn legs if he doesn’t start treating you with respect!” But before Mike even made it home, the corporate lawyers sent a frantic alert. Mike had breached ten major contracts and diverted company funds to bail out the Sinclair family’s failing business. It was a blatant display of favoritism. His father was livid, shattering a teacup against the floor. His mother looked devastated, but she still tried to hold it together for my sake. I looked at these two people who had loved me like a daughter. They had done everything to give me the life I thought I wanted. But love isn’t a choice you can force someone to make. It isn’t a habit you can grow. I knelt at his mother’s feet, leaning my head against her knee like I used to when I was a little girl. “Mom… I don’t want to get married anymore.” She froze. “What are you saying, sweetheart?” “You’ve both been so good to me. You gave me a home when I had nothing. But I can’t do this. I know he loves Chloe. If we get married, it will be a cage for both of us. I’ve already applied for a graduate program abroad. This time, I need to make my own path.” Tears welled in her eyes as she pulled me into a tight embrace. “Is this because of what he said today? Honey, weddings are stressful. He’s just confused by that girl. He’ll wake up. If he didn’t care about you, he wouldn’t have knelt before us all those years ago, begging us to take you in.” His father sighed heavily. “She’s right, Grace. The Sinclair business is built on sand—it’s going to collapse anyway. Mike just can’t see it yet. You’ve never been away from us. How can we let you go halfway across the world?” They thought I was just hurting. They thought they could fix it by taking my side. In my last life, I believed them. And in the end, I lost everything—including my relationship with them. I stood up and led them both into Mike’s bedroom. I pointed to a dusty pile of boxes tucked away in the far corner of his walk-in closet. “Those are every gift I’ve given him over the last ten years,” I said quietly. “He never even opened half of them. But look at his nightstand.” There sat a cheap, tacky little glass figurine Chloe had bought him at a flea market years ago. He kept it right where he could see it every morning. “I’m not a child anymore,” I told them. “I know the difference between obligation and love. Thank you for everything, truly. I will always be grateful. but I won’t let my gratitude turn into his misery. He wants her. I’m letting him have her.” 3 His mother was sobbing now, shaking her head. His father tried to argue, but I cut him off. “If we go through with this, Mike will be miserable for the rest of his life. We have one chance to fix this before it’s too late. I don’t want to be the reason he hates his own life.” I gripped their hands. “Please. Let me just be his sister. That’s a bond that can actually last.” Seeing my resolve, they finally stopped fighting me. His mother pressed a black credit card into my hand, whispering through her tears for me to take care of myself. “Don’t tell him yet,” I pleaded. “Let’s give him a ‘surprise’ on the wedding day.” I went back to my room and tucked the card away. I spent the evening packing up every memento, every photo, and every gift Mike had ever given me. I hauled the boxes down to the backyard, intent on burning them and leaving no traces behind. As the first flame licked at the corner of an old polaroid, a pair of designer heels appeared in my peripheral vision. Chloe Sinclair kicked the box over, the glass of a framed photo shattering against the patio. Before I could even react, she snatched up a jagged shard of glass and dragged it across her own wrist. As she screamed, Mike came charging out of the house. He didn’t even look at the fire. He swung his hand and caught me across the face with a stinging slap. “What the hell is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind?” “Mike, I—” “Chloe came here to talk business, and you pull this? You psychotic freak!” I stood there, my cheek burning, stunned into silence. Chloe slumped into his arms, weeping pathetically. “I’m so sorry, Mike… I just wanted to come by and wish you both a happy marriage… I didn’t think Grace would snap like this…” She looked up at him with watery eyes. “I know she hates me. I should just go. I don’t want to be the reason you fight.” Mike’s face was a mask of cold fury. “Is this how it’s going to be? Now that the wedding is close, you don’t have to pretend to be the sweet little sister anymore? Poisoning my parents wasn’t enough, so now you’re physically attacking her? I’ve known you for ten years, Grace, and I never knew you were capable of being this disgusting.” He shook her slightly. “Tell me the truth. Did you have something to do with the Sinclair bankruptcy?” I stared at him, a hollow laugh escaping my lips. “Her family’s mess has nothing to do with me. I told you I’d let you go. I meant it.” Mike glanced down at the scattered photos in the dirt—photos of us smiling, younger and happier. His expression hardened. “Burning these? What is this, another one of your pathetic games? Playing hard to get? You think this is going to make me love you? It just makes me want to vomit.” He grabbed my arm, his grip like iron. “You’re coming to the hospital. If anything happens to her, I swear to God, I’m done with you.” He didn’t give me a choice. He threw Chloe into the back seat and dragged me into the front. He drove like a maniac to the ER, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. In my last life, Chloe died because of her creditors. In this life, because of Mike’s help, she had survived—but she had found a new way to hurt me. I watched him pace the hallway, frantic with worry, and I felt the final strings of my heart simply snap. Once the doctors announced she was out of danger and moved her to a private room, Mike finally exhaled. He looked at me, his eyes devoid of any warmth. “Since this was your fault, you’re staying here to watch her tonight. I have things to handle at the office. Don’t leave.” He left without looking back. I stayed. I sat in the chair by the window and watched the sunrise. I didn’t sleep. The next morning, Mike returned with a thermos of homemade porridge. He glanced at the dark circles under my eyes, and for a split second, I saw a flicker of something that looked like guilt. “Did you sleep?” “No.” “Thanks,” he muttered, looking away. “For staying.” I let out a soft laugh and stood up, moving out of his way so he could sit by her bed. It was the first time in a long time I’d heard him say ‘thank you.’ It was far too little, and far too late. He seemed unsettled by my reaction. “Look, once Chloe is discharged, I’ll take you to the bridal shop again. We can pick a different dress. The one you chose before was… plain. And about yesterday… I was stressed. I shouldn’t have snapped. But this thing between us has nothing to do with Chloe. Don’t take your anger out on her.” I looked down at the floor, thinking about the one-way ticket to London I’d booked for the morning of the wedding. 4 I looked up and gave him a bright, empty smile. “There’s no need. I’m just happy to be marrying you. The dress doesn’t matter.” “Mike,” I added, “I hope you get everything you want.” He started to say something, but Chloe stirred on the bed, let out a soft moan of pain, and he was immediately gone, leaning over her, blowing on a spoonful of porridge to cool it down for her. While he was preoccupied, I slipped out of the room and went to finalize my visa paperwork. Later that afternoon, Mike sent me a text. He had actually invited me to a movie premiere. You’ve been wanting to see this one forever. I’ll pick you up at seven. It was a romance—a story about childhood sweethearts. I had mentioned it to him a dozen times over the last year, trying to hint at my feelings. Back then, he had just rolled his eyes and told me it sounded boring. I knew what this was. This was his apology. But the apology was for a girl who didn’t exist anymore. I typed back a quick reply: Don’t worry about it. You don’t owe me anything. He saved me, he gave me a home. I was paying him back by taking care of his true love. But Mike was stubborn; he insisted we go. I went to the theater. I sat in the lobby for forty-five minutes. He never showed up. Instead, my phone pinged with a local social news alert. CEO of Miller Corp hosts ‘Hospital Banquet’ for mystery woman. Chloe had wanted a candlelight dinner, so Mike had ordered a five-star hotel to cater a full meal in her hospital suite. In the photos, the candlelight flickered across his face, showing a tenderness and warmth I had never been the recipient of. I watched the movie alone. When I got home, there was a text from him. Sorry, something came up at the office. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. The dress was delivered to the house, make sure it fits. The dress was already altered for Chloe. There was no reason for me to put it on. I ignored the ache in my chest and started packing my final suitcase. I texted him back: It’s fine. I heard it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding anyway. I’m going to stay at a hotel for the next few days to get ready. He didn’t reply. But two minutes later, my phone rang. It was the hospital. Mike had been in a car accident on his way back from the hospital. There was a shortage in the blood bank, and he was heading into emergency surgery. I didn’t call his parents. I grabbed my coat and caught a cab to the hospital. As the needle slid into my vein, the world seemed to blur. I saw eighteen-year-old Mike again. I saw him in that alleyway, surrounded by those boys, his face covered in blood, yet he was still using his jacket to shield my eyes. “Wait for me, Gracie. Big brother’s got you.” He had protected me for ten years. This was the last time I’d protect him. When the surgery was over, I sat by his bed until he opened his eyes. He looked at me, his expression unreadable. “Thank you.” “Grace,” he croaked, his voice weak. “As long as you leave Chloe alone… I’ll keep you safe. Like I always have.” So, he still remembered those promises. I looked at his pale, exhausted face and smiled the same way I did when I was a girl. “Okay. Thank you, Mike.” His injuries weren’t life-threatening. The wedding would go on as scheduled. I felt a wave of relief. I hired a professional nurse to stay with him, went home to grab my bags, and checked into a hotel near the airport. Over the next few days, his parents sent me a flurry of messages. Mike was sending over jewelry sets, honeymoon itineraries to the places I’d always dreamed of visiting. He’d remembered everything. They were terrified I wouldn’t show up, begging me to change my mind about leaving. Then I saw Chloe’s latest Instagram post. A photo of her hand intertwined with his in the hospital bed. On her finger, the ornate diamond ring I had picked out. I smiled and turned off my phone. On the morning of the wedding, as I was heading to the airport, one final message came through from Mike. Are you ready? I’m on my way to get you. I didn’t answer. I deleted his contact and blocked his number. In the bridal suite of the church, Mike stared at his phone, a cold knot of dread forming in his stomach. He turned to his parents. “Is Grace still in hair and makeup? She’s been looking forward to this for years—why is she being so slow?” Before they could speak, his assistant burst into the room, his face white as a sheet. “Sir… it’s Grace. She booked a flight out of the country this morning. That plane… it just went down.”

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I have a high-paying client who frequently commissions me to hand-knit custom scarves for astronomical prices. Until this latest order, when he transferred an extra three thousand dollars with a note: Make this one perfect. She’s the one I like best. The day after I shipped it to him, my gorgeous, brooding, and devastatingly poor boyfriend quietly handed me a familiar package. I stared at it. “…You knit this?” He pressed his lips together, looking almost shy. “Yeah. Do you like it?” I smiled, my teeth grinding so hard my jaw ached. “I love it. In fact, why don’t you knit me one every single week?” 1 I gripped the impossibly soft yarn of the scarf, letting out a breathless sound of amazement. “The stitching, the cast-off… it’s flawless. Roman, you put so much heart into this!” The more I praised him, the tighter my fingers curled into the wool. I was squeezing it so hard the fabric was warping out of shape. His slightly overgrown dark hair fell across his brow, half-concealing those striking, intense eyes. A faint, bashful smile touched his lips. “As long as you like it.” I tilted my head, pouring concern into my voice. “It must have taken you forever, right? To knit something this intricate as a beginner? It’s honestly incredible.” I kept my eyes locked on his face, watching for the slightest fracture in his expression. He paused—a hesitation so microscopic you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for it. Then he let out a soft hum, his voice a cool, clear baritone. “It was a little difficult. But if you like it, it was worth it.” My hands balled into fists before I threw my arms around his neck, burying my face in his chest. I laughed, a bright, brittle sound. “I love it to death. In fact, why don’t you knit me one every single week?” The air in the room flatlined. Half a minute passed. Then, he agreed. “Okay.” A few seconds later, his hand hovered over my shoulder. “Are you… shaking?” Yeah. With absolute rage. My smile twisted, growing rigid against his shirt, and I forced a wet, choked sound into my throat. “I’m just so happy. It’s the first time anyone has ever made something by hand just for me. I feel so lucky. Just… impossibly lucky.” By the end of the sentence, I was literally grinding my teeth. My eyes were red—not from tears, but from the sheer, blinding heat of my anger. Roman awkwardly, mechanically, rubbed my back. “If you like it, I’ll just keep knitting them for you.” 2 After Roman walked me back to my dorm, a notification pinged on my Depop app. Z: [I need you to knit me one a week. Can you do that?] My thumbs flew across the glass screen: [Five thousand dollars a piece.] Normally, I charged anywhere from a hundred to maybe three hundred bucks for a custom knit, depending on the yarn. I got steady clients, and it was a decent side hustle to pay for my textbooks. That was, until this user named “Z” slid into my DMs. When he first reached out, I had typed up a whole paragraph explaining the different price points for merino wool, cashmere, and cable-knit patterns. He ignored it and immediately transferred a thousand dollars via Venmo. [Just use the best.] It screamed clueless rich guy with more money than sense. If he was offering, I wasn’t going to say no. After that, he became a regular. I even set up a hidden, exorbitant listing on my shop just for him to click and buy. Once finished, I’d overnight the scarves to the address he provided. It was right here in the city. Unsurprisingly, it was a zip code that belonged to an ultra-exclusive, gated enclave in the hills. The kind of place where the driveways are longer than my entire street. But not in a million years did I think “Z” was my sweet, beautiful, perpetually broke, tragically brooding boyfriend. The moment I sent the five-thousand-dollar price tag, my screen lit up. Z: [?] Me: [High demand lately. My rates went up.] The chat bubble stayed empty for a long time. Just as I debated deleting the message and backpedaling, a notification popped up. He had purchased five of my standard thousand-dollar listings. I let out a cold, hollow laugh. I immediately opened the Amazon app, found a bundle of cheap, machine-knit scarves for twenty bucks, and had them shipped to my dorm. Once they arrived, I’d just slap a new label on them and mail them to his mansion. It didn’t matter. I was the one who was going to end up receiving them anyway. After checking out, I opened iMessage. The only pinned thread at the top of my screen had a new text: Roman: [At work. Thinking about you.] My brow furrowed. I hit the FaceTime icon immediately. It rang and rang, the digital tone echoing in the quiet of my room, until it automatically disconnected. Twenty minutes later, he texted: [Manager caught me looking at my phone and yelled at me. Everything okay?] Me: [Nothing. Just missing you too.] In those twenty minutes, I had grabbed my bike and pedaled furiously across town to the dingy little diner where he supposedly worked. I walked in, breathless. “Carol, hey, about that guy from my psych class I recommended—” Before I could finish, the diner owner cut me off, her eyes wide and exasperated. “Look, Harper, I only hired him because you were one of the best waitresses I ever had!” “What happened?” “Day one, and he picks a fight with a customer! He was wearing some crazy watch—a vintage Patek Philippe, or something? The customer made a joke about it, asked to see it, and your boy told him to back off because if he broke it, he wouldn’t be able to afford the repair in ten lifetimes!” Carol pressed a hand to her chest, her face flushed with residual stress. “Who even knows if the damn thing was real? If it’s fake, why couldn’t the guy look at it? And if it was real… what the hell is a guy like that doing bussing tables in my diner? Were you trying to play a joke on me?” A cold tremor started at the base of my spine. My voice shook. “Is… is he still here in the back?” “He quit twenty minutes into his shift!” Carol barked a harsh laugh. “Turned my dining room upside down and walked out without even asking for his tips.” I stood there, anchored to the sticky linoleum. I didn’t know what to say. When I finally stepped back outside, the night wind carried a biting chill. It swept through my thin jacket, and a violent shiver wracked my body. Carol waved me off from the window, her face twisted in disgust. “Go home, Harper. I don’t know what kind of sick game you college kids are playing, but we always treated you right here. Unbelievable.” “I’m sorry,” I mumbled to the glass, though she couldn’t hear me. On the bike ride home, I pulled over under a flickering streetlamp and scrolled through my text history with Roman. I knew he was poor. I knew he skipped meals to save cash. So, whenever I finished a big knitting commission, I would quietly Venmo him a fifty or a hundred bucks here and there for “groceries.” It wasn’t much. But it was money I had scraped together from my own meager living expenses, money left over only after I made the monthly payment on the massive debt my deadbeat father had left behind when he died. My mother and I bled ourselves dry every month just to keep the collection agencies at bay. I thought Roman and I were the same. Two bruised, exhausted people huddling together for warmth in a freezing world. Turns out, I was just a prop in his little poverty-tourism roleplay. And he was cheating on me. All those other scarves I had meticulously knitted over the months—they went to someone else. As the recipient of the one he “liked best,” was I supposed to feel honored? 3 By the time the initial, violent wave of emotion crested and broke, a chilling clarity settled over me. After careful consideration, I decided it wasn’t time to blow the lid off this thing yet. After all, I was currently positioned to extract five thousand dollars a week from this guy’s trust fund. And I didn’t even have to knit the damn things anymore. If Roman was getting off on playing the starving artist and acting out some indie-movie romance with a tragic poor girl, exposing him now would ruin it. His ego would bruise, his novelty would wear off, and I’d lose my golden goose. While the novelty was still fresh, I needed to bleed him for all he was worth. Still. Was there a way to mess with him without breaking the illusion? I sat on my dorm bed, plotting. Three days later, I called him. “Are we still on for our date tomorrow?” His voice was smooth, immediate. “Absolutely.” I softened my tone, dialing up the sweetness. “Is the scarf ready? It’s been a few days, and since we haven’t seen each other, I just know you’ve been working so hard on it, right?” A beat of silence on the line. “…Right.” “Great. See you tomorrow.” The second I ended the call, my Depop notification went off. Z: [Is it done?] I glanced at my desk, where the cheap, machine-made Amazon scarf I’d picked up from the mailroom was sitting in a plastic bag. I read the message and ignored it. Z: [Rush order.] Z: [Can you deliver it tonight? Your shipping is always next-day, so we must be in the same city.] Me: [That’s going to be difficult.] A notification from Venmo appeared at the top of my screen. Z paid you $5,000.00. Me: […Fine.] Me: [Same address as before?] Z: [Yes.] Another notification. Z paid you $1,000.00. Z: [For the inconvenience. Bring it yourself or hire a courier, I don’t care.] I picked up the twenty-dollar Amazon scarf, inspecting it. Honestly? The machine tension was probably more even than my hand-knitting. I opened an app to hail a local courier. It was past midnight, and the estate was on the complete opposite side of the city, tucked high in the hills. The app suggested a $200 fee. I winced and hit ‘Request’. No one took it. I bumped it to $300. I waited thirty minutes. Still nothing. Any higher and I’d be cutting into my own ridiculous profit margin. Sighing, I grabbed a black baseball cap, oversized sunglasses, and a surgical mask. I stuffed the cheap scarf into a nice boutique gift box I’d saved, and snuck out of my dorm into the night. 4 The gated community was a labyrinth of aggressively manicured hedges and winding asphalt. Even after the security guard at the front gate called the house to clear me and gave me a map, I got turned around three times before I finally found the sweeping, modern architectural monstrosity that matched the address. I pulled out my phone. Me: [I’m at the gate.] I pulled the brim of my cap down further, pushed my sunglasses up my nose, and pinched the wire of my mask tight over the bridge. Before I left, I had even spritzed myself with my roommate’s sickeningly sweet vanilla perfume, just to mask my own scent. I absolutely could not let him recognize me. But standing there in the cold, staring at the massive frosted-glass double doors, a treacherous thought crept in. What if he does? What would that scene even look like? But reality quickly informed me that I was overthinking it. A girl in a sleek, tailored wool coat, a Birkin resting casually in the crook of her arm, walked up the driveway right beside me. She punched a code into the digital keypad with practiced ease. The heavy doors swung inward. A blast of heavily heated air rushed out, carrying the thumping bass of a house track. There were dozens of people inside. It was a massive, pulsing party. The girl turned her head, her perfectly winged eyeliner sharp as she assessed me. Her gaze dropped to the boutique box in my hands. “Delivery? Who bought it? Was it Ro? What’s inside?” She reached out, tapping the cardboard with a perfectly manicured nail, though she didn’t try to open it. I kept my mouth shut, my eyes locked on the scarf wrapped around her neck. My scarf. The thick, cream-colored merino wool I’d spent two weeks knitting last month. She rolled her eyes, bored by my silence. “Whatever. Want me to just take it in for him?” Right at that moment, a voice cut through the thumping music. Low, lazy, and magnetic. “Why are you standing out there? It’s freezing.” The girl and I turned at the same time. Roman was leaning casually against the doorframe. His dark hair was pushed back, untamed, revealing the sharp, aristocratic lines of his face. Gone was the brooding, silent, down-on-his-luck college boy. This guy looked like he owned the world. His dark eyes drifted from the girl to the box in my hands. “I ordered that. Bring it in for me, will you?” “Sure,” the girl chirped, snatching the box out of my hands. The amber lighting from the foyer spilled out onto the driveway. Roman stood up straight, preparing to pull the door shut. He cast a careless, dismissive glance my way—but then his gaze snagged on my sunglasses. In that microsecond, my heart slammed against my ribs. In my rush to leave the dorm, I had grabbed the first pair of sunglasses I found. They were a cheap, plastic pair Roman and I had won at a boardwalk carnival game a month ago. One of his dark eyebrows arched upward. His lips parted. “You the seller?” I gave a stiff, jerky nod. He let out a short, derisive scoff, casually looking me up and down. “Wearing sunglasses at midnight? Take the grand I tipped you and buy yourself a decent designer pair. Those look ridiculous.” I froze. With that, Roman turned his back, the heavy glass door clicking shut behind him. The pulsing music and the golden warmth were instantly severed, leaving me alone in the biting cold. I walked slowly down the long driveway until I hit a streetlamp. I pulled the sunglasses off my face, running my thumb over the cheap plastic frame. The paint was already chipping. It was uneven, fading at the edges. When I won them at that rigged carnival game, I was so thrilled. I thought they looked chic and edgy. I remembered putting them on, turning to Roman with a massive grin. “How do I look?” The tips of his ears had gone pink. He had nodded softly. “Beautiful.” Because of that, I had worn them to death. I cherished them. But looking at them now, under the harsh, buzzing glow of the streetlamp? They just looked cheap. Pathetic, even. 5 The next morning, I walked out of my dorm building. As I passed the communal dumpsters, my hand reaching into my tote bag, I locked eyes with Roman. The moment he saw me, the corners of his mouth tipped up into that familiar, quiet smile. My hand stopped mid-air. I had forgotten to throw the sunglasses away last night. I was planning to toss them this morning. Roman closed the distance between us. He pulled a scarf from his bag and gently wrapped it around my neck. The twenty-dollar Amazon special. “Do you like it?” he asked, his voice low and intimate. I stretched my lips into a smile, pulling my hand out of my bag empty. “You knit this so beautifully. I love it.” His smile deepened, not a flicker of guilt in his eyes. “I’m glad.” I let him take my hand. I didn’t even bother trying to interrogate him about his “job” at the diner or the late nights “knitting.” He wouldn’t panic; he’d just smoothly spin another lie. We took the bus to the local amusement park. Just as we queued up for the first ride, a slender, terribly familiar figure appeared in my peripheral vision. It was the girl from the mansion. She was wearing a designer trench coat and carrying the same Birkin. She was staring right at us. Instinctively, I looked up at Roman. He met her gaze. I saw the microscopic lift of his eyebrow—a silent warning. A bright, overly sweet smile bloomed on the girl’s face as she marched over to us. “Roman! This must be your girlfriend.” He gave a noncommittal hum. I kept my face perfectly blank. “A friend of yours?” Roman stared at the girl for a few seconds, lacing his fingers through mine. “Not really.” “Hey,” she pouted, a playful, bratty sound. “Don’t pretend you don’t know me.” She tapped her chin, feigning thought. “Hmm… Roman grew up struggling, right? So my family hired him to tutor me in high school. I guess that makes me his former boss.” As she said it, she looked right at Roman, her eyes dancing with wicked amusement. Roman’s gaze turned icy. “Boss?” “Yeah. You should be a little nicer to your employer, don’t you think? Poor boy.” She beamed. If I didn’t know the truth, my heart would have broken for him in that moment. I would have hated this rich, entitled girl for humiliating my hardworking boyfriend. Knowing what I knew now? I just wanted to laugh until I threw up. Were they seriously flirting right in front of my face? “What are you guys riding? Let me tag along.” The girl pulled out her phone, waving it at Roman. “I actually need someone to carry my bags and hang out with me today. Five hundred bucks to be my personal assistant for the afternoon. Good deal, right?” Roman’s expression went completely dead. He glared at her. “Don’t ruin my date with my girlfriend.” The girl looked at me. “Five hundred dollars is a lot of money. You’re going to stop your boyfriend from earning a living?” “Do you want to earn it?” I asked Roman, my voice totally flat. He hesitated for two seconds. “Might as well.” I dropped the subject. I didn’t say another word. Roman’s thumb stroked the back of my hand. He leaned in, whispering, “I’ll transfer the money to you tonight.” I just smiled. Before we got on the drop tower, the attendant told everyone to remove loose articles, including scarves. The girl leaned against the metal railing, waving us off. “I hate heights. You two go ahead.” Roman pulled me toward the seats. “Scared?” “No,” I said. His lips pressed together. “Well, I am.” I glanced at him. Those dark, bottomless eyes were locked onto mine, waiting. Expecting me to comfort him. Despite everything, the muscle memory kicked in. I reached up and brushed my knuckles against his cheek. You play the part so well, rich boy. When the ride was over, Roman held my hand tightly as we walked back to the lockers. I noticed a small crowd gathered around the cubbies. When we pushed through, I saw my scarf—the Amazon one—soaking wet, covered in a thick, sticky green liquid. The girl was standing there, examining her manicure without a shred of remorse. “Oops. I bought an iced matcha and it just slipped right out of my hand. How much was it? I’ll Venmo you.” It didn’t look spilled. It looked like she had taken the lid off and poured the entire venti cup directly onto the fabric. I looked at Roman, pouring devastation into my voice. “But… you made this for me.” The girl crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow at him. “Since when do you knit?” Roman looked down at the ruined scarf, his face completely devoid of emotion. Then he looked at me. “It’s fine. I’ll just knit you another one in a few days.” 6 “Bella. My patience is running out.” Roman was staring blankly ahead, rhythmically flicking a silver lighter open and closed in his hand. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. I was standing perfectly still behind the corner of the churro stand, my eyes cast downward, listening to every word. Bella rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Your little girlfriend reeks of student loans and thrift stores. Aren’t you embarrassed being seen with her in public?” “She’s gorgeous,” Roman replied flatly. “The guys and I have a betting pool on how long you can keep this up. I’m dangerously close to losing. If you’re struggling to shake her, I can help you.” Roman scoffed. “Fuck off. I’m not bored of her yet.” Bella sighed. “You’re sick, you know that? Did you seriously tell her you knitted that scarf yourself?” “You think I’m going to spend hours knitting a scarf just to play house?” A few seconds of silence passed. “Wait,” Bella said, her tone shifting to suspicion. “That scarf you gave me… is it from the same seller as hers?” “Yeah.” His voice was utterly bored. Bella hesitated. “Did you buy different price tiers? Because the one you gave me is pure, heavy cashmere. I looked closely at hers today—the yarn was cheap acrylic. The stitching was fine, but it was absolutely not the same quality as mine…” Roman’s brow furrowed. I could hear the shift in his posture. “What?” Bella let out a triumphant laugh. “The seller scammed you! They probably realized you have deep pockets and started sending you garbage to widen their margins.” Me, hiding behind the corner: … Don’t ruin my hustle, you spoiled brat! I already lost my relationship, am I going to lose my business too?! I pulled out my phone. Sure enough, a second later, a notification from “Z” popped up, demanding an explanation. I swiped it away. I’d play dumb until I got back to my dorm. “You don’t even need to worry about it,” Bella drawled lazily. “Your girlfriend clearly can’t tell the difference anyway. She can’t spot cheap yarn, and she can’t spot a fake poor boy. God, she is spectacularly stupid…” “Enough.” Roman’s voice dropped ten degrees, slicing through her sentence. “I’m taking her to a movie. Stop following us.” Bella clicked her tongue. “Fine. Have your fun for now. Just don’t forget we’re supposed to announce our engagement soon.” My head snapped up. For a second, all the ambient noise of the amusement park—the screaming on the rollercoasters, the carnival music—completely faded out. After a long, suffocating silence. I heard Roman’s voice. Clear. Resigned. “I know.” I turned on my heel and walked away. I don’t know how much time passed before Roman found me. He took my freezing hands in his, rubbing them. “I thought I told you to wait inside the bakery. Why are you out in the cold?” I didn’t say anything. Just then, a park employee pushing a roving merchandise cart spotted us and trotted over, beaming. “Are you two a couple? We’re running a promotion today! Show me your admission tickets, and I’ll take a free Polaroid for you!” She reached into her cart and pulled out a fuzzy headband with cat ears. “These look so cute in the photos.” I shook my head instantly, taking a step back. “No thanks.” Roman’s eyes drifted to the headband, then down to me. “I want to see it.” The employee sensed a sale. “Come on! You’re both so ridiculously good-looking. It’s a great souvenir.” Roman gently squeezed my hand, his dark eyes softening. “Just one picture. Please?” Whatever.

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I had spent six months begging my wife, Janet, to go to the championship game with me. It was a pilgrimage, a chance to see my favorite player’s jersey retired, a final goodbye to an era. But as the final boarding call echoed through the terminal, Janet was nowhere to be found. I’d called her a dozen times. Every single one went straight to voicemail. Then, the notification popped up—a new post from Toby. The caption read: “Shoutout to this legend for pulling two all-nighters and still coming out to support me at the Invitational.” The photo was a punch to the gut. Toby and Janet were at a crowded e-sports arena, their arms wrapped around each other, grinning and throwing peace signs at the camera. I didn’t hesitate. I powered off my phone, turned my back on the gate, and walked toward the customer service desk to check my bags. This game was supposed to be a tribute to a legend’s final stand. As it turned out, it was the perfect wake-up call for the end of my marriage. 1. I didn’t turn my phone back on until my flight landed back in Chicago five days later. Five days. Not a single missed call from Janet. Not even a text. The sky was bruising over O’Hare, a torrential downpour turning the tarmac into a gray blur. I stood at the arrivals curb for twenty minutes, watching the “No Cars Available” spinning wheel on my Uber app. That’s when my phone vibrated. Janet’s name flashed across the screen. Her voice was clipped, cold. “Where are you? Come pick up Toby and me from the terminal.” I didn’t say anything. A week ago, I would have been fuming. I would have demanded to know why she blew me off for a kid ten years younger than us. Now? I just didn’t have the breath to waste on her. “Bennett? Did you lose your tongue?” Janet snapped. “I’m at the airport entrance,” I said quietly. There was a beat of silence. “What are you doing at the airport?” “I just got back from the game.” Silence followed. It took her a few seconds to remember—to realize she had promised to be there with me. Before I left, I’d seen the hospital’s internal shift schedule. My heart had skipped a beat when I saw she’d traded several shifts for “personal time.” I’d foolishly thought she was clearing her schedule for us. I never imagined that “personal time” was for Toby’s gaming tournament. “Where exactly? We’ll find you,” she said. I gave her my location and hung up. Before she could arrive, a driver finally accepted my ride request. The black sedan pulled up just as Janet and Toby appeared through the sliding glass doors. Janet didn’t even look at me. She pulled Toby by the hand and slid into the backseat of the car I had ordered. “Toby’s exhausted,” she said, looking out at me through the open door. “I’m going to drop him off and get him settled. I’ll come back for you in a bit.” Before the door closed, Toby rolled down the window. His smile was thick with a smug, boyish triumph. “Thanks for the ride, Ben. You’re a lifesaver.” I looked at him, feeling absolutely nothing. Just a vast, cold emptiness. Janet frowned at him, though her hand was already reaching out to smooth his hair. “Don’t bother with the thank-yous. Close the window, Toby. If the rain gets in, you’ll start complaining about the damp again.” Her tone was a mock-scolding, the kind mothers use for favored children—or lovers use for their pets. The car was a mid-sized sedan; it could have easily fit three. But in Janet and Toby’s world, there was no room for me. I stood there, my suitcase at my side, getting soaked under the terminal awning. Eventually, I was the only one left. By the time the rain let up, Janet still hadn’t called. Instead, I saw her Instagram story. “Taking the kid to his big game. A little wish fulfillment and five days in Vegas.” It was a carousel of photos. I scrolled through the bright lights and the hotel suites until I hit the last one. My thumb froze. In the photo, Toby and Janet were lounging in a hotel room wearing matching silk pajamas—the exact set I had bought for our anniversary months ago. She’d told me they were “too much” and “not her style.” She’d refused to wear them with me, let alone post them for the world to see. In seven years of marriage, I had never appeared on her social media. She claimed she liked to “keep her private life private.” Apparently, she just liked to keep me private. The things I had spent seven years starving for, Toby had been handed on a silver platter. I had spent nearly a decade trying to melt the iceberg that was Janet Miller, only to realize she wasn’t frozen at all. She just wasn’t melting for me. I locked my phone and felt a strange, jarring laugh bubble up in my chest. It was the sound of a man finally realizing he’d been running a race that didn’t exist. I dragged my suitcase to the airport Hilton and checked in for the night. Going home now would just be an exercise in humiliation. 2. The next morning, I was at the hospital by 6:00 AM. Our hospital is one of the most prestigious in the state. Janet is a primary shareholder and a chief of surgery; I’m “just” an Associate Professor of Neurology. I hadn’t even had a sip of coffee before I was paged to the ER for a trauma consult. I ran into Janet right at the double doors. A pregnant woman had been brought in after a multi-car pileup. She was in critical condition, requiring a coordinated effort between OB-GYN and Neurosurgery. When we were working, Janet and I were seamless. We dropped the personal baggage and operated with a cold, clinical precision. It was the only language we still shared. When the surgery was finally over and the patient was stabilized, the scrub nurse leaned against the counter, grinning. “You two are seriously a powerhouse. Dr. Miller and Dr. Miller… it’s like you can read each other’s minds. It’d be a crime if you guys weren’t together.” Janet’s face darkened instantly. She opened her mouth to deliver a sharp correction, but I beat her to it. “Don’t start rumors,” I said, my voice flat as I stripped off my gloves. “I’m just a staff doctor. I’m hardly in Dr. Miller’s league.” Most of the hospital didn’t know we were married. Janet insisted on it, saying she hated “nepotism” and “mixing business with pleasure.” In the past, whenever someone suggested we’d make a great couple, I’d smile secretly, comforted by the idea that even strangers saw our connection. Now, the comparison made my skin crawl. “So, what’s the ‘dream girl’ look like then, Dr. Miller?” the nurse teased. Janet’s silhouette flashed in my mind—the way she looked in the light of an OR, the way she used to look before she got tired of me. I paused, pretending to think. “Honestly?” I said. “Aside from my career and my bank account, I don’t have room to love anything else.” The nurse burst out laughing. Behind me, Janet’s voice cut through the air. “Dr. Miller, I have a question about the post-op vitals. My office. Now.” The nurse took the hint and hurried off. I followed Janet to her office and sat across from her mahogany desk. “What’s the question?” I asked. Janet didn’t look at the charts. She looked at me. “You didn’t come home last night. Where were you? You know how I feel about cleanliness, Bennett. If I find out you were out doing something…” A smirk touched my lips, cutting her off. “Dr. Miller, we’re on the clock. This isn’t the time for personal matters.” I remembered a year ago, when I’d texted her during a lunch break to ask what she wanted for dinner. She’d pulled me into a hallway, checked for witnesses, and hissed at me about “professionalism” and “boundaries.” I hadn’t brought up our personal life at work since. Janet looked like I’d slapped her with her own rulebook. She sat there, stunned, before her face hardened into a mask of irritation. “Fine. Get out.” As I reached for the door handle, I turned back and gave her a small, polite smile. “Dr. Miller, while you’re at it, could you ask my wife if it was ‘appropriate’ for me to come home last night, given the circumstances?” She winced. A flicker of guilt crossed her eyes, but I didn’t wait for her to process it. I shut the door behind me. Just before my shift ended, I got a text from her. It was a screenshot of two tickets to a Broadway touring show for that night. I knew what it was. An olive branch. A “get out of jail free” card she thought she could play. I sent a final confirmation to my lawyer, checked my rounds, and headed out. I planned to go, if only to use the intermission to talk about the divorce. But as I walked out of the main entrance, I saw Janet’s silver Porsche idling at the curb. Toby was in the driver’s seat. Janet walked right past me, climbed into the passenger side, and they sped off together. Five minutes later, my phone chimed. “Toby had an emergency. Something he needs help with. Wait for me at the theater, I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I didn’t go to the theater. I went straight to my lawyer’s office. After we finished the paperwork, I drove to the cinema near my hotel. I picked up a ticket for a sci-fi flick—something Janet always called “childish” and “a waste of brainpower.” I sat in the dark with a bucket of buttery popcorn and a large soda. In the past, I had force-fed myself her “refined” tastes. I’d eaten the kale salads, the unseasoned fish, the “clean” lifestyle she insisted on. But according to Toby’s Instagram, she’d spent the last five days eating tacos and greasy burgers with him. I had spent seven years trying to be the man she wanted, only to realize she didn’t even want that man. There was no other path left. 3. After the movie, I grabbed a beer at a dive bar by the river and sat there until nearly midnight. When I finally walked into the house, I was surprised to see the lights on. Janet was sitting on the sofa. For the last three years, she’d been “busy” with Toby until the early hours, or she just didn’t come home at all. In the beginning, we were the classic “power couple”—two doctors, always working. When she first took over the hospital’s board, I did everything to support her. I’d spend my few off-hours slow-cooking bone broths and medicinal stews to keep her strength up. She’d just called me a ” glorified manny.” She said my hovering was suffocating. Then Toby appeared. The “suffocation” disappeared, replaced by her absence. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the slight fog from the beer. Janet was staring at me, her eyes icy. “You’re drinking, Bennett? You know I can’t stand the smell of alcohol on you.” I blinked. I didn’t bother defending myself. I knew that her “likes” and “dislikes” were entirely dependent on the person involved. When Toby got wasted at a frat-style party, she was there to tuck him in and give him IV fluids. When I had two beers after a fourteen-hour shift, I was “disgusting.” Double standards were Janet’s specialty. I was just done playing the game. When I didn’t engage, she looked genuinely confused. Usually, when she stood me up for Toby, I’d be waiting at the door, ready to demand an explanation, ready to fight for some scrap of her attention. I turned to head toward the guest room. “Do you even know what today is?” Janet asked suddenly. I glanced at the clock. It was 12:15 AM. “It was my birthday,” I said. “Technically, it was yesterday.” Usually, for the month leading up to my birthday, I’d drop hints. I’d try to steer her toward a restaurant or a gift. If she was in a good mood, I’d get a tie. If she was stressed, she’d tell me that “adults don’t need to celebrate aging.” This was the first time in our marriage she’d brought it up herself. I yawned. “It’s just a birthday, Janet. It doesn’t matter.” She looked frustrated. She reached over to the coffee table and tossed a small, wrapped box at me. Her voice had an uncharacteristic tremor of guilt. “I got you something. Just… see if you like it.” If her remembering was a shock, her buying a gift was a miracle. A year ago, I would have been on my knees with gratitude. I would have photographed the box from every angle and posted it everywhere. I picked the box up off the floor and set it carelessly on the dining table. “Thanks. I’m sure it’s great.” My indifference was clearly driving her crazy. “I know I missed the show. I apologized. But this attitude is getting old, Bennett. Toby’s sister asked me to look out for him on her deathbed. I have a responsibility to him.” I was busy checking a text on my phone. “Right. Total responsibility. Five nights in Vegas with a ‘kid’ is very responsible.” Janet flinched. Her face went from pale to a dark, ink-stain red. She waited for me to keep shouting, to give her something to fight against so she could feel like the victim again. But I just kept replying to my lawyer. Divorce was my only priority now. She eventually walked over, trying to peek at my screen. “What are you looking at?” I locked the phone. “Just some consulting work.” I grabbed a pillow from the sofa. “I’ve been drinking. I’ll sleep in the guest room so I don’t offend your ‘cleanliness’.” I didn’t wait to see her expression. I shut the door and slept better than I had in years. 4. The next morning, the courier delivered the formal separation agreement. I shot Janet a text: Come home early tonight. We need to talk about something important. She replied almost instantly: I’ll be there. I waited until 10:00 PM. She wasn’t there. I didn’t get angry; I just used the time to pack my essentials into two suitcases. At midnight, the front door finally opened. Janet walked in looking flushed and satisfied. She wasn’t surprised to see me waiting in the living room—that was my role, after all. The loyal dog by the fireplace. “Toby’s cat was having kittens,” she said, giving me the same rehearsed line she always used. “I had to stay and help. It was a mess.” I felt a ghost of a laugh. Last month, it was a “leak in his ceiling.” The month before, a “panic attack.” “I’m sure you were a big help,” I said, my voice steady. “Sit down. I have something for you.” She sat beside me, looking bored. As she moved, the scent hit me—heavy, floral lavender. I sneezed. I’ve been allergic to that specific scent for years. It was Toby’s signature cologne. Janet froze for a second, then smoothed her hair. “The hospital switched to a new soap in the doctors’ lounge,” she lied. I didn’t even bother to look at her. I pulled the envelope from my bag and slid it across the table. “Read it. If you agree, sign it. Let’s stop making each other miserable.” I checked my watch. “I checked the forecast today. It seemed like a good day for an ending.”

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A week before our wedding, Beryl went on a last-minute business trip. When she finally got back, she melted into my arms, resting her chin against my chest, and out of nowhere, she murmured, “Did you shrink?” I froze. A microscopic tightening of my muscles. I forced a laugh, keeping my tone light. “What, did you spend your trip hugging guys taller than me?” Beryl’s body went rigid. Instead of answering, she shoved me backward onto the mattress, her mouth crashing down on mine, shutting down the conversation. After we made love, she wrapped herself in a towel and headed to the en-suite bathroom to shower, just like she always did. Everything felt perfectly, painstakingly normal. But I knew it wasn’t. Thirteen years. We had been each other’s entire world for thirteen years, and not once had she ever made a comment about my height. I lay there in the tangled sheets, staring at the ceiling. I took a slow, jagged breath, marshaling my courage, and reached for her phone on the nightstand. I scoured it. Texts, emails, hidden folders. Nothing. Not a single red flag. When Beryl stepped out of the bathroom, steam billowing around her, she noticed my silence. She climbed into bed, curling into my side with a soft, exasperated laugh. “Are you mad? Just because I said you felt a little shorter? Baby, we haven’t seen each other in a week. My spatial awareness is just out of whack.” I gave a curt nod. I didn’t say a word. I just let her tuck herself against my chest, the silence stretching out between us, heavy and suffocating. The next morning, I stepped out onto the terrace and called my parents. “Beryl might be cheating on me,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “I’m calling off the wedding.” 1. My parents urged me not to be rash, to find concrete proof first. So, I grabbed my keys and drove straight to Beryl’s corporate headquarters. It was a Saturday. She had promised me weeks ago that today would be our date day, a break from the wedding planning, but she’d canceled at the last minute, claiming a sudden “overtime crisis.” Sitting in my car in the parking garage, I pulled out my phone to call her, only to see a notification light up my screen. It was a message from Beryl on our personal iMessage thread. We both had separate phones for work, but for the last four thousand days—over a decade—we had never missed sending a good morning text. We even had a Snapchat streak that had been going since high school. Her text looked completely standard: “Did you eat lunch yet, baby?” But I stared at the screen, my brain short-circuiting. Beryl hated flashy, cutesy tech features. When Apple rolled out all those message effects and custom avatars, I’d asked if she wanted to match, and she had scoffed, calling it childish. But right now, her Memoji avatar—the one attached to her contact profile—had been changed to a pink bunny with hearts floating around its head. I typed back a single question mark. Immediately, the read receipt appeared. A second later, her avatar flickered and reverted to her standard, professional headshot. Her next text popped up: “Apple must be glitching. What was that bunny thing? I didn’t even touch my settings.” A glitch? My jaw tightened. I opened TikTok, my thumb flying across the search bar. It took me less than three minutes of searching trending couples’ aesthetics to find it. The “Pink Bunny and Bear” matching profile trend. My fiancé had matching couple profiles with someone else. I tapped into the top videos under the audio trend. A video posted barely ten minutes ago by an account named CEO’s Boy Toy featured a screenshot of a text conversation. The texts were mundane—Do you love me? Always.—but the problem was the profile picture of the person on the other end. It was Beryl. Specifically, a candid photo I had taken of her in Cabo, her hair windblown as she peeled shrimp for me at a beachside table. My breathing grew shallow, the air in the car suddenly too thin. The truth was violently clawing its way to the surface. I scrolled through the account. It was a goldmine of digital humiliation. Vlogs titled “Day in the Life of a Sugar Baby,”showing glimpses of expensive coffees, a luxury office, and the manicured hand of a woman passing him a credit card. I knew that hand. I bought the engagement ring currently sitting on its fourth finger. My phone buzzed. Beryl was sending me the profile link herself. A barrage of frantic voice memos followed. “Baby, please don’t ignore me. Okay, I admit it, I changed the avatar. I did it to help out the new marketing assistant. We’re shooting some viral POV videos to boost the company’s social media presence.” “He just turned twenty-one, he’s fresh out of college and full of Gen-Z ideas. He said this kind of ‘CEO and intern’ romance bait is super popular on TikTok right now and it’ll help us recruit younger talent.” I left her on read. I killed the engine, got out of the car, and walked straight to the private elevator, swiping my keycard for the penthouse floor. I really wanted to see what kind of twenty-one-year-old visionary thought pretending to date his boss was a solid corporate recruitment strategy. 2. I expected the office to be a ghost town, but the bullpen was actually buzzing. People really were working overtime. I exhaled a fraction of the tension in my chest. At least she hadn’t lied about the overtime. But a second later, my heart slammed into my throat. I was staring straight at her corner office. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls were completely obscured. The automated blackout blinds were drawn tight. Beryl hated closed blinds. Since the day she took over as CEO, she had never once lowered them. Even when I came to visit her for lunch, she loved leaving them open, never caring if her employees saw us kissing or being affectionate. So why were they down now? What exactly was happening in there that the rest of the floor couldn’t see? I took a step toward her door, but a senior project manager practically threw herself in my path. Her smile was tight, her voice a pitch too high. “Mr. Wright! What a surprise. What brings you to the office today?” she babbled. “With the wedding next weekend, I figured you’d be up to your neck in seating charts!” Before I started taking time off to handle the wedding, everyone in this building knew exactly how ruthless I could be. I was the silent majority shareholder; they feared me more than they feared Beryl. No one casually made small talk with me. My face went entirely blank. I stepped neatly around the woman, gripped the heavy brass handle of the office door, and shoved it open. Beryl was instantly there, her smile overly bright as she threw her arms around my waist. “You weren’t answering my texts! Were you planning a surprise visit?” I didn’t look at her. My eyes were fixed on the kid standing rigidly by the mahogany desk. He was huge. Easily six-foot-five. Definitely taller than me. He caught my gaze, a slow, insolent smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth as he gave a slight nod. “Afternoon, sir.” It was a micro-expression, gone in a flash, but it was dripping with unfiltered malice and triumph. I slowly reached down and peeled Beryl’s arms off my waist. I walked toward the boy, stopping just inches from him. I raised my hand and lightly, almost affectionately, patted his cheek. “What’s your name?” I asked. The kid’s smirk vanished. He refused to look at me, instead casting large, pleading puppy-dog eyes toward Beryl. He stayed silent. I let out a dry, hollow laugh. “I took a leave of absence right before you got hired, so maybe no one briefed you. I own the lion’s share of this building.” I tilted my head. “Am I no longer entitled to know the names of the people on my payroll?” I didn’t try to hide the sheer, unadulterated arrogance in my voice. Instantly, the kid’s eyes welled with tears. He shrank back, the perfect picture of a bullied victim. Beryl hurried over, grabbing my wrist and pulling my hand away. She stepped between us, shielding him. Her voice held a sharp edge of reprimand. “His name is Jaxon. He’s my new assistant. He’s barely out of school, Camden. Why are you talking to him like he’s trash?” I looked down at Beryl, meeting her defensive glare. A cold smile touched my lips. “What’s the matter? Does it hurt your heart to see him scared?” Beryl’s face flushed with anger. “Camden! We are in a place of business. You’ve always been the one to keep personal and professional lives separate. Why are you throwing a temper tantrum right now? Do you want to become the office laughingstock?” Thirteen years. Thirteen years, and this was the first time Beryl had ever raised her voice at me over my personality. In our social circle, plenty of people despised me. They thought I was an arrogant, privileged rich kid with a god complex. But Beryl never did. She used to stand in front of my critics, her chin held high, and say, “Camden has the background and the brilliance to back up his attitude. If you don’t cross him, he won’t burn you. Maybe look in the mirror before you judge him.” But now, she was tearing me down. Without hesitation, without knowing the full story, she was berating me to protect a twenty-one-year-old assistant. I slowly shook my head. “No. I don’t.” I pulled my arm free from her grasp. I pulled out my phone, pulled up the TikTok profile, and shoved the screen inches from Jaxon’s face. My voice dropped to a lethal whisper. “Jaxon, was it? Care to explain this account to me? I must have missed the memo that my fiancé was keeping a sugar baby on the company dime.” 3. A fat tear spilled over Jaxon’s lashes. He didn’t look at the phone; he kept his eyes locked on Beryl, waiting for his knight in shining armor to slay the dragon. But Beryl just stared at me. Her face had gone completely bloodless. She didn’t say a word. Realizing he wasn’t getting backup, the kid panicked. He was too young to handle a real confrontation. He shoved past me, yanked the door open, and sprinted out of the office. The employees outside, who had been blatantly eavesdropping, suddenly found their spreadsheets very interesting. I let out a harsh exhale and looked around the office. Really looked at it. Now that the adrenaline was fading, the clues were screaming at me. The framed painting I had done in high school—the one that had hung on her wall for five years—was gone. In its place was a framed print of Jaxon’s TikTok avatar. Her elegant espresso machine had been replaced by a neon-pink mini-fridge stocked with iced matcha and sugary energy drinks. Beryl despised sweet drinks. Even the $15,000 Italian leather sofa I had bought her for her promotion was covered in a cheap, fluffy cream-colored throw blanket. Everything was tainted. The evidence of a ghost living in her space. Beryl saw me taking it all in. Her expression darkened. She grabbed my hand and practically dragged me out of the building. We got into her car. She didn’t say a word as she slammed her foot on the gas, blowing through three red lights on the way back to our townhouse. The second the front door clicked shut, she grabbed my collar, shoved me against the wall, and kissed me. It wasn’t romantic; it was desperate, frantic. Her hands were everywhere, pulling at my clothes. I felt absolutely nothing. My blood was ice. I caught her wrists and held them in a vice grip. “Beryl, are you out of your mind?” She winced slightly at my grip but didn’t stop. She dropped to her knees, her hands going for my belt. “I think you’re the one who’s out of his mind, Camden. Going after a kid like that? Really?” Her voice was breathless, manic. “What, are you getting cold feet? Feeling insecure? Let me make you feel secure right now.” She leaned in, but I didn’t push her away. I just stared down at the crown of her head. My voice was eerily calm. “Is this the post-infidelity guilt trip?” That one sentence paralyzed her. She let go of my belt. Her face burned a dark, ugly red. She stood up in silence, turned her back on me, and walked out to the balcony. She lit a cigarette. Then another. Ten minutes passed, and she didn’t come back inside. I changed out of my suit, pulled on a sweater, and walked out to join her. I glanced at the pack sitting on the patio table, and a fresh wave of nausea hit me. Beryl had started smoking at eighteen. For seven years, she had exclusively smoked Capri slim menthols. The exact brand I had bought her when she had her first panic attack in college. Even right before her business trip, she had whined playfully, “Other guys buy their girls flowers; I just want you to buy my vapes and my cigarettes, baby.” But the pack on the table wasn’t hers. It was a pack of Marlboro Reds. Heavy, unfiltered, cheap tobacco. A frat boy’s cigarette. I paused, pulled one out, and lit it. I took a deep drag. It burned my throat. It tasted like ash and cheap chemicals. Zero mint. Zero sweetness. It was the exact flavor Beryl had always sworn made her sick to her stomach. I stood there, smoking the entire cigarette in silence. When the cherry finally burned down to the filter, Beryl turned to look at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed, begging. “Stop this, baby. Please?” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I know you have anxiety about the wedding. But we’ve been together for thirteen years. You know my soul. How could I ever cheat on you?” “Jaxon is just an assistant. I swear on my life.” “If you hate him that much, I’ll fire him right now. I’ll delete the TikTok account. Just… please. Let it go.” I looked down at the city lights bleeding into the twilight, the neon blurring as a lump formed in my throat so large I could barely swallow. “Your business trip,” I said quietly. “Did you go alone?” She didn’t miss a beat. “Yes.” “You can check the hotel logs. Only my name was on the reservation.” If she was bold enough to offer the logs, there was no point in checking. They’d be clean. After a long, suffocating silence, I gave a slow nod. “Okay.” “I don’t want to see his face tomorrow.” The next day, Jaxon was terminated. Word on the grapevine was that he was escorted out by security, looking like a kicked puppy. I told myself that maybe she hadn’t physically crossed the line. Maybe, in the grand scheme of a thirteen-year relationship, she had just gotten bored and indulged in a two-day ego trip with a starry-eyed kid. With the wedding days away, I couldn’t find the strength to throw away over a decade of my life for what might have been a fleeting emotional affair. I loved her too much. It was a pathetic realization, but it was true. For the next few days, life course-corrected. She smelled like her usual Tom Ford perfume again. The office returned to its sterile, elegant state. The TikTok account vanished. Our Snapchat streak ticked up to 4,005 days. I thought we had survived it. Until the day before the wedding. My phone rang. It was the Chief Financial Officer—a proxy I had personally installed at Beryl’s company years ago. “Mr. Wright. I apologize for bothering you before the big day,” he said, his voice tense. “A few days ago, Ms. Kensington authorized a hire. The kid didn’t do any actual work, but his compensation package is causing a near-mutiny in HR. Ms. Kensington isn’t answering her phone, so I have to bring this to you.” 4. The CFO forwarded the documents to my encrypted email. I opened the PDF. It was a guaranteed one-year contract for Jaxon, paid upfront. Ten thousand dollars a month as a base salary, plus a guaranteed five-thousand-dollar performance bonus. For an “intern” whose only job was allegedly photocopying spreadsheets. A second email chimed. It contained photos of a matte-black Maserati, alongside a lease agreement for a luxury penthouse in the city center—a property reserved for C-suite executives. Jaxon’s name was on the lease. And the Maserati? That was the car Beryl had bought for me on my twenty-third birthday. I knew the VIN by heart. It felt like someone had reached into my chest, gently lifted my heart, and then spiked it onto concrete. It shattered, the pain so blindingly sharp I had to grip the edge of the kitchen counter just to stay on my feet. I couldn’t breathe. My phone kept buzzing. The CFO was venting now, explaining that Jaxon had come into the office for exactly five days, picked fights with five senior employees, and Beryl had fired all five of them the next morning. Never in my life did I think Beryl—the woman who used to look at me like I hung the moon—would become a sugar mama to a frat boy. Right under my nose. Using my car. I stood there for a long time, staring blindly at the marble countertop. Finally, I wiped the cold wetness from my cheeks and typed my reply. “Freeze the assets. Initiate a clawback lawsuit for corporate embezzlement. The board did not approve this hire, which means the compensation is fraudulent. Retrieve every cent.” “As for the rest, stand down. I’ll handle it.” The moment I hit send, my phone rang again. My parents. “Camden,” my dad’s voice was heavy. “Your mother and I have been talking. If you feel in your gut that she’s cheating, there’s a reason for it. Let’s call off the wedding. To hell with the Kensingtons, we don’t need their business.” I cleared my throat, forcing my voice into a casual, breezy register. “It’s nothing, Dad.” “I was just being paranoid. The wedding is on. I’ll see you both tomorrow.” I don’t know how long I sat in the dark after that call. By the time I finally drove back to the townhouse, it was pitch black outside. Beryl was in the kitchen, her phone to her ear, about to call me. When she saw me walk in, her face lit up. “Where have you been? You’re so late! Come here, we need to celebrate. It’s our last night as single people!” She had cooked a massive feast. Candles were lit. Wine was poured. I stared at the domestic perfection and forced the corners of my mouth to lift. “Smells great.” Beryl was buzzing with manic energy. She drank three glasses of Pinot Noir in rapid succession, a heavy flush spreading across her cheeks. She leaned across the table, her eyes glassy and adoring. “I can’t believe we’re actually getting married tomorrow,” she slurred softly. “I’ve waited for this for so long. It feels like a dream.” “We grew up together. We went to the same college. We’ve never been apart, Camden. And we never will be.” I watched her over the rim of my glass. “Are you bored of me?” The question cut through her romantic monologue like a knife. Beryl blinked, the alcohol seeming to clear from her system for a split second. She looked at me, her expression dead serious, and slowly shook her head. “Never.” “Growing old with you… that was a promise I made to myself the first time I saw you when I was twelve years old.” “I love you, Camden.” Hearing those beautiful, poetic lies, I felt the familiar burn at the back of my throat. My eyes stung. She wasn’t lying about the past. She had chased me since we were twelve. We officially started dating at eighteen. Now we were twenty-five. Half of my entire existence on this earth had been spent by her side. I used to believe we were bulletproof. That we would never let each other go. But reality had just delivered a fatal blow. I couldn’t endure this “minor detour” in our marathon. I wasn’t built to share. I smiled, raised my glass, and downed the rest of my bourbon. I stood up, completely ignoring her declaration of love. “You’re drunk,” I said softly. “Get some sleep. Goodnight.” Tradition dictated we sleep apart the night before the wedding. Beryl had cried, begging me to stay in the master suite, but I locked myself in the guest room. Through the thin drywall, I heard the distinct click-hiss of her lighter. Over and over again. I didn’t sleep a wink. The next morning, we drove to the venue in separate cars. The wedding was straight out of a Pinterest board. A sprawling estate, acres of manicured lawns, hundreds of A-list guests dripping in designer clothes. Everything was perfect. Except for the bride and groom. I stood at the altar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jaxon sitting in the back row. He was glaring at us, his eyes burning holes into Beryl’s back. She didn’t spare him a single glance. The officiant signaled the string quartet. The opening notes of the bridal chorus floated over the crowd. Behind us, massive LED screens were supposed to play a montage of our engagement photos. Instead, the screens went pitch black. The chatter in the crowd died down. Hundreds of eyes snapped to the displays. A second later, the screens exploded with light. A collective gasp ripped through the audience. It wasn’t our engagement photos. It was a slideshow. Beryl and Jaxon on her “solo” business trip. Selfies of them in bed. Screenshots of their explicit text messages. Security footage of them making out against her office door. And finally, a crystal-clear photograph taken last night. Beryl, sneaking out of our townhouse at 2 AM, kissing a crying Jaxon under a streetlamp. “Beryl Kensington!” My dad’s voice shattered the stunned silence, roaring like thunder. “My son gave you his entire soul, and this is how you repay him?!”

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One minute, Vicky was posting a glowing tribute to me on Instagram. The next, she was quietly driving my custom-ordered, limited-edition hypercar right off the dealership lot. An hour later, her male assistant posted a photo from the driver’s seat to his Story. Caption: Blessed to have a female boss who takes such good care of her team. The wind just hits different today. She knew I lived and breathed cars. It was an obsession. Yet she had the nerve to take mine behind my back and hand the keys to him. That night, I had my team transport every single vintage and top-tier sports car from my private garage, lining them up perfectly in the driveway. I told her she could pick whichever one she wanted to give away next. And then, I made a call to my father in New York. I told him I’d accept the arranged date with the heiress of the city’s biggest real estate dynasty. I had the looks, the money, and the pedigree. There was absolutely no reason to waste another second of my life on someone who no longer loved me. 1 Dusk was settling over Seattle as I stood on the balcony of our waterfront estate. A deep, arrogant roar of an engine shattered the quiet of the neighborhood. A matte-black-and-gold hypercar pulled up to our driveway. Spencer walked around the aerodynamic hood, his steps light, and opened the passenger door with exaggerated gentleness. A silver stiletto stepped out onto the pavement. Vicky emerged, looking immaculate in a tailored white power suit, her fingers gripping a white Birkin. But it wasn’t her outfit that caught my attention. It was her eyes. They were locked onto Spencer—the man who had just opened her door—and there was a predatory, lingering warmth in her gaze that I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. They exchanged a few words, and a radiant, unguarded smile broke across her face. My phone buzzed. A notification from Twitter. Spencer had just tweeted a photo. It was a shot taken from the passenger seat—the “girlfriend POV.” Long, artistic fingers resting casually on the steering wheel, his jawline angled perfectly, a smirk playing on his lips. Driving the boss home in the car she gifted me. Life is sweet. In that single, crystalline moment, the floor dropped out from under me. When the dealership had texted me earlier that afternoon, I genuinely thought Vicky was trying to surprise me. I had spent three hours in my walk-in closet, meticulously picking out an outfit for our celebratory dinner. I had waited, starving and excited, until I opened my phone and saw Spencer’s posts. At first, I tried to rationalize it. Maybe Spencer was just posing for clout. Maybe Vicky didn’t know. But seeing that tweet confirmed it. She had actually taken the car I had been anticipating for over six months, bypassed me entirely, and gifted it to another man. I walked down the stairs and stepped out the front door, stopping right in front of her. Spencer immediately took two long strides forward, physically placing himself between Vicky and me. “Good evening, Mr. Sterling,” he said, his tone dripping with fake politeness. “Vicky and I just grabbed a bite to eat after closing a deal. We’re a little late. Please don’t be mad at her.” I looked at him, the coldness behind my eyes sharpening into something lethal. It was almost laughable. Who the hell did he think he was, telling me how to treat my own girlfriend? “I haven’t said a word yet, but you’re awfully quick to play the white knight,” I said, my voice dangerously even. Spencer’s eyes flickered, the color draining slightly from his perfectly manicured face. I let a slow, mocking smile touch my lips. “How’s the handling on the car? Smooth?” We were all adults here. We all knew how the game was played. A three-million-dollar hypercar wasn’t something a marketing director with no trust fund like Vicky could just buy on a whim. If Spencer had the audacity to accept it, he absolutely knew who paid for it. Spencer let out a stiff, barely audible, “Yeah.” Vicky stepped around him, putting herself in front of him, and lightly tugged at my sleeve. “Come on, Clark,” she murmured, her tone placating. “Spencer drives me to and from work every single day. I just remembered you had that car coming in, so I picked it up for him as a bonus. You have a whole fleet of sports cars. You can’t possibly care about one little car, right?” I slipped my hands into my pockets. The corners of my mouth curled up, but my eyes remained dead. “No. I do care.” “I waited over half a year for that car. No one touches it. Not even you, Vicky.” She recoiled, clearly not expecting me to strip away the polite veneer so abruptly. Her face darkened. The driveway went dead silent. Spencer pressed his lips together, saying nothing. As a man, he knew exactly why the air had turned toxic. There isn’t a man alive who can stomach watching the woman he loves take his money to buy lavish gifts for another guy. Even if she justified it as an “investment in her assistant.” “Mr. Sterling, this is on me. I shouldn’t have accepted the bonus from Vicky,” Spencer said, playing the martyr flawlessly. “I’ll go to the DMV tomorrow, cancel the registration, and return it to the dealership.” Listen to him. Crafting the narrative to make me look like a petty tyrant. “Spencer, was it? It’s just a car. I can afford to lose it,” I said, my voice dropping an octave, carrying the effortless weight of generational wealth. “I’ve got a dozen supercars in the garage right now. Go ahead. Pick one. Consider it a gift from me.” He looked up, genuine shock breaking through his composed mask. I stared him down, letting the silence crush him. “Vicky and I have been together for nine years. She’s used to this kind of money, so she doesn’t think handing over a hypercar is a big deal,” I continued, my words slow and deliberate. “But as an assistant, you need to learn your place. You need to know what you are allowed to accept, and what you are not.” Spencer took a step back, totally outmaneuvered. He stammered out an apology. “You’re right, Mr. Sterling. It’s my fault. Please, don’t blame Vic.” Vic? Since when were they on a first-name nickname basis? Vicky stepped into her stilettos, shielding Spencer entirely with her body, and wrapped her arms around my waist. She dug into her Birkin and pulled out a bottle of cologne, flashing me a sickeningly sweet, coaxing smile. “Okay, Your Highness,” she teased. “I bought you that limited-edition cologne you used to look at. Don’t be mad anymore, okay?” I stared down at the glass bottle in her hands, and the weight of the last nine years pressed heavy on my chest. Vicky and I had been together since our freshman year of college. Back then, she was the untouchable ice queen of the campus. Guys lined up to humiliate themselves for her attention, but she rejected them all, choosing to stand by my side. I remember nights tangled in the sheets, her whispering fiercely against my collarbone that I was the only man she would ever love. That I was her lifeline. But looking at her now, the fracture was undeniable. In her eyes, I had just seen genuine admiration—and a fierce, protective instinct—directed at another man. I had seen her laugh for him in a way she hadn’t for me in months. And the cologne in her hand? It was a brand I had stopped wearing four years ago. Her voice, a mix of scolding and sweet-talking, pulled me out of my memories. “I know you’re only acting like this because you love me and you’re jealous,” she said smoothly. “But to anyone else, it just looks like you’re bullying a junior employee.” Bullying. He wasn’t even worth the effort of bullying. I narrowed my eyes and turned toward the front door. “The way Spencer looks at you isn’t the way an employee looks at a boss,” I said coldly, pausing on the steps. “You’re a marketing director. Your entire career is built on reading people. You’re telling me you don’t see it?” “You gifted a multi-million-dollar car to a man who is clearly obsessed with you. Vicky…” She frowned, her tone taking on a defensive, dramatic edge. “Oh, stop it! There is absolutely nothing going on between me and Spencer. Not now, not ever.” I studied her face. I let the silence stretch out before I nodded, accepting her hollow reassurance for the night. I had loved this woman for nearly a decade. We had built a life together. Throwing a massive tantrum over a mildly attractive assistant felt beneath me. I had made my point, and I was getting my car back. There was no point in burning the house down tonight. Especially since I didn’t have hard proof of their emotional affair. Yet. 2 Vicky grabbed my hand and pulled me upstairs toward our master bathroom, her eyes slightly red, playing the part of the devoted, distressed girlfriend perfectly. “The housekeeper is off today. Why don’t you take a shower, and I’ll go downstairs and sear you a steak?” she offered softly. I nodded, watching her walk away. I turned to my dresser to grab some fresh clothes and pulled open my underwear drawer. I froze. “Oh, by the way!” Vicky called out from the hallway. “The housekeeper said your boxers were getting a little worn out, so she threw the old ones away. Just grab a fresh pair from the bottom row.” I bent down and slid the bottom drawer open. I am incredibly particular about my things. My housekeeper knows I have a strict organizational system; everything must be perfectly aligned. She checks it meticulously every day. But right in the middle of the drawer, a brand-new box of my imported silk boxers was missing. A memory hit me like a physical blow. Two days ago, Spencer had posted one of those curated, “aesthetic lifestyle” photo dumps on Instagram. In the third slide, sitting casually on his coffee table next to an espresso, was a brand-new box of that exact, hyper-specific brand of luxury underwear. A suffocating, white-hot rage hijacked my nervous system. Vicky took my underwear from our home and gave it to her assistant? I didn’t want to admit it, but in that moment, I was consumed by a visceral, humiliating jealousy. In nine years, I had never felt this kind of blinding fury over another man. I wanted to storm down the stairs, corner her in the kitchen, and scream at her. Did she have any idea what it meant for a woman to buy a man underwear? I gripped the edge of the marble counter, fighting to regulate my breathing. Just as I managed to unclench my jaw, the bathroom door swung open. Vicky walked in, her heels clicking against the tile. “Clark, Spencer just brought the car back to the dealership. But the title transfer requires me to be there in person,” she said briskly, already checking her reflection in the mirror. “You’ll have to figure out dinner yourself.” The embers of my anger instantly flared back into a roaring fire. “It can’t wait until tomorrow?” I demanded. “You have to leave the house now, in the middle of the night?” Vicky paused, her brow furrowing as if I were the one being unreasonable. “You’re the one who loves this car so much. I’m rushing to get the paperwork done for you.” The heat in my chest instantly vanished, replaced by an expansive, hollow ice. “You took my car without my permission,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I merely reclaimed what was already mine.” “It’s late. It’s dark. You can go tomorrow.” She let out a long, heavy sigh, looking at me with undisguised disappointment. “You publicly humiliated Spencer by forcing him to return my gift. Now you’ve got him waiting around at the dealership wasting his night.” “Clark, you can’t just think about yourself all the time.” “When you act like this, it’s like I don’t even know you.” I stared at her. The absurdity of her words echoed in the tiled room. I’m thinking about myself? I’m the stranger? “Do you hear yourself right now, Vicky?” I asked quietly. A flash of impatience crossed her face, but she forced her tone into a patronizing patience. “Maybe I phrased that harshly. But you need to understand—Spencer is the only man at the company right now who can actually carry the weight of this workload with me. You stripped him of his dignity tonight. I can’t just abandon him there.” When I didn’t respond, she sighed again, a deeply tired sound. “Clark, you come from old money. Your family has everything. You don’t get what it’s like for normal people like me.” “If I want a future with you, I have to be ruthless. I have to build an empire. Sure, you can throw a childish tantrum tonight and demand I stay home. But if I alienate the one partner who is in the trenches fighting beside me… that’s a cost I’m not willing to pay.” A ringing sound filled my ears. The one partner in the trenches with her. So that was it. Deep down, Vicky had always felt our backgrounds made us incompatible. And now, she saw Spencer as her true equal. Her comrade in arms. I see. The last thread holding my heart together snapped. “Go,” I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. Without a single second of hesitation, she turned on her heel and walked out. The heavy oak door clicked shut, leaving nothing behind but the fading scent of her gardenia perfume. There was a time when I admired Vicky’s cold, calculating rationality above all else. And she used to say she loved my innate pride, the unyielding backbone I was born with. But everything had rotted. I looked up at the ceiling and let out a long, shuddering breath. When a woman’s heart leaves the room, there is no point in blocking the door. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed a New York area code. “Dad,” I said when the line clicked. “Tell the heiress I’ll take the meeting.” Five years ago, after graduation, my father demanded I return to Manhattan to take over the family’s investment firm. I refused to leave Vicky behind, so I stayed in Seattle. For five years, I stripped away the “trust fund kid” label and built something from the ground up. Whatever Vicky wanted to do, I backed her financially and emotionally. We stumbled, we bled, and eventually, we built the largest apparel conglomerate in the Pacific Northwest. We were pulling in over a billion dollars in annual revenue. And my reward was her telling me we weren’t “in the trenches” together. Leaving all this behind to go back to New York… it stung. But I was done. My screen lit up. A text from Vicky. The title is transferred. Car is at the dealership. Spencer and I are heading back to the office to pull an all-nighter. Won’t be home. I lay down on our king-sized bed in the dark, my eyes wide open until the sun came up. 3 The next morning, I walked into the executive suite with a hollow stomach. To my surprise, there was a takeout bag from a luxury bakery sitting on my desk. Spencer and I are meeting a few distributors. We’ll grab lunch out. —V The handwriting on the sticky note was Vicky’s. But inside the bag was a trendy matcha chia pudding. The one thing in the world I absolutely despised eating. It was painfully obvious she hadn’t bought this for me. I handed the bag to my assistant and asked him to run down and get me a black coffee and a plain bagel. A rotting relationship is exactly like food you hate. There’s no point in forcing yourself to swallow it. By 1:00 PM, I had cleared my inbox. There was no sign of Vicky. My assistant knocked and walked in, casually mentioning, “Hey boss, looks like Vic and her assistant are out at that new oyster bar on the pier. What do you want me to order you for lunch?” I paused, my pen hovering over a document. I frowned. “Where did you see that?” He waved his phone at me, looking slightly awkward. “Instagram. Spencer posted a story thanking Vic for treating him to a seafood feast.” I leaned back, pulled a cigarette from my desk drawer, lit it, and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. Any lingering guilt I felt about drunkenly agreeing to the arranged date last night evaporated completely. At 3:00 PM, Vicky pushed open my office door, her heels sinking into the plush carpet. Spencer trailed right behind her like a shadow. “Clark, I’m so sorry. The meetings ran long so we couldn’t make it back. We just grabbed a quick bite. Did you eat?” she asked, dropping a stack of files on my desk. I barely glanced at her, offering a monotone, “Yeah.” She pulled out the chair across from me and sat down, rubbing her temples. “Clark, I don’t know how the rumor about the sports car leaked, but the whole office is gossiping about Spencer. Considering we just locked in three massive contracts today, do you think you could step up and make an executive statement to clear his name?” My hand, which was about to sign a ledger, froze. I slowly raised my eyes. “You gave him a car. He accepted it. And you want me—the bystander whose car was stolen—to clean up the mess?” Vicky’s beautiful, icy features twisted into a scowl. “Clark, you’re the CEO. It would literally take you one sentence to shut this down.” I leaned back in my leather chair and let out a dark, abrasive laugh. “You want me to abuse my corporate authority to forcibly silence the staff?” “A boss buys her assistant a hypercar. You think people aren’t going to talk? If he has the audacity to take it, and the ego to brag about it on social media, he should have the spine to handle the fallout.” Look at her. Going to war to protect him. And demanding that I swallow my pride to protect him with her. Nine years, Vicky. Do you even have a soul left? Spencer stepped forward, interrupting my thoughts. “It’s okay, Vic. A few rumors won’t break me,” he said softly, playing the wounded soldier. “Mr. Sterling is incredibly busy. We shouldn’t bother him with trivial matters.” Vicky shot out of her chair, her brow furrowed in fierce defense. “How is this trivial? You travel with me constantly. You work yourself to the bone. I will not let these people drag your name through the mud!” I slammed the leather portfolio onto the desk. The sharp crack made them both jump. “First of all,” I said, my voice dropping to a lethal quiet. “If there’s nothing going on, there’s nothing to hide. If you were strictly professional, Vicky, and you wanted to reward him for generating unprecedented revenue, a car is fine.” “But the reality is, the margins on those contracts don’t come close to justifying a three-million-dollar bonus.” “I don’t care if you genuinely miscalculated his value to the firm, or if your heart just bleeds for him because he drives you around. This company pays him a highly competitive salary. If he wants a raise, he can formally request one. What you don’t do is steal my property to compensate him under the table.” “This is a mess of your own making. Do not expect me to use my title to shield either of you.” The room fell dead silent. Spencer recovered faster than Vicky. He bowed his head, his voice trembling with perfectly calibrated remorse. “I am so sorry, Clark. I was careless. I’ll handle the rumors myself. Please, don’t be angry with Vic.” Vic. Overnight, he had dropped the professional title entirely. The boundaries were already gone. Vicky slammed her hand onto my desk, her eyes blazing with fury. “Fine. We’ll handle it ourselves. We don’t need you.” She grabbed Spencer by the wrist, yanked my office door open, and stormed out without looking back. Right before 5:00 PM, an automated notification popped up on my screen. A joint business trip approval request for Vicky and Spencer. I clicked Approve. That night, I met up with Cole, my business partner and oldest friend, at a dimly lit speakeasy downtown. Over bourbon, he told me I should have cut her loose months ago. “You poured nine years of your life into her, man. You gave her the world, and she treats it like a burden,” Cole said, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “Deep down, she resents you. She knows no matter how hard she grinds, she’ll never touch a fraction of your family’s wealth. And her pride won’t let her just enjoy it. It’s a classic complex.” I downed my drink, letting the burn slide down my throat. I didn’t say anything. Cole was wrong. When two people truly belong to each other, love isn’t a burden. It’s only when the love dies that people start calculating the math. Whatever. She wasn’t mine anymore. “So, when is this dinner with the New York heiress?” Cole asked, leaning forward. “You’re seriously leaving Seattle?” “Next week,” I said quietly. “I’ll transfer my voting rights to you, and then I’m gone.” 4 Vicky and I had built this apparel empire together. We split the equity fifty-fifty. If I was cutting the cord, I needed everything legally severed. I spent the entire next week locked in meetings with corporate lawyers, finalizing the transfer. Since our fight in my office, Vicky had blocked my number and my socials. But Spencer’s Instagram was public. Every single day, he posted a breadcrumb trail of their life together. A photo of the two of them watching the sunset on a beach after a client dinner. A shot of room service breakfast for two. A 3:00 AM photo of two iced Americanos on a desk, captioned about the grind. At first, a dull ache throbbed in my chest. But as the days passed, it hardened into total numbness. Until Thursday, when my assistant walked into my office, looking like he was about to be sick. He slid an iPad across my desk. “Boss… the algorithm pushed this to my feed. I think you need to see it.” I stared at the screen for a long time. It was Spencer’s latest post. A dimly lit photo of Vicky, fast asleep, her head resting intimately on a man’s chest. His chest. I scrolled to the comments. [Omg! From unrequited love to official boyfriend! Congrats!] [I’ve been following your sad boy aesthetic for four years, I’m so glad you guys finally made it official!] [Proof that if you wait long enough, you get the girl!] I felt absolutely nothing. No anger, no grief. Just the hollow click of a lock snapping shut. I handed the iPad back, a faint, indifferent smile on my face. “Send out a company-wide memo. Mandatory all-hands meeting at 3:00 PM.” This pathetic, suffocating love triangle was over. At exactly 3:00 PM, Cole and I walked into the main glass-walled conference room. “Effective immediately, I am stepping down as CEO,” I announced to the packed room. “Full operational control of the company will be transferred to Cole and Vicky.” The room erupted into gasps and chaotic murmurs. I didn’t offer an explanation. I stepped off the podium and walked out. The next morning, a luxury real estate broker came by to photograph the house. I sat in the back of my town car, watching the Seattle skyline blur as we headed to Sea-Tac airport. The terminal was a sea of people. I was dragging my carry-on toward the TSA PreCheck line when I heard the frantic clicking of heels. Vicky and Spencer had rushed straight from their flight. Across the sea of travelers, our eyes met. I had already asked my lawyer to text her a formal breakup message yesterday. I didn’t break my stride. I didn’t even look at them as I went to walk past. But Vicky lunged forward, grabbing my forearm in a vice grip. “Clark, what the hell kind of tantrum is this?” she demanded, her voice tight. I looked down at her hand, my brow furrowing in disgust. “Let go. You’re dirty.” She didn’t let go. Instead, her grip tightened, and her voice took on a pleading, desperate edge. “I know you’re mad. I’ll apologize, okay? I’m sorry. But Spencer and I haven’t done anything wrong! You’re selling your shares, you’re breaking up with me over a text…” The intercom chimed, announcing the final boarding call for my flight to JFK. I had zero interest in dragging this out. I pulled out my phone, opened Instagram, and shoved Spencer’s account directly in her face. “The evidence is right here. Did you really need me to drag all your filthy secrets into the light before you’d let me leave in peace?” She stared at the screen. Her lips parted, all the color draining from her face. Absolute, unadulterated shock. I didn’t care if it was real or an act. I shoved my phone in my pocket and pushed past her. Behind me, the illusion shattered. Vicky spun around, her voice echoing violently across the terminal. “What the fuck is this?! When was I ever in bed with you?!”

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Cameron and I officially started dating on April Fool’s Day. So, when he called me with a manufactured sense of sheer panic on the eve of our sixth anniversary, begging me to meet him at the exact spot of our first date, I thought the moment had finally arrived. I thought he was finally going to propose. I spent hours getting ready. I got a blowout, had my nails done in a soft bridal blush, and meticulously applied that effortless, no-makeup makeup look. On the cab ride over, I practiced my reaction in a compact mirror—the right balance of surprise, the perfect angle of my smile, the exact pitch of “I do.” I even had the Instagram announcement drafted and sitting in my notes app. But when I pushed open the heavy oak doors of the private room, my heart soaring, a heavy, sickeningly sweet mass of vanilla buttercream was violently smashed into my face. The room erupted. Above the din, a girl’s boisterous, triumphant laugh rang out. “I told you she’d come! Pay up, Cam, you lost!” Cameron stepped forward, using his thumb to gently wipe the frosting from my cheek, just as tenderly as he always did. “You dressed up so beautifully, too,” he murmured, a hint of pity in his voice. “Shame about the outfit.” He chuckled, entirely missing the ice freezing over my veins. “I made a bet with the guys. I bet you wouldn’t drop everything and come out tonight. I figured if I won, I’d propose tomorrow. Since I lost… looks like I’m pushing the proposal to next year.” I just looked at him. Quietly. Steadily. “So you do know what tomorrow is,” I said, my voice eerily calm. He smiled, utterly unbothered. “Of course I do. It’s our anniversary. How could I forget?” In that singular, crystallizing moment, I felt the absolute exhaustion of the last six years wash over me. The charade was entirely devoid of meaning. Our anniversary would never be as important as an April Fool’s joke. Just like I would never be as important as his “one of the guys” best girl friend. I reached down, grasped the simple promise ring I had worn for six years, and pulled it off my finger. “Then let’s break up.” 1. The sharp, metallic ping of the ring hitting the hardwood floor silenced the entire room. Cameron’s brow furrowed in irritation. “Harper, stop. Don’t cause a scene. It’s just a little frosting. I’ll help you wash it off when we get home. You know Lexi—she used to pull way worse pranks than this. She actually held back for you.” He lowered his voice, his tone shifting into a subtle warning. “It took a lot to get you out here. Don’t make the guys think my girlfriend can’t take a joke.” Lexi collapsed onto the leather sofa, her face twisting into a theatrical pout. “God, Harper, it was just a joke. If you hate it that much, we’ll stop, okay? You don’t have to throw around the word breakup over a little cake.” She looked around at the guys, her eyes wide and victimized. “I told you she couldn’t handle it, Cam, but you insisted she come. Look what happened.” The collective gaze of the room shifted toward me, their eyes turning cold and judgmental. Lexi was the only girl in their tight-knit fraternity of friends. She was the mascot, the untouchable center of their universe. If Lexi was unhappy, the whole group scrambled to fix it. Cameron was no exception. I remembered the first time I met her. She had organized a brutal game of Truth or Dare. While the guys were dared to do goofy, harmless things outside, my dare from Lexi was to fake an orgasm in front of a room full of strangers. When I quietly declined, stating I wasn’t comfortable with that kind of humiliation, Lexi immediately burst into tears and ran out of the bar. The entire pack of guys chased after her. Cameron did, too. The night that was supposed to be my welcome party ended with me sitting alone in a booth, waiting. Cameron never brought it up afterward, but from then on, unless Lexi explicitly gave the green light, I was never invited to their gatherings again. Cameron stared at me now, a deep crease between his eyes. “Harper, apologize to Lexi.” Years ago, desperate to fit in, terrified of embarrassing Cameron in front of his friends, I would have swallowed my pride. I would have stammered out an apology before he even had to ask. But standing there now, realizing that my breaking point meant less to him than Lexi’s manufactured pout, a profound clarity settled over me. From the very beginning, this relationship, my feelings, my dignity—none of it held a candle to his loyalty to the boys’ club and their favorite girl. I bent down and picked up my designer coat and the handbag I had meticulously saved up for, specifically to impress his parents. I met their judgmental stares head-on. “Cameron, we’re done. And I mean it.” I turned on my heel and walked out, my frosting-splattered heels clicking unevenly against the floorboards. As the door clicked shut behind me, Lexi’s teasing voice drifted through the wood. “You’re not gonna chase after your little lovesick puppy?” Cameron scoffed, the sound sharp and dismissive. “She’s just throwing a tantrum. If I chase her, who’s gonna comfort you? Besides, she doesn’t have anyone else to lean on. She’ll come around. She always does.” My heart, laid bare and bleeding, was sliced open by his words. The cold wind outside felt like a mercy compared to the chill spreading in my chest. 2. Six years ago, on these exact front steps, Cameron had confessed his love to me, vowing that I was the only woman he would ever want. He had to work hard to break down my walls. When I was fifteen, both of my parents remarried and started new families. I became the awkward, leftover baggage neither of them wanted to claim. Because of that, I was terrified of romance. I was terrified of building a home, only to have it ripped away. I rejected Cameron five times. The turning point came when I was walking back to my lonely apartment and was followed by a mugger. Cameron appeared out of nowhere, tackling the guy to the ground. He took a knife to the arm in the process and ended up in the ER. After the nurse finished wrapping his stitches, his eyes had grown red and wet. “Harper, why do you always have to be so tough?” he had whispered. “Why won’t you just let me protect you?” In that instant, the impenetrable fortress around my heart crumbled. I thought that maybe, just maybe, loving someone this reliable, this fiercely protective, wouldn’t be a mistake. That night, he brought me to this venue. When I finally said yes, the usually stoic, sophisticated man scooped me up and spun me around like an oversized kid until we were both dizzy, collapsing onto the grass. He held me tight against his chest, shielding me from the impact. Sitting on those steps, he looked up at the moon and swore that as long as he was alive, I would never be lonely. I would never be abandoned again. Yet tonight, the old wounds I had finally allowed to heal under his care were ripped open by his own hands. I let out a hollow, self-deprecating laugh. Standing on the sidewalk, I opened my email and found the corporate transfer offer to the New York headquarters—an offer set to expire in five days. Accept. It turned out, pressing that button wasn’t so hard after all. I looked up at the moon, partially obscured by thin, wispy clouds. I am not easy to win back, Cameron. And I will never need you to try again. My train to New York was booked for the afternoon of the 2nd. Time was running out. The second I got back to our shared apartment, I scrubbed the sticky, humiliating frosting from my skin and began packing. My presence in his home had always been surprisingly minimal; it only took one large suitcase and a carry-on to pack away six years of my life. At 3:00 AM, having booked a hotel for the night, I was zipping up my coat to leave when the front door swung open. Cameron stumbled in, reeking of stale beer. He dropped a blackout-drunk Lexi onto our living room sofa, then turned and shoved a plastic bag of pears into my hands. “Good, you’re still up. She drank way too much. Go make some hangover soup, otherwise she’s gonna be puking all night.” I stood perfectly still, letting the bag of fruit drop to the floor. When we first moved in together, Cameron came home trashed from a frat reunion, throwing up endlessly. My heart had ached for him, so I got up at 2:00 AM to boil him soup. But the cheap ceramic pot cracked under the heat and exploded. Boiling broth and shattered clay splattered all over my legs. The sight of my burns sobered him up instantly. He was wrecked with guilt. From that day on, he forbade me from cooking. Even when he had the flu and craved soup, he ordered takeout rather than let me near the stove. I hadn’t cooked a meal in years; he even washed and sliced my fruit for me. On the kitchen door, there still hung a small, hand-painted wooden sign he had made: Danger Zone. Harper Keep Out. A bitter smile touched my lips. I walked over, unhooked the sign, and dropped it straight into the garbage can. “I’m not obligated to take care of her. If she needs soup, order Postmates.” I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and moved toward the door. He lunged forward, grabbing my wrist and pinning me back against the heavy wooden door. “Alright, Harper, enough. Saying it was one thing, but actually packing your bags? I told you, it was an April Fool’s joke. Stop overreacting.” His breath, heavy with alcohol, brushed against my neck. “I know you want to get married. I want to, too. Next year. I promise we’ll get married next year, okay?” Once upon a time, those soft, placating words would have worked like magic. Tonight, I shoved my hands against his chest, broke his grip, and slapped him hard across the face. “Listen to me, Cameron. We are broken up. I am never marrying you.” 3. The sharp crack of the slap didn’t just stun Cameron; it jolted Lexi awake on the sofa. She scrambled up, stumbling drunkenly across the rug, and threw her hand out, slapping my cheek with staggering force. “Who the hell do you think you are?!” she shrieked. “Nobody touches Cam! You want to break up? Fine! There are a million girls better than you… you’re nothing but a placeholder!” A blistering heat radiated across my cheek. Seeing red, I raised my hand to strike her back. But Cameron’s hands clamped down on my wrists like iron vises. He shoved me backward to protect her. The small of my back slammed into the sharp brass doorknob, sending a sickening jolt of pain up my spine. He shielded Lexi with his body, looking at me with exhausted annoyance. “She’s blackout drunk, Harper. Why are you picking a fight with a drunk girl?” He sighed, rubbing his temples. “Look, just… go take a walk. Cool off. We’ll talk about this tomorrow when you’re being rational.” I stared at him in utter disbelief. He was so incredibly detached, looking at me like I was some random, bothersome stranger. He didn’t check to see if I was hurt. He turned his back to me, wrapping his arms around a sobbing Lexi, whispering soft, gentle reassurances into her hair. He saved all his tenderness for her. My fingernails bit into my palms until they bled. I grabbed my suitcase and walked out into the night. I checked into the nearest Marriott and didn’t close my eyes until dawn. When I finally woke up, my phone was paralyzed by an avalanche of notifications. Aside from the group chat blowing up with prank videos, there were dozens of messages from coworkers and friends asking why I wasn’t at work, fishing for gossip about a proposal. My chest tightened. I typed out a quick, blanket reply—We broke up—feeling an immense, hollow fatigue settling into my bones. The pings didn’t stop. Some thought I was pulling my own April Fool’s joke. Others told me to stop throwing a tantrum just because I didn’t get a ring. In their eyes, Cameron was the gold standard—steady, gentle, a man who would always provide a safety net. But they didn’t know the reality of that man. They didn’t know that for our fourth anniversary, he had set up a romantic, candlelit proposal setting just to lower my guard so Lexi could jump out and throw a live snake on me. They didn’t know that for our fifth anniversary, he got down on one knee with a rigged gag-ring Lexi had bought online, which clamped down on my finger so hard I spent the night in the ER with the fire department trying to cut it off before I lost circulation. He was a safety net, alright. Just not for me. For years, I had gaslit myself. I suppressed the humiliation, repeating the mantra that aside from Lexi, he treated me like a queen. But the fog had cleared. A relationship built on this kind of foundation wouldn’t survive a marriage anyway. Smiling through the ache in my chest, I opened Instagram. Past the sea of corporate April Fool’s posts, Lexi’s new photo dump sat at the top of my feed. It was Cameron. Winning her a stuffed bear at an arcade. Eating popcorn next to her at a matinee. Playing air hockey, throwing his head back in laughter. He used to tell me that arcades and movies were “juvenile” and a waste of time. He told me he preferred mature, meaningful evenings—making pottery, drinking wine at home. I thought it was a sign of his sophisticated nature, so I buried all my silly, youthful desires to match his pace. Looking at the unbridled joy on his face in those photos, I finally understood. It wasn’t that those activities were boring to him. It was that doing them with me was boring. The comments were a chorus of “You guys are so cute together!” Our mutual friends had all liked the post. It had more engagement than our official dating announcement ever did. Just as I went to force-close the app, a text dropped down from the banner. It was Cameron. [Don’t misunderstand the photos. I just took her out to detox. Come back to the apartment when you have a minute. She says she wants to apologize to you.] My brow furrowed. I typed out a quick No need, ready to hit send, when another notification popped up. It was a FedEx delivery confirmation for his anniversary gift—a vintage watch I had spent months tracking down. It had just been delivered to his building. I paused. I needed to get the watch back. And I still had his spare keys. It was time to sever this cleanly. I threw on some clothes and caught an Uber back to the apartment. But the moment I unlocked the door and stepped inside, a bucket of freezing liquid was thrown directly into my face. A sharp, chemical stench flooded my nostrils, followed instantly by a terrifying, burning agony across my cheeks. “Surprise! April Fool’s!” 4. Before I could even pry my stinging eyes open, Lexi was in front of me. She grabbed a rough makeup wipe and began scrubbing my face aggressively. The burning sensation exploded. It felt like acid was eating through my skin, accompanied by a frantic, suffocating itch. The friction of the wipe felt like sandpaper tearing my flesh off. I shoved her away with everything I had. I reached up to touch my cheek, but the slightest contact sent a blinding spike of pain through my skull. “Cough… God, my face… it burns! What was in that?!” I gasped, my throat closing up. Cameron sprinted into the hallway, grabbing my wrists to stop me from clawing at my own skin. His voice was laced with genuine panic. “Lexi, you said it was just micellar water! Why is her skin blistering?!” Lexi’s face flushed a deep, guilty red. “I… I don’t know! I just grabbed a bottle from under the sink! And anyway, she’s always doing that stupid natural-makeup thing to look better than me! I hate it! You’re the one who agreed her makeup was annoying, that’s why you let me prank her!” My body began to convulse. My limbs went numb, and drawing a breath felt like inhaling glass. “I knew… I knew you wouldn’t actually make her apologize,” I wheezed, my vision tunneling. “Cameron… you don’t even know what human decency is.” I pulled out of his grip, stumbling blindly toward the bathroom to flush my skin with cold water. But after one step, the world tilted violently on its axis, and everything went black. “Harper! Harper, hey, look at me!” When I finally regained consciousness, the room was bathed in the dull orange glow of twilight. The throbbing heat in my face was still there, but muted. Through the lingering fog of anaphylaxis, I vaguely remembered the ER doctor mentioning chemical burns and a gash on my chin that required stitches from where I had collapsed against the tile. I shifted on the stark hospital bed. The rustle of the sheets woke Cameron, who was slumped in the plastic chair beside me. “Harper, thank God. You’re awake. You terrified me,” he breathed, his voice trembling. “The doctor said you had an anaphylactic reaction to some heavy-duty industrial cleaner under the sink. You went into shock.” He leaned in, his eyes pleading. “She really did want to apologize today. You know how proud she is. She took it too far, but she didn’t do it on purpose. Please don’t be mad at her, okay?” I stared up at the sterile ceiling. In all his frantic rambling, not once did he ask how I felt. Not once did he acknowledge the fact that I might be permanently scarred, or how traumatizing it was to wake up with stitches in my face. His only instinct was to act as Lexi’s defense attorney. I looked at the man I had loved for six years, and saw an absolute stranger. A single tear slipped down my temple, stinging the raw skin of my cheek. “I’m not mad,” I whispered. “I’m just entirely full of regret. I never should have said yes to you.” Cameron froze. He opened his mouth to speak, but his phone illuminated the dark room. The caller ID flashed: Lexi. He immediately masked his panic with a calm, businesslike expression. “I need to take this. Just rest. I’ll be right back.” He practically sprinted out of the room. Driven by an intuition I couldn’t suppress, I peeled the blankets back. My legs shook, but I forced myself out of bed and crept down the hallway. I found them near the heavy fire doors of the emergency stairwell. They were sitting on the steps, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Hey, stop crying. It’s okay. She’s not gonna be mad,” Cameron soothed. “She always gets over it.” Lexi punched him lightly in the arm, sniffling. “If she can’t even handle this, imagine if she knew the truth! If she found out that you only asked her out because you lost a bet to us, and that you specifically picked April Fool’s Day to do it as a joke… she would literally lose her mind!” Time stopped. The air vanished from the stairwell. A high-pitched ringing pierced my ears, drowning out the hum of the hospital. Through the crack in the door, I saw Cameron slap his hand over Lexi’s mouth, looking around frantically. “Shut up! Are you insane? That was six years ago. You take that to your grave, do you hear me?” My knees buckled. I slumped against the cold plaster wall, entirely boneless. Suddenly, every agonizing contradiction of the last six years snapped into terrifying focus. Why I could never compete with Lexi. Why a man who claimed to love me could stand by and watch me be humiliated over and over again. I had been so hopelessly naive. I thought his loyalty to his friends was just a flaw in his character. I never realized that every single thing he had given me was counterfeit. The beautiful, cinematic rescue I thought was my salvation was built on a punchline. To them, I was never Cameron’s beloved girlfriend. I was a prop. A six-year-long inside joke. A clown performing for an audience that despised me. Every shred of my dignity was incinerated in that stairwell. I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle the sob violently tearing up my throat. I had to get out. I had to escape this suffocating, psychopathic lie. I managed to sneak back, rip the IV from my arm, and discharge myself against medical advice. I caught a cab to my hotel, grabbed my luggage, and went straight to Penn Station. I paid the penalty fee to change my ticket to the earliest possible Amtrak heading for New York. As I sat on the hard plastic benches waiting to board, my phone buzzed. [The doctor says they need to observe you overnight. Don’t wander off. Where are you? I’m coming to find you.] Staring at that manufactured, hypocritical concern, I actually laughed out loud, the sound mingling with my tears. I didn’t reply. I went into my settings, blocked his number, deleted his contact, and did the exact same for every single one of his friends. Cameron. I resign from your little April Fool’s game.

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Arthur Kensington, the ruthless patriarch of the Kensington dynasty, owed the Montgomery family a life. And Mary Montgomery, the woman who had raised me, cashed in that blood debt to force the old man into making his grandson, Cole, marry me. But for the ten years of our marriage, Cole looked at me with nothing but absolute revulsion. To shake me off, to force my hand, he let a revolving door of women climb into his bed. I became the punchline of our elite circle. Whenever the whispers grew too loud, Cole would just look at me with those glacial, empty eyes and say, “You don’t get to play the victim. You asked for this.” Everyone in New York high society thought I would cling to Cole Kensington until my dying breath. He thought so, too. Until the person I trusted most in this world pushed the blade into my back. That was the moment the foundation cracked. When I finally slid the divorce papers across the mahogany table, a quiet, genuine smile broke across my face. It’s finally over. This beautiful, hollow cage of a marriage is finally over. 1 I stepped onto the deck of the mega-yacht just as the party was reaching its chaotic, glittering peak. In the center of the crowd, Cole leaned back against the plush crescent sofa, his posture a picture of lazy, arrogant grace. But it was the silhouette of the woman on his lap that made my breath catch in my throat. She was straddling him, her posture dripping with invitation, her manicured fingers lightly tracing the nape of his neck. Men and women in designer resort wear raised their champagne flutes, chanting, “Kiss her! Kiss her!” in a rhythmic, intoxicating blur. Paige Montgomery’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes heavy with a springtime kind of lust. Cole’s eyes narrowed slightly as his gaze lazily tracked over the crowd. The corner of his mouth ticked up. He didn’t rush. He simply lifted a finger, pointing straight at me. “Look over there,” his voice cut through the noise, low but carrying. “Your best friend is watching us.” The crowd spun around. The pulsing music seemed to fade into a vacuum. The drunken cheers died in their throats, replaced by a collective, suffocating silence, thick with anticipation and cruel amusement. Someone in the back drunkenly slurred, “Oh, hey, Mrs. Kensington,” and a ripple of nervous, mocking laughter followed. Paige, still seated firmly on my husband’s lap, glanced over her shoulder at me. She didn’t move an inch to get up. My fingernails bit so deeply into my palms they drew blood. I stared at her, unblinking. Deep in my chest, my heart was slowly, methodically tearing itself apart. I never thought Paige would be the one. She was the family I had chosen. She was the one person in this cold, transactional world I relied on, the one I trusted implicitly. I wanted to scream. I wanted to march over and shake her, to ask her why. But not here. Not now. Paige let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted to see?” She murmured to Cole, though her eyes were locked on mine. “I betrayed her. I chose you. Can you love me now?” A fresh wave of murmurs rippled through the crowd. They were practically salivating, waiting for the explosion. My marriage to Cole Kensington was an open secret. He flaunted his indiscretions with a brazen, almost violent kind of freedom, replacing the women on his arm as easily as he replaced his watches. Only this time, the woman wearing his jacket was my best friend. I forced my eyes off Paige and locked them onto Cole. My face was a mask of perfectly carved ice. My voice came out dead flat. “The paparazzi are swarming the marina. They’re waiting for the yacht to dock.” I paused. “Cole. Let’s go.” He tilted his head, drawing out a dramatic, considering hum. “Hmm… No.” Taking her cue, Paige pressed herself deeper into his chest, burying her face against his neck, shooting me a triumphant, challenging smirk. As the yacht slowly drifted toward the slip, the long lenses of the paparazzi were already waiting, a firing squad of flashbulbs bursting through the coastal darkness. I curled my fingers inward, the sting of my own nails grounding me. They got the shot. I already knew the Kensington board, and Cole’s venomous parents, would crucify me for this. Suddenly, Cole’s voice ghosted right by my ear, thick with dark amusement. He had walked over while I was staring at the docks. “Do you like the show, Mrs. Kensington?” he whispered. “Those old vultures at the estate aren’t going to let you survive this one. How about you finally divorce me, and I’ll help you pack?” I ground my teeth together, fighting the knot of pure grief lodged in my throat. I forced the words out. “Do you really want a divorce that badly, Cole?” In ten years, it was the first time I had ever entertained the word. The mocking smirk vanished from Cole’s face instantly. The dark, stormy depths of his eyes clouded with something unreadable—something dangerously close to panic. Before he could recover his armor, I looked him dead in the eye and said the words. “Then let’s divorce.” I felt like I had been holding my breath for a decade, and I had finally exhaled. The moment the words left my lips, a profound, weightless peace washed over me. What isn’t mine will never be mine. The agonizing pressure that had sat on my chest for ten years finally found a fracture, and the pain began to bleed out into the night air. “Hedy, are you serious?” Paige’s voice pitched up, entirely unable to hide her elation. But Cole’s arm, which was still loosely hooked around her waist, clamped down like a steel vise. Paige gasped, flinching. “Ow! Cole, you’re hurting me.” Cole didn’t even look at her. His eyes were burning holes into mine. In a jarring, violent motion, he dropped his arm, stepping completely away from Paige. He closed the distance between us until he was towering over me. “Let’s go. We’re going home,” he ordered. Then, he added with a sneer, “Mrs. Kensington.” I saw the malicious glint in his eyes. He had orchestrated this whole thing. He knew exactly what Paige meant to me. He knew that calling the paparazzi to capture this exact humiliation would ruin me, that I would be the one dragged through the mud by his family. He had choreographed the ultimate betrayal, just to finally break my will. 2 I didn’t flinch. I calmly looped my arm through his. “Let’s go.” Cole let out a harsh, jagged laugh, the sound practically vibrating with poison. I was used to it. I simply shut off the audio in my brain. As Mrs. Kensington, my only job in public was to remain elegant, poised, and untouched. Soon, I told myself. Soon, I won’t have to do this anymore. The second my heels hit the concrete of the pier, I unlinked my arm from his. Cole instantly caught my hand, lacing his fingers brutally tight through mine. “Keep up the performance,” he sneered. “Don’t get lazy now. The cameras are still rolling.” I furrowed my brow slightly, turning my face toward the tinted window of the waiting town car. Whatever. Let him have his petty victories. We rode back to the penthouse in total silence. The second the heavy mahogany door clicked shut behind us, Cole slammed me back against the entryway wall. In the dim, ambient light of the foyer, I could see the dangerous, chaotic energy buzzing in his eyes. I was utterly exhausted. My soul felt hollowed out. “Cole, please. I don’t want to do this tonight.” I pushed against his chest. Cole’s grip only tightened. He dipped his head, his teeth grazing my collarbone in a sharp, punishing bite. He let out a low, cruel chuckle. “Play your part, Mrs. Kensington. The old guard is still waiting for you to pop out an heir.” My body went completely rigid. Every time he spat the words Mrs. Kensington like a curse, it was a deliberate reminder of the cage I had locked myself in. I was the one who had willingly put on these chains. I had surrendered the right to say “stop.” I had always just endured it. But not anymore. The one reason I had compromised my entire existence had just betrayed me. I had nothing left to protect. No more collateral damage to fear. For the first time in a decade, I shoved Cole Kensington with everything I had. “I don’t have to be Mrs. Kensington anymore, Cole.” He froze, his hands hovering in the air. He stared at me, his chest heaving, his eyes searching my face for a lie. “Hedy… are you serious?” My heart plummeted like a stone, heavy and cold. “I’m giving you exactly what you want. Isn’t this enough?” I whispered, my voice exhausted. “I’ve suffocated you for ten years. You’re tired. I’m tired. Let’s just let each other go.” Before the silence could settle, Cole grabbed my wrists, pinning them against the wallpaper. His body pressed flush against mine, as if he were trying to crush me into the drywall. We stayed locked in that strained, breathless stalemate until he finally hissed, his voice vibrating with barely contained rage, “Your little hard-to-get act is pathetic, Hedy. Do you really think I’m going to let you win?” He released me as abruptly as he had grabbed me, turning on his heel. He stormed down the hall without looking back. I stood in the shadows, entirely bewildered. I watched his retreating back, my mind spinning in quiet confusion. I gave him exactly what he had tortured me for ten years to get. So why was he so angry? CRASH. The sound of shattering glass from his study snapped me back to reality. It didn’t matter. My mind was made up. But the moment the adrenaline faded, the thought of Paige sent a fresh, agonizing spike of pain through my chest. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. I pulled it out, my thumb hovering numbly over the glowing screen. Finally, I opened the chat from Paige. The messages were coming in rapid succession. [Hedy, I guess you know everything now.] [Since it’s out in the open, just let me have him.] [You’ve had ten years with him and he still doesn’t love you. Why don’t you let me try?] [Who knows? Maybe he’ll actually fall in love with me.] [I know stealing your best friend’s husband is wrong, but I couldn’t help it.] [The day you introduced us, I was obsessed with him.] [I tried, okay? I tried avoiding him, but you always brought him around. It’s not my fault.] [You practically forced us together!] … With every word I read, my heart turned a little more to ash. This was the person I trusted with my life. I let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh. [Paige, I was so wrong about you.] [If you want him that badly, he’s yours. Take him.] I typed the two sentences, hit send, and blocked her number. Just like that, the sisterhood I had bled for was dead. She had sold me out for a man. I had spent my life protecting a snake. I didn’t sleep a single minute that night. When dawn finally broke, my eyes were swollen shut. I had to sit with ice packs pressed to my face for an hour just to look human again. 3 I let my mind go entirely blank for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. Knowing I had to face a firing squad today, I picked up my phone. I opened Twitter. Sure enough, we were trending at number one. The photo of Paige straddling Cole, with me standing opposite them like a discarded ghost, was splashed across every gossip blog. The comments were a bloodbath: [Mrs. Kensington is so generous, letting her hubby test-drive the bestie. ] [The Kensington Heir is wild for this. Hooking up with the wife’s BFF while the wife watches? Alpha energy.] [God, he’s so hot though. If I were Hedy, I’d be picking out his side pieces for him just to stay in the will.] [Am I the only one who feels bad for Hedy? Betrayed by her husband and her best friend at the exact same time. That’s vile.] [Lmao she deserves it! He literally never wanted her. If she hadn’t used her family’s sob story to blackmail the grandfather, she wouldn’t even be in his orbit.] [Right? She’s obsessed with him. Zero self-respect. If she still doesn’t divorce him after this, she’s just pathetic.] [Are y’all okay?? Cole is openly emotionally abusing her, but you’re dragging Hedy? Why aren’t we torching him and the trashy friend? Y’all are sick.] [Look, they’re billionaires. We’re just here for the drama. Pass the popcorn. ] The internet was tearing me apart. Then, I refreshed the page, and it was gone. All of it. Erased from the internet. The Kensington PR machine had woken up. I heard the heavy click of the front door. Cole was back. He didn’t even look at me. “We’re expected at the estate in thirty minutes.” I nodded. Of course we are. It was the golden rule of the Kensington dynasty. Every Sunday, family dinner at the estate. Absence was considered an act of treason, punishable by whatever financial or social torture Grandpa Arthur saw fit. Even a reckless god like Cole never dared to miss it. “Good luck in there, Hedy,” Cole murmured as we walked out, a cruel, gloating curve to his lips. When we pulled up to the sweeping gravel driveway of the Kensington Manor, Cole dropped the act entirely. He left me in the dust, striding into the grand foyer without waiting. By the time I walked in, he already had his grandmother laughing over tea. “Grandma,” I greeted her softly, keeping my posture perfect. “Hmm,” the older woman hummed dismissively, not looking away from Cole. “Your in-laws are waiting for you in the study.” “I understand,” I said quietly. I knew exactly what was waiting for me. I glanced at Cole. He was sipping his tea, a smug, satisfied smirk playing on his lips. He didn’t even bother to look up. The moment I stepped into the mahogany-paneled study, Victoria Kensington’s hand cracked across my cheek. The sheer force of the slap snapped my head to the side. The sharp, metallic taste of blood bloomed on my tongue. She gracefully adjusted the rings on her fingers, instantly reverting to the picture of old-money elegance. She looked at me like I was something she had scraped off her shoe. “Hedy, you are an absolute embarrassment,” her voice was hushed, but it carried the weight of a whip. “A woman who can’t even keep her husband out of her own friend’s bed? How do you call yourself a Kensington?” “If I had known you were this pathetic, I would have fought Arthur to the grave before letting him marry Cole to you!” “It is a tragedy.” I kept my head lowered, my fingers curling tightly into my palms. “Hedy,” she sneered, “if you are truly this incapable of making my son care for you, then do us all a favor and divorce him before you humiliate us any further.” I snapped my head up. I looked her dead in the eye, my voice steady and unshakeable. “Okay. I’ll divorce him.” Victoria physically recoiled, her eyes widening in sheer shock. Even Richard Kensington, who had been silently nursing a scotch by the window, frowned deeply. “Are you serious?” “Completely,” I said, my tone as solid as stone. Richard stared at me for a long moment before waving his hand dismissively. “Wait outside.” I stepped out into the corridor, leaning against the cool plaster. Through the heavy oak door, their hushed, frantic argument bled into the hallway. “Why are you attacking the girl?” Richard hissed. “Your son is the one acting like a degenerate!” “Who else am I supposed to blame?!” Victoria shot back. “Cole never behaved like this before he was chained to her!” “If you hadn’t let Arthur force him to marry a woman he actively despises, none of this would be happening! Do you have any idea how miserable my boy is?” Richard sighed, the sound heavy with exhaustion. “You think you know your own son? Victoria, if Cole didn’t want to marry her, do you really think Arthur—or anyone—could have forced him to say ‘I do’?” “And now she’s actually asking for a divorce. Mark my words, all hell is about to break loose.” Victoria paused, her voice faltering. “That’s… that’s impossible. If Cole actually cared for Hedy, why would he torture her like this?” “Because he’s an idiot,” Richard muttered. “And he’s going to keep playing these sick games until the girl finally runs.” 4 Right. As if Cole Kensington could ever love me. I turned and walked down the long, gallery hallway. At the far end, Cole was leaning against a marble pillar, a half-smoked cigarette dangling between his fingers. I didn’t look at him. I tried to walk right past him. His hand shot out, wrapping around my wrist like a shackle. His other hand drifted up, his thumb brushing callously over the stinging, red imprint his mother had left on my cheek. He clicked his tongue. “Tsk. That’s it?” “A little light on the punishment, don’t you think?” His voice was a low, velvet purr, masked in lazy amusement. I couldn’t read his eyes. My gaze met his, utterly hollow. “I told them I want a divorce.” Cole’s hand froze. He took a sharp, deep drag of his cigarette. “And what did they say?” I shook my head. “Nothing definitive.” Because as long as Grandpa Arthur was breathing, Richard and Victoria had no real power. If I wanted out, I had to wait for the patriarch to return from his trip. “Right. As if those cowards have the spine to say no,” Cole muttered, his voice dropping into something cold and vicious. “Fuck. You brought this all on yourself, Hedy. You deserve every bit of it.” He dropped my wrist, turned, and walked away without another word. He left me there, bracing myself for the rest of the day—a grueling marathon of the Kensington relatives pulling me aside, using “marital advice” as a thinly veiled excuse to degrade me. I took it all. Calmly. Quietly. I was just waiting. When I finally escaped the estate, I had my driver take me to the private care facility in the Hamptons. Halfway there, my phone rang. It was the head nurse. “Mrs. Kensington, I’m so sorry. It’s an emergency. Mrs. Montgomery’s condition has crashed. You need to get here immediately.” My stomach dropped into a bottomless gorge. My hands shook as I dialed Paige’s number over and over. Voicemail. Voicemail. Finally, as I was sprinting down the pristine, sterile hallway of the facility, Paige answered. “Paige! Get to the clinic right now! Your mom is crashing!” I screamed into the phone. Paige let out a dramatic, mocking sigh. “Hedy, really? You let Cole surround himself with supermodels for a decade, but the second it’s me, you throw a tantrum and start cursing my mother?” “I know my mother’s chart, Hedy. She’s fine.” “And even if something was wrong, she’s got you! God knows she’s always loved you more than her actual daughter anyway. She’s the one who traded you to the Kensingtons like livestock!” Before I could even breathe, the line went dead. I gripped the phone so hard the glass creaked, shoving open the door to the ICU. Mrs. Montgomery was lost in the sheets, a frail, skeletal ghost of the woman who had raised me. Tears instantly blinded me. “What happened?” I choked out. Two days ago, she was sitting up, laughing with me. The attending nurse looked at the floor. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Kensington. Somebody left the television on… she saw the morning gossip broadcasts…” I froze. “Hedy…” a papery, wheezing voice called out from the bed. I threw myself into the chair beside her, grabbing her fragile hand. “I’m here. I’m right here.” She weakly patted the back of my hand, her cloudy eyes filling with tears. “Hedy… I am so sorry. I am so sorry for what Paige did to you… I failed her. I failed you.” “If her heart hadn’t failed… if we didn’t need the money… you wouldn’t have had to sell your life to Cole Kensington…” “I ruined your life, my sweet girl…” With every word, the monitors around her beeped more frantically, her lungs fighting for air. I wiped the tears slipping down her sunken cheeks, forcing my voice to stay soft and steady. “No, no, please don’t say that. I chose to marry him. You didn’t force me. Please, don’t carry this.” “If you hadn’t taken me in when I had nothing, I would have died on the streets. I owe you everything.” She just cried harder, her chest heaving. “We dragged you down to hell with us… and now my own flesh and blood does this to you… I am so sorry, Hedy.” “Listen to me… I called Arthur… I told him to let you go. Divorce him, Hedy. Go find a beautiful life… you don’t have to suffer anymore…” My vision blurred completely. I forced a bright, trembling smile. “I’m not suffering. Being Mrs. Kensington is great. The money, the clothes… it’s a good life.” She stared at me for a long time, the heartbreak evident in her eyes. Finally, she turned her head away. After a long, suffocating silence, she whispered, “Hedy… can you bring my daughter to see me? Just once?” I nodded frantically. “Yes. I’ll get her.” But my calls went straight to voicemail. I dialed Cole. Nothing. In a panic, I called Cole’s executive assistant. The assistant hesitated before admitting, “Mr. Kensington took Ms. Montgomery on a private jet to Iceland. To see the Northern Lights.” The phone slipped from my ear. The tears I had been fighting finally broke, spilling over my cheeks in hot, silent waves. Mrs. Montgomery saw my face. She knew. She let out a soft, hollow laugh. “It’s alright. Don’t punish yourself anymore, my sweet girl. You don’t owe us anything anymore…” She closed her eyes. And she never opened them again. I collapsed over her bed, weeping until my ribs felt like they were shattering. After Mrs. Montgomery’s funeral, Grandpa Arthur sent his private security to drag Cole and Paige back from Iceland. In the great hall of the Kensington estate, the air was thick with terror. I stood in the corner, completely numb. Cole was forced to his knees on the Persian rug. Paige had been banished to the cemetery to sit by the grave. Grandpa Arthur stood over Cole, gripping his heavy, silver-tipped mahogany cane. He raised it and brought it down across Cole’s shoulders with a sickening crack. In the past, whenever Arthur lost his temper and struck Cole, I would throw myself over him. I had taken those hits to my own back to protect him. Today, I stood by the wall, watching the man I loved take a beating, and I felt absolutely nothing. Grandpa Arthur, seeing that I didn’t even flinch to defend Cole, realized the truth. My spirit was utterly broken. I was gone. Panting, leaning heavily on the cane, Arthur looked down at his bleeding, bruised grandson. “Tomorrow,” the old man rasped. “You will sign the divorce papers.” Cole, slumped on the floor, snapped his head up. Shock rippled through his dark eyes. Then, his face contorted into pure, venomous rebellion. “I absolutely will not! Who gave her the right to just walk away when she feels like it?!” Arthur brought the cane down again. “You don’t get a choice! You tore that girl’s heart to shreds, and you think she’s ever going to look at you again?!” I stepped forward and bowed my head to the old man. “Thank you, Arthur.” The patriarch sighed, suddenly looking his age. “My boy failed you, Hedy. Go.” I picked up the suitcase I had packed days ago, and I walked out the door.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “409889”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

For three years, I was the ghost in the rehearsal studio. Three years of dancing in the background until the synovial fluid in my knees practically screamed with every drop. In the glittering, cutthroat ecosystem of GIRLZ—America’s biggest pop ensemble—I was the understudy. The invisible filler. Meanwhile, our frontwoman, Valentina, was the undisputed golden girl. The ace. The center of gravity. I was the girl whose name the fans never bothered to learn. Until the night she went on a live stream and playfully called out to her trust-fund billionaire boyfriend: “Patricia, if I dance a solo just for you on our Comeback Special…” “Would you marry me?” I thought it was a PR stunt. A joke for the timeline. It wasn’t until the night of the live network broadcast—when Valentina deliberately missed her cue, derailed the entire choreography, and hijacked the biggest stage of our careers to turn it into her personal bridal shower—that I realized she was dead serious. Watching her drop to one knee as the final confetti fell, screaming into her glittering mic, “Patricia, marry me!”… The director froze. The label executives froze. I froze. Wow. So the stage was just a cheap hotel room for their romance, wasn’t it? 1 My earpiece cracked with the panicked, pitchy voice of my bandmate. “The count! The count is off! What the hell is Valentina doing?!” I stood in the heavy shadows of stage left, my breathing perfectly regulated, watching the trainwreck unfold under the brutal glare of the spotlights. Out there, wearing a custom Swarovski crystal bodice, was Valentina. This Comeback Special was supposed to be our redemption arc, the performance that secured our number one debut on the Billboard charts. Instead, she intentionally dragged the tempo down by two whole eight-counts. She didn’t even glance over her shoulder to check our marks. She just let the backup dancers crash into each other, unraveling three months of grueling, blood-sweat-and-tears rehearsal, twisting our lead single into her own self-indulgent solo act. “Oh my god! Valentina is serving!” her solo stans shrieked from the front rows. Behind her, the rest of us lost our formation. We were scrambling like birds hitting a glass window. “Hold the line! Hold it!” Natalie, our group captain, pleaded through the internal mic, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Val, hit your mark! The chorus is coming!” Valentina didn’t hit her mark. She stood dead center on the hydraulic lift, slowly raising her arms, completely indifferent to the four of us scrambling desperately behind her to save the visual. Instead, she looked up at the VIP suites on the mezzanine and flashed a perfect, manicured heart sign. Cut. The track died instantly. We all froze in our broken, asymmetrical positions. The curtain dropped. The live feed was killed. We blew it. We blew the prime-time slot that was supposed to put GIRLZ back on the map. A suffocating silence fell over the arena. Thousands of our fans stared in sheer disbelief at the massive flashing “NG” (No Good) sign on the teleprompters. By the director’s monitors, our manager, Carmen, shot up from her chair. Her usually composed, Botox-smooth face was flushed a dangerous, mottled red. Next to me, Natalie had both hands pressed over her face, her shoulders shaking violently. Only Valentina—the architect of this disaster—seemed perfectly fine. She smoothed down her skirt and stood up with an elegant, practiced grace. There was no panic in her eyes. No guilt. Only a radiant, triumphant smirk. Ignoring us, ignoring Carmen, she strutted right to the edge of the stage, raised her mic, and yelled a name toward the VIP boxes. “Patricia Sullivan!” A spotlight aggressively whipped up to the second level. There he was: her tech-heir boyfriend, swirling a glass of champagne, looking down at her with an insufferable, indulgent grin. “Patricia,” Valentina purred, gazing up at him, her voice echoing through the stadium-grade speakers. “They say a Grammy is every pop star’s dream.” She paused for dramatic effect. “But tonight, I wanted to trade my solo for a chance to ask you a question. Will you marry me?” The arena erupted. The stunned silence shattered, replaced by a seismic wave of pure, unadulterated rage. “Where’s your professionalism?! This is the center we voted for?!” “Disband GIRLZ!” “Get off the stage, Valentina!” The screams, the crying, the piercing mockery from rival fandoms—it all mashed into a deafening roar that felt like it would tear the roof off the stadium. Carmen was shaking so hard she ripped her headset off and threw it against a flight case. But Valentina? She was still living in her own romantic comedy. She blew a theatrical kiss up to Patricia in the mezzanine. She thought she was the queen of the world. She didn’t realize that a crown only takes a fraction of a second to hit the floor. And me? I had waited exactly three years for that fraction of a second. 2 The ride back to the label in the black SUV was a nightmare. Furious fans had barricaded the alley. Glow sticks and torn posters battered the tinted windows like hail. A teenage girl wearing a GIRLZ varsity jacket was sobbing hysterically, pounding her fists against the door panel, screaming the word, “Traitor.” Inside the car, it was like a morgue. Natalie sat with her chin practically touching her chest, entirely mute. Carmen’s phone hadn’t stopped buzzing since we got in. She kept her voice to a furious, raspy whisper, repeating the same phrase over and over to whatever executive was screaming on the other end: “I know. I know. I’ll handle it.” Only Valentina was relaxed. She had her oversized Prada sunglasses on, leaning her head against the headrest, trying to catch a nap as if the riot outside was just bad weather. When the SUV finally crept into the underground garage of Apex Entertainment, we practically ran to the dressing rooms. But before we even reached our lockers, we heard the noise coming from Valentina’s private suite. It wasn’t arguing. It was a party. Mia, our youngest member, kicked the door open and held up her phone, her face ashen. “Look at this. They’re on IG Live.” On the screen, Valentina and Patricia were draped over each other, a massive “She Said Yes” cake sitting on the vanity in front of them. The chat was scrolling so fast it was a blur of profanity and broken heart emojis. Valentina pouted at the camera, her eyes strategically misty, her voice dripping with sugar. “Guys, please stop being so mean to me. I just love him so much!” She giggled. “Chart positions come and go, but I can only give him a surprise like this once in a lifetime.” Patricia pulled her closer, sneering at the camera. “You haters don’t know a damn thing about romance,” he scoffed. “Without my girl here, GIRLZ wouldn’t even chart. The label will slap her with a fine, and that’ll be it. What are you losers gonna do about it?” He actually raised his champagne flute to the lens. “To our love, babe. And to the future of GIRLZ. Which, let’s be honest, rests on Valentina’s shoulders.” “That bastard,” Natalie hissed, slamming her fist so hard against a makeup table that her knuckles instantly bruised. I didn’t say a word. I just turned on my heel and walked toward the rehearsal studios. For three years, I had spent practically every waking hour in there. That room offered me a peace the dressing room never could. Just as I rounded the corner, Valentina’s door swung open. She was probably heading out for a touch-up. She was still wearing her custom hoodie with her name rhinestoned across the back, that same smug, victorious smile plastered on her face. She spotted me, paused, and then sauntered over, deliberately blocking the hallway. “Well, if it isn’t our perpetual backup, Harper.” She looked me up and down, her eyes assessing me the way one might look at a harmless, slightly pathetic stray dog. She reached out and tapped my shoulder with two manicured fingers. It was a deeply, intentionally degrading gesture. “Stop walking around looking like you’re at a funeral. You always act like the world owes you something.” She leaned in, her voice dripping with mockery. “Did you enjoy the view from the shadows tonight?” I kept my mouth shut. I just looked at her. My utter lack of reaction seemed to bore her. She pulled her hand back and scoffed. “Backups should act like backups. Watch and learn, sweetheart.” She adjusted the hem of her designer skirt, throwing one last look over her shoulder. “Get this through your head: I am the cash cow of this label. This little ‘incident’? They’ll slap my wrist and buy me a drink. Nobody touches my center spot.” She turned and headed back to her room. Right at that moment, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from Carmen. Two words. My office. 3 I didn’t look back at Valentina. I walked straight down the corridor to the corner office. When I pushed the door open, the heavy stench of dark roast coffee and stale nicotine hit me like a wall. Carmen was sitting alone behind her massive mahogany desk, the ashtray beside her laptop overflowing. She looked like she had aged a decade in the last two hours. She looked up, her eyes mapped with broken red veins, and pointed a manicured finger at the leather chair across from her. “Sit.” I pulled the chair out and sat down. Silence stretched between us. The only sound was the faint crackle of her slim cigarette burning down to the filter. Finally, she crushed it out, her voice rough like sandpaper. “The board had an emergency meeting.” She paused, staring right through me. “Valentina is done.” I didn’t flinch. I just listened. “The fallout is catastrophic. Our three biggest brand partners called in the last hour to sever ties. The fan forums are completely mobilized against her, and the network executives are threatening litigation.” Carmen’s voice carried a dangerous, exhausted edge. “No one can save her this time.” “The label is terminating her contract. Effective immediately.” “Legal has already compiled the evidence of her breach of contract. We’re filing it with the industry union by morning.” Carmen opened a drawer and pulled out a thick stack of legal documents, sliding them across the desk. The top sheet was a Notice of Termination. “This is her death sentence. A breach penalty so massive she’ll be paying it off until she’s sixty, and… a total industry blackball.” Every word fell like a gavel, nailing Valentina’s coffin shut. Then, Carmen reached into a separate, sleek black folder. She pulled out a pristine, freshly printed contract and laid it directly on top of the termination notice, perfectly covering Valentina’s name. “And this,” Carmen said softly, “is yours.” “GIRLZ. Lead vocalist. Center.” I lifted my eyes and met her gaze. I didn’t ask a single question. I didn’t offer a single breathless ‘thank you.’ For three years, for over a thousand nights of bleeding through my pointe shoes in an empty studio, I had been preparing for this exact second. I picked up the heavy silver pen from her desk, uncapped it, and signed my name on the dotted line with steady, deliberate strokes. Harper. Carmen let out a long, ragged exhale, as if a physical weight had been lifted off her chest. She leaned back in her chair, watching me closely. “We aren’t notifying Valentina just yet,” she murmured. “Let her keep living in her little fantasy world for a bit.” She pulled my contract across the desk and tucked it away, her eyes suddenly hardening with a terrifying intensity. “We have a three-month blackout period to do damage control. She’s going to think everything is business as usual. But you…” She leaned forward, enunciating every syllable. “You have exactly three months to become a star ten thousand times brighter than she ever was.” 4 When the office door clicked shut behind me, it locked the absurd, chaotic world outside. For the next three months, Apex Entertainment fell into an eerie, suffocating calm. During the blackout period, the label sent the rest of the girls home to rest. The sprawling, multi-story rehearsal complex was a ghost town, populated only by me and a handful of essential staff. Valentina and Patricia became forbidden words in the building. Nobody spoke them. But I saw her everywhere. My feed was choked with her updates: scuba diving in Cabo one day, kissing under the Eiffel Tower the next. Flexing a limited-edition Birkin, flashing a diamond the size of a quail egg. She was still floating on her artificial cloud, soaking up the tabloid attention and the intoxicating rush of new money, completely oblivious. The label hadn’t called her once. I, on the other hand, bolted myself inside Studio A. Fourteen hours a day, high-impact training. From eight in the morning until long past midnight. The scuffed hardwood and the wall-to-wall mirrors were the only witnesses to my existence. The heavy bass vibrating through the floorboards was my entire universe. I dissected every microscopic detail of my body mechanics. I studied the stage presence of every legendary frontwoman in pop history. I engineered my formations, my eye contact, my micro-expressions down to the millisecond. Physical exhaustion was entirely eclipsed by a manic, adrenaline-fueled high. I could feel it in my bones. I was molting. I was becoming something lethal. Occasionally, around 2 AM, Carmen would push the studio door open. She’d stand in the shadows, silently watching me run the new lead track from the top. Then she’d leave a bottle of electrolyte water by the door and walk out without a word. Three months dissolved into the rhythm of the metronome. Slowly, the cracks in Valentina’s facade began to show. Her follower count started hemorrhaging. Without the halo of the stage, the “hopeless romantic” persona soured fast. The comments shifted from #CoupleGoals to God, is she still posting this guy? and finally, to utter apathy. She started to panic. The launch for our new single was approaching, and she still hadn’t received a rehearsal schedule. Carmen had stopped answering her calls. It was a Tuesday afternoon. I was deep in a brutal cardiovascular dance drill when the studio door violently slammed open. A wave of cloying, expensive perfume and raw entitlement flooded the room. I didn’t stop moving. I kept the rhythm, but in the mirror, I watched the reflection of the intruder. “Well. Look who’s still here.” Her voice was shrill, dripping with that trademark arrogance. The backup dancers froze in their tracks. The music pumped on, but the room went dead silent. Heavy footsteps marched right toward me, stopping directly behind my back. I could feel a blistering, judgmental stare burning a hole between my shoulder blades. She was looking down at the floor. Specifically, at the metallic gold star taped to the hardwood. The center mark. The throne. A second later, a hand clamped down on my bicep, violently yanking me backward. Valentina’s perfectly contoured face was suddenly inches from mine, twisted in ugly, unmasked fury. “Who the hell told you you could stand on my mark?!” she shrieked. I stumbled slightly from the force of her pull, but my core was iron. I let the momentum carry me into a clean, improvised pivot, landing perfectly balanced on both feet. Only then did I slowly lift my chin and look her dead in the eyes. “This spot,” I said, my voice perfectly level over the pulsing bass. “Has been mine for three months.”

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It was during a game of Truth or Dare that Valerie decided to drop the bomb. “Actually, the night before our wedding, Cameron and I checked into a hotel together.” In a heartbeat, the air was sucked out of the room. Every pair of eyes shifted to me, heavy with a suffocating, pitying weight. Valerie leaned back against the plush leather of the VIP booth sofa, nursing her drink. She looked completely at ease, just waiting for me to lose my mind. Instead, I gave a calm, measured nod. “I have something I’ve been keeping from you, too,” I said. “I have a daughter. She’s seven.” 1 The private room went dead silent. You could have heard a pin drop. It took a long, agonizing moment before Brooke, Valerie’s self-appointed best friend, scrambled to break the tension. “Nathan… God, Nate, Val is just messing around,” Brooke laughed, a shrill, nervous sound. “Your joke isn’t exactly funny, either.” I cut her off. “I’m not joking.” Valerie shifted. Her posture straightened, and that smug, playful glint in her eyes began to freeze over. “Nathan,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, warning register. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying right now?” Right on cue, Cameron leaned a fraction closer to Valerie. He had that soft, almost fragile cadence down to a science. “Nate,” Cameron murmured, his eyes big and earnest. “I know you’re in a bad mood tonight, but you really shouldn’t joke about something like that. If what Val said upset you… I’m so sorry. I apologize on her behalf.” As he spoke, the rims of his eyes turned a delicate shade of pink. The perfect picture of the long-suffering victim. Watching his little performance, I actually let out a genuine laugh. “I’m not joking, and I’m not in a bad mood. It’s just that listening to you two talk about the past reminded me that it’s probably time I came clean about a few things, too.” Valerie let out a sharp scoff, slamming her cocktail glass down on the glass table. The ice clinked violently. “Nathan, if you can’t handle the game, just leave. There’s no need to say this kind of garbage just to get a rise out of me.” “Exactly,” Cameron chimed in, perfectly synchronized. “Whatever happened between Val and me, it’s in the past. If it really bothers you, I can explain everything. You don’t need to invent some imaginary kid just to throw a tantrum.” I met Valerie’s stare head-on. “I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m not lying. I have a child. A seven-year-old girl.” This time, even Brooke’s nervous smile vanished. The rest of the friends in the booth, who had been aggressively pretending to look at their phones, snapped their heads up. Their gazes darted back and forth between Valerie and me like they were watching a tennis match. Valerie’s face cycled through a spectrum of emotions before settling into a cruel, mocking smirk. “Seven? Nathan, we’ve been married for six years. Care to tell me where exactly you conjured up a seven-year-old daughter?” “She was born before the wedding,” I said simply. “Impossible,” she hissed, her jaw tight. “I’ve known you for eight years. You think you could hide a kid from me?” But I saw the flicker in her eyes. The anger was morphing into suspicion, and the suspicion was curdling into something darker, something deeply unsettled. I could practically see the gears turning in her head, frantically scanning the last eight years for any blind spots, any missing hours. Sensing the shift in the atmosphere, Cameron decided to intervene. “Well, Nate, if you really have a kid, why don’t you bring her around?” He tilted his head, flashing a sweet, innocent smile. “We’d love to meet our new little niece.” There was a faint, taunting edge to his mouth. He thought he was calling my bluff. “There’s no need,” I said flatly. “Why not?” Cameron pressed, his tone dripping with fake concern. “Is she shy? Or…” Or does she not exist? He left the implication hanging in the air. “She has no desire to know people like you,” I said. Cameron’s smile shattered. Valerie stared at me, a violent storm brewing in her dark eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but for once, the words failed her. 2 Brooke leaped to her feet, practically vibrating with forced cheer. “Okay, wow! Let’s… let’s keep playing! Come on, guys, it’s rare we all get together. Let’s not kill the vibe!” She grabbed an empty vodka bottle from the table, rolling it between her palms. “Next round! Nobody be a buzzkill!” She spun the bottle. It clattered against the glass table, slowing down until the neck pointed dead center at Cameron. “Truth or dare?” Brooke asked, breathless. Cameron glanced at Valerie, then shot a hesitant look at me. He bit his lower lip. “Dare.” Brooke pulled a slip of paper from the bowl. She cleared her throat. “Share a chocolate pretzel stick with someone of the opposite sex. You have to eat it until your lips are less than half an inch apart!” The booth erupted into immediate, rowdy cheering. Cameron’s face flushed a deep, becoming red. He turned to Valerie, his eyes swimming with a perfectly calculated mix of helplessness and quiet anticipation. Valerie, however, was still staring at me. Unblinking. I broke eye contact, picked up my glass of club soda, and took a slow sip. Three, maybe four seconds ticked by. Then, I heard Valerie let out an irritated, dismissive click of her tongue. A plastic wrapper tore open. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her place one end of a chocolate-coated stick between her teeth. She turned her body, leaning heavily into Cameron’s space. The catcalls and whistles from their friends grew louder. I set my glass down. My eyes traced the shrinking distance between them. Valerie held the biscuit in her mouth, leaning further in. Cameron’s face was flushed, his head tilted back slightly, his eyelashes fluttering like a baby bird waiting to be fed. The stick got shorter. And shorter. When they reached that final half-inch, Valerie didn’t stop. Cameron let out a soft, muffled gasp as her mouth crushed against his. The VIP room went absolutely feral. People were clapping, howling, and Brooke even whipped out her iPhone to start recording. “Holy shit, Val is going for it!” “Look at Cam, he’s melting!” “It’s been almost a minute, damn!” I sat there, watching their performance with the detached clinical interest of an outsider. Valerie’s hand slid to the back of Cameron’s neck, pulling him deeper into her. Cameron melted against her, his fingers bunching the fabric of her silk blouse like it was a life preserver in a stormy sea. One minute and three seconds. I picked up the highball glass in front of me and stood up. Nobody noticed. All their attention was glued to the center of the booth, where the two of them were completely lost in each other. I stepped around the low table and walked right up to them. Cameron opened his eyes first. His pupils dilated in sheer panic. Before he could even flinch, I threw the entire glass of ice water directly into his face. “Ah—!” The freezing liquid splashed over his delicate features, ice cubes bouncing off his cheekbones, water plastering his perfectly styled hair to his forehead. Valerie shoved him away instantly. Water dripped from her chin, a massive dark stain spreading across the front of her expensive silk blouse. The screaming in the booth stopped. Complete, suffocating silence. Cameron curled into Valerie’s side, trembling violently. Drops of water clung to his eyelashes. He looked incredibly pathetic. He bit his lip, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, but he didn’t dare say a word. Valerie looked up at me. The strange thing was, there was no rage in her eyes. Instead, there was a twisted sense of relief. “Valerie,” I said, my voice sounding completely steady, almost foreign to my own ears. “We’re getting a divorce.” I turned on my heel and walked toward the door. “Nate, wait!” Brooke was the first to scramble up, throwing herself in my path. The rest of the group stood up in a panicked wave. “Nate, don’t do this,” Brooke pleaded, holding her arms out. “It’s just a stupid game! Val’s had too much to drink, please don’t take it seriously!” “Yeah, come on, man,” one of the guys chimed in. “We’re all friends here. People get a little wild, it’s normal. You storming out just makes you look insecure.” “Exactly. It’s just Cam. We’ve known him forever. It’s not like he’s a stranger.” I looked at Brooke and smiled. “I hope, when you get married, your husband finds a female friend he can aggressively make out with in public.” Brooke froze, the color draining from her face. “And the rest of you,” I said, sweeping my gaze over the room. “I wish you all partners who have a ‘best friend’ they can just passionately kiss during party games. You deserve exactly what you’re defending.” The smug expressions in the room evaporated. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Nathan?” one of them snapped. “Brooke is trying to help your marriage and you’re cursing us?” I didn’t bother replying. I pushed Brooke’s arm aside and walked out the door. Rapid footsteps echoed behind me. “Nathan!” Valerie’s hand clamped down on my wrist. Her grip was brutal, her nails digging into my skin. She yanked me around. In the dim, moody lighting of the club hallway, half her face was cast in shadow, making her expression unreadable. “Let go of me, Val,” I said. She didn’t. “Nathan,” she said, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “I am going to ask you one last time. The kid. Is it real?” I was exhausted. Bone-deep tired. Was I speaking a different language, or were they all just incapable of basic comprehension? “She is real. I can show you the DNA test whenever you want,” I cut in. Valerie let out a bitter, jagged laugh. “People fake DNA tests all the time.” Looking at her, a strange sense of dark amusement washed over me. Six years of marriage, and in her eyes, I was still just a man desperate enough to invent a secret child to make her jealous. To provoke her. To beg for her attention. “Believe whatever you want,” I said, wrenching my arm out of her grasp. “We’re getting a divorce either way.” This time, she didn’t follow me. As the elevator doors slid shut, the last thing I saw was Valerie standing alone in the dark hallway, one hand buried in her damp hair, pulling at the roots. The elevator descended. I leaned my head against the cool metal wall, my mind drifting back to our wedding day, six years ago. When we exchanged vows, Valerie had held my hands, her eyes bright with tears, promising she would protect my heart for the rest of our lives. Sitting in the front row, my father-in-law had been weeping like a baby. Later at the reception, Arthur had pulled me aside, gripping my shoulder. Nate, son, he’d said, if my Valerie ever breaks your heart, you tell me. I’ll break her legs. Back then, I really believed I was marrying for love. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Arthur. I stared at the caller ID for several long seconds before swiping to answer. “Nate, my boy,” Arthur’s warm, gravelly voice echoed through the speaker. “It’s the weekend tomorrow. You and Val coming over for dinner? I’m slow-roasting a brisket, and I picked up that maple pecan pie from the bakery you love.” I closed my eyes, the cold elevator wall grounding me. “Arthur,” I paused, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I have some things to take care of tomorrow. I don’t think I can make it.” “Sunday, then? You can’t be busy the whole weekend!” “I have plans Sunday, too.” “Nate…” Arthur’s voice dropped, turning cautious. “Did you and Val have a fight?” I didn’t answer. The elevator reached the lobby with a soft ding, the doors sliding open to the chaotic noise of the street. “No, Arthur,” I said, walking out into the night. “Work is just really crazy right now.” There was a long stretch of static on the line before Arthur let out a heavy sigh. “Nate, listen to me. I know my girl can be reckless sometimes, but she loves you. She really does. Whatever it is, talk it out. Don’t let it fester.” The night breeze hit my face, sharp and cold. “Arthur,” I interrupted him gently. “I really have to go. Goodnight.” I hung up before he could say another word. Standing on the curb, I watched the blur of headlights rushing past. My phone vibrated again. A voice message on iMessage from Mia’s teacher. I held the phone to my ear. A sweet, high-pitched voice flooded the speaker. “Daddy! Are you coming to the parent-teacher thing tomorrow? My teacher said we could bring our paintings, and I painted you!” I listened to it twice. Then I typed back: I’ll be there. 3 I was Valerie’s white whale. Her ultimate prize. She chased me for years. It took a long time before I finally let my guard down and agreed to marry her. After the wedding, she treated me like royalty. She would have given me the moon if I asked for it. At least, for the first year, that’s what everyone told me, and that’s what I believed. But three months into our marriage, I was taking her blazer to the dry cleaners and found a Polaroid tucked into the inner breast pocket. It was a picture of a boy. Early twenties, wearing a crisp white linen shirt, smiling brilliantly under a large oak tree. That face paralyzed me for several seconds. He looked exactly like me. The shape of his eyes, the slope of his nose. The way his smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. It was a mirror image of a younger me. I put the photo back. I didn’t say a word. But I started paying attention. I noticed how Valerie always put her phone face down. I noticed that when she was in the shower, her phone would buzz with texts from a contact saved simply as “Cam.” Cameron. I finally met him six months into our marriage, at a dinner party. He arrived trailing behind some of Valerie’s friends, slipping into a corner seat, quiet and unassuming. Someone introduced him. “This is Cameron.” He stood up to greet everyone. When his eyes landed on me, he paused just a fraction of a second. Then he smiled. A bright, meticulously polite smile. “Hi, Nate.” In that exact moment, I understood why that Polaroid was hidden in her suit pocket. He was younger than me. Softer than me. And he knew exactly how to look at Valerie with big, tear-filled eyes. And Valerie? From the second he walked through the door, she hadn’t looked at me once. 4 The first time I caught them kissing was eight months after the wedding. It was Valerie’s birthday. We threw a massive catered party at our house. I was running around playing the perfect host, refilling glasses and making small talk. It wasn’t until the cake was being brought out that I realized Valerie was missing. I went to check the second-floor balcony. When I pushed the glass door open, I saw two silhouettes pressed together against the railing. Cameron had his back arched over the balustrade, his hands clutching Valerie’s shoulders. Valerie had her hand buried in his hair, kissing him with a desperate, consuming hunger. The moonlight washed over their faces. Cameron’s eyes were closed, his eyelashes trembling beautifully. I stood in the doorway. The silver cake server I was holding slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the hardwood floor. They broke apart. Cameron saw me, and the blood instantly drained from his face. He scrambled behind Valerie like a frightened child. Valerie spun around. For a split second, there was sheer panic in her eyes, but she ruthlessly buried it. “Nathan,” she said, taking a step toward me. “Listen to me—” I didn’t listen. I turned around, walked down the hall, and went straight into our master bedroom. I opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out our framed wedding photo. It was a heavy, solid mahogany frame. I lifted it above my head and smashed it onto the floor with everything I had. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces. The photograph ripped right down the middle, perfectly severing Valerie and me. The guests downstairs heard the crash and came rushing up, crowding the doorway in shocked silence. By the time Valerie sprinted into the room, I was already destroying the crystal figurines on her desk. The first gift she ever gave me. The souvenirs from our honeymoon in Paris. The expensive colognes she bought me. Anything I could lift, I threw. She lunged at me, wrapping her arms around my torso from behind, locking me in a vice grip. “Nathan! Stop it! That’s enough!” I couldn’t break free. I just stood there, chest heaving, gasping for air. She turned me around, her eyes red and pleading. “I cut him off,” she swore, her voice trembling. “I swear to God, Nate, it’s over.” I looked at her, and suddenly, I started to laugh. Why was it that she was the one who cheated, but I was the one standing here looking completely unhinged? That night, she sat on the floor beside my side of the bed until dawn. I didn’t let her under the covers, and she didn’t try to leave. When the sun came up, I opened my eyes to see her asleep, her head resting on the edge of the mattress, her brow furrowed, one hand still desperately gripping the corner of my blanket. I stared at her for a long time. Then, slowly, I reached out and brushed a piece of hair away from her face. I thought, maybe, just maybe, she would actually change. 5 Three months later, Cameron was kneeling on my foyer floor. I was home alone that afternoon. The doorbell rang, and when I opened it, there he was. He was wearing an oversized sweater, his face ghastly pale, his eyes swollen from crying. He walked inside, dropped to his knees on the imported tile, and looked up at me. “Nate,” he choked out. “I know I shouldn’t be here, but I have nowhere else to go…” I stared down at him. I didn’t say a word. His trembling hands reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He offered it up to me like a sacrifice. A clinical ultrasound report. Patient: Valerie Hayes. Diagnosis: Early intrauterine pregnancy. Approximately 6 weeks.

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Before my mother passed away, she locked me into a marriage of convenience. The bride was Victoria Kensington, Wall Street’s most ruthless private equity queen. Before saying “I do,” I sat across from her and laid down three ground rules: One: No catching feelings. We are strictly in this for the dividends. Two: We maintain an open arrangement. You live your life, I live mine. Three: If the actual love of your life ever comes knocking, I will quietly step aside—provided my buyout clause is doubled. Victoria was highly satisfied with my pragmatism. That is, until the afternoon a teenage girl, sharing seventy percent of Victoria’s striking bone structure, knocked on the door of our Upper East Side townhouse and looked at me with dead-calm eyes. “You must be my uncle by marriage,” she said. “I’m Victoria’s secret daughter. I just turned seventeen.” 1 I stared at her for two solid seconds. My first thought: Damn, Victoria is good at hiding the skeletons in her walk-in closet. My second thought: A rapid mental scroll through our prenuptial agreement. What was rule number three again? Ah, right. If true love knocks, I take double the settlement and vanish. I instantly stepped aside, pulling the door wide open. My tone was pure concierge. “Come on in. She’s still at the office. Take a seat—what can I get you to drink?” The girl clearly hadn’t anticipated this reaction. She blinked, the hardened edge in her posture slipping. “You’re… not mad?” Mad? Why would I be mad? I was practically praying for Victoria to have a scandalous affair. Slip me my thirty million dollar exit package, and I’d be on the first flight to the Amalfi Coast to live out my billionaire bachelor dreams. I watched her take off her sneakers. At seventeen, she was tall and graceful. She had Victoria’s piercing eyes, but her aura was entirely different. Softer. Cleaner. “What’s your name?” I asked. “Mia.” I pulled a bottle of sparkling water from the Sub-Zero fridge and handed it to her, offering my most reassuring smile. “Listen, Mia. Your mom and I are in a contractual marriage. A mutually beneficial merger. Her private life is her business. I have absolutely no right to be angry.” Mia gripped the cold glass bottle. Her throat worked, but she didn’t say another word. I sat in the armchair across from her, letting the expanse of the marble coffee table act as a buffer. God, they really do look alike. It brought me back to three years ago. The smell of antiseptic in the hospice room. My mother, taking her last, ragged breaths, gripping Victoria’s hand and begging her to look after me. The Kensington family owed my mother a life debt, and Victoria paid it off with a wedding ring. The night before we went to City Hall, she slid a leather-bound prenup across the mahogany table. I skimmed the legalese, held up three fingers, and gave her my terms. “One: No feelings, just the financial dividends. Two: Discretion, but total freedom. You do you, I do me. Three: The day your soulmate shows up, I pack my bags, but my alimony doubles.” She didn’t even blink. She clicked her Montblanc pen and signed. “Acceptable.” From start to finish, the word love was never spoken. After the wedding, we occupied separate wings of the house. We ate at different times. She spent twenty days out of the month flying between London, Tokyo, and Dubai. During the ten days she was actually in New York, I saw her less than her executive assistant did. Three years ago, on the steps of City Hall, she walked in first. Signed the papers. Got the stamp. She never once looked back at me. It didn’t feel like a wedding. It felt like the closing of a corporate acquisition. 2 When Victoria finally walked through the door that evening, I was curled up on the velvet sofa, binge-watching a reality dating show. The sharp click of her Louboutins paused right behind the couch. Two seconds ticked by. I clicked the volume up two notches and kept my eyes glued to the screen. She didn’t head upstairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her standing perfectly still. The weight of her stare was a physical pressure against the back of my neck. “Who did you speak to today?” she asked. I hit pause, sat up straight, and gave her my most professional nod. “News travels fast on Wall Street, doesn’t it? A very pretty teenager stopped by. Said she was your daughter. I have to say, your NDA game is incredibly strong.” The air in the room went dead quiet. Her expression didn’t shift. But she didn’t deny it, either. “I will handle this,” she said finally. I nodded, standing up from the sofa. As I walked past her, brushing close enough to smell the faint trace of her expensive sandalwood perfume, I paused. “Great. Just let me know whenever you need me to cooperate with the divorce proceedings.” I hesitated, then couldn’t resist twisting the knife just a little. “I assume you remember the clause about the double payout, right?” She looked down at me. Her eyes were dark, stormy, and impossibly heavy. I waited a beat. The atmosphere suddenly felt suffocatingly thick, so I spun around and made a quick retreat up the stairs. Once my bedroom door clicked shut, I leaned my back against the wood, staring up at the modern chandelier. All this time, she was ‘traveling for business.’ Twenty days a month. I honestly thought our marriage was as blank and sterile as a sheet of printer paper. Turns out, she’s had the love of her life tucked away somewhere, and even managed to produce an heir. I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened my banking app. That initial pre-wedding wire transfer was sitting right there in my asset portfolio. Ten million dollars. Double that… twenty million. Wait. She hid a whole child for seventeen years. That constitutes marital fraud, right? Asking for a clean twenty-five million wouldn’t be out of line. 3 At 1:30 in the morning, I was still staring at the ceiling, violently awake. After debating with myself for twenty minutes, I opened my contacts and found David Gallagher – Attorney. I’d added him three years ago when we signed the prenup. His profile picture was a Golden Retriever. I opened the chat. Type. Delete. Type. Delete. Finally, I hit send: Hey David. Quick legal hypothetical. Feel free to ignore if it’s too late. He replied instantly: I’m awake. Shoot. Impressive billing hours. I carefully considered my wording. Hypothetically speaking. I have a buddy. His wife had a kid before they got married and never told him. Okay. That counts as concealing a material fact, right? If his prenup says he gets double alimony if ‘true love’ enters the picture, can he leverage this? What exactly is the wording in your friend’s agreement? I stared at the glowing screen. I couldn’t say it was me. I couldn’t be too specific. If the name Cole Bennett got passed around the Manhattan elite lawyers’ group chats, I’d be laughed out of every country club in the tri-state area. I typed: My friend didn’t sign a prenup. His wife just verbally promised she’d leave with nothing if she cheated. I hit send and immediately cringed at how fake it sounded. The little typing… bubble danced on my screen for a long time. Your friend is very trusting, David finally replied. I choked on a breath. The point isn’t his trusting nature, David. The point is what he’s entitled to now. My thumb hovered over the keyboard. Twenty million. Twenty-five million would be nice. Victoria’s gorgeous face couldn’t buy me a private island, but her money could. He wants a settlement. Ideally double what she has. Does he have any tangible proof that the wife acknowledged the child? I thought of Mia’s face. I thought of Victoria saying, I will handle this. She hadn’t denied it. Does that count as an admission? He says his wife didn’t deny it when confronted. Does that count? Verbal acknowledgment can be argued, but you need recordings, text logs, or a witness. A witness… would I count as a witness? I threw my phone face down onto the mattress. Five seconds later, the screen lit up the dark room. David: Cole, my firm represents the Kensington family, so it’s a conflict of interest for me to take this. But I can refer you to a colleague who specializes in high-net-worth divorces. … I actually laughed out loud at my own stupidity. 4 While I spent the next two days discreetly calling around for divorce attorneys, Mia moved in. I was at the dining table letting a bottle of Cabernet breathe when I heard the front door open. Victoria walked in first, casting a long shadow. The teenager trailed a half-step behind her. Victoria pulled out a chair. “Mia is transferring schools. Until the paperwork clears, she’s staying here.” Oh, wow. Moving the secret daughter right into the primary residence. How long until the mystery lover demands their rightful place on the throne? Divorce. I absolutely had to finalize this divorce. Mentally calculating child support offsets, I casually called out toward the kitchen: “Martha, let’s add two more sides to dinner tonight!” We sat around a spread of six dishes and a soup. I picked up a piece of sweet and sour rib and placed it directly into the bowl of my twenty-five million dollar ticket—I mean, Mia. I gave her my warmest, most attentive smile. “So, you got a new school lined up?” She looked down at the table. “Yeah.” “What grade?” “Junior.” “Are you keeping up with the coursework okay?” Her chopsticks paused mid-air. “It’s fine.” I added a spoonful of sautéed greens to her plate. “It’s getting chilly at night. There are extra down comforters in the guest room closet if you need one.” She didn’t respond, keeping her eyes locked in an intense, silent conversation with her white rice. Victoria didn’t say a word either. They were both emotional brick walls. After dinner, as the plates were cleared, I stood by the kitchen island, slicing oranges. Perfect, symmetrical wedges, fanned out on a white porcelain platter. It was something to do with my hands. Footsteps stopped just behind me. “You’re really not going to ask about my situation? You don’t care that she’s been screwing around behind your back?” Mia’s voice was a little raspy. I placed the last orange slice on the plate. “That is entirely between the two of you. My only job here is to facilitate whatever arrangements Victoria wants to make.” “…You genuinely don’t care at all?” I turned off the faucet. I grabbed a linen towel, drying my hands as I turned to face her with a flawless, impenetrable smile. “Kiddo, this is a contract marriage.” I tossed the towel onto the rack, my smile turning a bit more cynical. “Caring too much would be a breach of contract.” She didn’t push it. Her eyes searched my face, like she was trying to decode a puzzle. But as I picked up the fruit platter to walk out, I froze. Victoria was standing perfectly still in the kitchen doorway. 5 After that night, Victoria’s appearances at the townhouse dropped to near zero. When Martha asked how many places to set for dinner, I told her two. The lady of the house was gone, and somehow, the husband and the illegitimate daughter living in peaceful, domestic harmony didn’t strike anyone as insane. On a Friday afternoon, the lawyer I’d finally hired, Mr. Sterling’s colleague, couriered over a thick envelope. Mr. Bennett, draft of the evidentiary list for the divorce proceedings. Please review. I flipped to page three. Item 7: Female party concealed the existence of a child born out of wedlock during the marriage, constituting a material breach and gross misconduct. “Uncle Cole.” At the sound of Mia’s voice, I casually flipped the folder shut. She was standing by the patio doors, staring at me with laser focus. “What were you just reading?” I placed my phone face down on top of the file. “Work stuff.” She didn’t move an inch. “You’re a liar. Ever since you married Victoria, she’s paid for your entire life. You don’t have a job. Are you divorcing her because of me? You can’t divorce her.” I leaned back. “And why is that?” She turned her back to me, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Because…” Dammit, kid! Don’t leave me hanging! But she just walked away without finishing the sentence. The next morning, she was up at dawn. When I sat on the couch to read the news, she stared at me. When I got up to pour coffee, she hovered by the kitchen threshold. When I went back to the living room, she shadowed me to the armchair. Finally, I snapped my laptop shut. “Mia, is there something structurally wrong with your brain?” She didn’t take the bait, just repeating yesterday’s mantra: “You can’t divorce her.” I narrowed my eyes. “Didn’t you show up here specifically to blow up my marriage by exposing her affair?” She bit her lip. “Well, yes. But…” “Then why the hell are you stopping me from leaving?” She looked at the floor, going completely silent. I sighed, got up, walked into my study, and shut the door in her face with a definitive click. Five minutes later, a piece of paper was shoved under the door gap. It was folded in half, torn from a spiral notebook. The handwriting was pressed so hard the pen had nearly ripped through the paper in two places.

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