Category: English

On the first day we started dating, I confessed to my boyfriend that I had an ex-husband. He breathed a sigh of relief, looking like he wanted to say something but held back. It wasn’t until we signed our marriage license that he confessed he had been hiding two things from me. First, he had secretly investigated my past and knew all about my marriage history long before I told him. Second, he didn’t graduate from an average state college. Just like my ex-husband, he was a Harvard alum. He lied because he was terrified I would reject him if I knew the truth. I was so furious I kicked him out of the apartment that very day. But at midnight, a frantic call from his best friend jolted me awake: “Sister-in-law! Nathan is completely wasted! Hurry up and come to VIP Room 3201 to drag him home!” Swallowing my grogginess and irritation, I pushed open the gold-rimmed doors of the private lounge and pasted on my best professional, fake smile. “Sorry for the interruption. I’m just here to pick up my husband.” The next second, the chaotic noise in the room screeched to a dead halt. Dozens of the city’s brightest elites turned to look at me. Their eyes nailed me to the spot. Sitting dead center was a man in an immaculate suit, his features sharp and freezing cold. He was slowly running his thumb along the rim of his whiskey glass. “…Chloe Thorne?” Someone finally broke the suffocating silence. “This is a Harvard alumni mixer, not a community college shelter.” “Wait, is this the legendary ‘Chloe-ism’ girl? She doesn’t even look like much. Ezra actually tanked a Philosophy final for her, writing ‘Chloe-ism’ instead of ‘Objectivism’ for the entire exam. Almost gave the professor a heart attack.” A roar of mocking laughter erupted in the room. “She schemed her way into her stepbrother’s bed to force a marriage, and now Ezra’s new fiancée is a Yale PhD. How do you even have the nerve to show your face here?” They didn’t know. My ex-husband, Ezra Vance, used to be dead last in our high school class. He grinded his way to the top of the academic ladder, and he did it all for me. But none of that mattered anymore. The past was dead and buried. Facing the searing judgment of the room, I didn’t crumble like they expected. I just calmly said: “I’m not here to celebrate with you elites. I’m here to take my husband home.” Ezra finally lifted his eyes. They were dark and heavy. “Chloe, we divorced three years ago.” I let a genuine, soft smile touch my lips. “I know.” “That’s exactly why I didn’t say I was here to pick you up, Mr. Vance.” “So shameless. Still trying to ride Ezra’s coattails even after the divorce.” A few stifled giggles echoed through the lounge. Carter Hayes lit a cigarette and looked at me lazily. “Never seen someone try so hard to play the other woman.” Carter used to be Ezra’s and my best friend in high school. He used to be the person who treated me second-best in the whole world. But when my marriage with Ezra was falling apart, Carter didn’t hesitate to take Ezra’s side. Because the girl Carter was secretly in love with happened to be the third person in my marriage. And Carter had been helping Ezra hide their affair the entire time. I was the only one kept in the dark, playing the absolute fool from start to finish. “Carter, knock it off,” Ezra snapped coldly, his lips pressed into a tight line. Carter refused to back down, crushing his cigarette in the ashtray with an impatient scowl. “What’s wrong with saying it? An idiot like Chloe Thorne can’t even hold a candle to a brilliant scholar like Valerie.” “Only you would settle for a dummy like her. She dragged you down for years.” Ezra locked eyes with me, his voice dangerously low. “Chloe isn’t stupid.” Chloe isn’t stupid. Hearing that come out of the mouth of a certified genius like Ezra was actually quite comical. But sixteen-year-old Chloe used to believe it. The summer before high school, my mom married Ezra’s dad, blending our broken families. Ezra and I were the same age and ended up at the same public high school. We were even in the same homeroom. He was the worst student in the grade; I was somewhere in the middle. Ezra hated me, so he never spoke a word to me. I’d constantly see him getting into fistfights and ending up in the principal’s office. Then, my mom would have to come to school, bowing her head and absorbing the insults from the administration. One night, I went to the kitchen for water and saw my mom sitting on the couch in the dark, crying. “Clo, what do I have to do to make Ezra accept me?” I didn’t have an answer. I only knew that after that night, my quiet coexistence with Ezra turned into a full-blown war. I put hot sauce in his sodas, poured dirty mop water into his backpack, and spiked his lunches with laxatives. Ezra cornered me and laid down the law: “Got any more tricks? Let me tell you right now, Chloe—if you don’t kill me, I’m going to ruin your mother.” We stayed at each other’s throats for over half a year. I thought I would hate Ezra Vance for the rest of my life. But in the end, he became the only person in the world who truly loved me. Our war ended the night the domestic violence started. Ezra’s dad beat my mom so badly she had to be hospitalized. As the paramedics loaded her into the ambulance, his dad was still screaming abuse at her. “I chased you for two years! You’re nothing but a pretty face! Completely useless!” My mom was nearly forty. She had been spoiled rotten by my biological father for the first half of her life, so she naturally didn’t have any real-world survival skills. When Ezra heard his dad shouting that, his cold, rebellious facade shattered. He stared at me in shock and muttered: “It wasn’t your mom who seduced my dad…” Ezra had hated my mom because he genuinely believed she was the homewrecker who drove his own mother away. It didn’t matter anymore, because after that day, I didn’t have a mother either. When I brought my mom’s favorite white freesias to the hospital, I found out she had run away. She took nothing with her. She didn’t take me, either. Chloe Thorne was homeless. I had nowhere to go. I was wandering the streets in the dead of night when Ezra found me. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked so furious I thought he was going to hit me, so I curled into a tight ball on the sidewalk. Trembling in fear, I suddenly felt his warm arms wrap tightly around me. It was the first time I ever heard him speak so gently. “Chloe, come home with me.” “From now on, I’ll be your whole world.” I took his outstretched hand and held on for dear life. And from that moment on, at sixteen years old, my entire universe consisted of Ezra Vance. After my mom vanished, Ezra’s dad grew even more violent. Afraid I’d get caught in the crossfire, Ezra moved us both out into a tiny, rundown apartment. Life went on, but everything had changed. I stopped causing trouble, and the sharp, angry edges of Ezra’s personality softened into something gentle. He started spending more and more time studying. I couldn’t help but ask him about it. “You used to hate reading. You skipped class all the time.” He looked at me with total seriousness, then helplessly pinched my cheek. “Chloe, I want to give you a better life.” I looked at the tips of his ears, which were blushing red, and nodded hard. I promised myself I would never drag Ezra down. I studied like my life depended on it, but while Ezra miraculously skyrocketed from the bottom of the class to Valedictorian, I was still stuck in the middle of the pack. Ezra would stay up until midnight tutoring me. I stared at the calculus problems and shook my head in despair. He sighed. “Chloe, you really are a dummy.” “But I love how clumsy you are. It’s too cute.” As sleep finally overtook me, my pen slipped from my hand. I mumbled into the desk, “Ezra… can you walk a little slower? I’m never going to catch up to you.” Ezra told me I would never have to chase him. He promised he would wait for me forever. He didn’t keep that promise. Later on, my clumsiness and average mind became the things he despised the most about me. I became a nuisance. “Still not stupid?” Carter toyed with his silver lighter, picking up the conversation in the VIP room. “You worked yourself to the bone tutoring her, and she still only managed to get into some safety-school state college.” I glanced around the room, still not seeing my husband, Nathan. Nathan actually did go to Harvard with Ezra, just in a different college program. They probably wouldn’t hang in the same circles anyway. I figured Nathan must have texted me the wrong room number. I had zero energy to rehash old drama. “Sorry to bother you all,” I said, turning on my heel to leave. I had texted Nathan, but he hadn’t replied, and his phone was going straight to voicemail. I decided to just head home first. Before I could reach the door handle, a hand clamped down on my wrist. “Little sister, forgive me, okay?” Ezra kept his eyes lowered, hiding an emotion I couldn’t read. Little sister. That nickname used to make my face burn. It used to be our favorite forbidden, flirtatious joke, especially since Ezra was usually so rigid and proper. But eventually, that exact “stepbrother/stepsister” dynamic was the weapon used to destroy me. “Ezra, are you addicted to playing the victim?” I shook his hand off, my face blank. “I don’t have a brother.” As the tension in the room thickened, a light scoff shattered the awkwardness. “Chloe, I never expected to see you here.” Valerie clicked over in her designer heels, as haughty and arrogant as ever. In the past, her mere presence would have intimidated me. I used to envy her, look up to her, and feel an uncontrollable wave of inferiority around her. But now, after that wretched history had burned me out entirely, all that was left was total indifference. “Chloe, why don’t you come home with Ezra and me? Your mother misses you so much,” Valerie said sweetly. Even I was surprised by how calmly I replied after three years. “I don’t have a mother.” My stepbrother. My mother. They both chose Valerie. And I threw them away a long time ago, too. Valerie grabbed my wrist, “accidentally” letting her sleeve slip to reveal a vintage emerald bracelet. It was the heirloom Ezra’s mother had left him. I wore that bracelet for ten years. My entire relationship with Ezra only lasted ten years. Carter was right. I really was an idiot. Even with Ezra tutoring me with everything he had, I only barely made it into a state school. Meanwhile, Ezra aced his SATs, became the top scorer in the state, and went to Harvard. We were both in Massachusetts, not too far apart. Even though we couldn’t be together every single day, our lives were tightly woven together. It was the simplest kind of happiness, and a memory I will never be able to fully erase. Ezra was handsome and brilliant. Everyone wanted him. But he gave me absolute security. During college, I visited him on campus all the time. He was so famous that anything he did caused a stir. Eventually, the online campus forums started gossiping that I wasn’t good enough for him. They said I was nothing but a pretty face—no talent, no background, just a beautiful idiot trying to cling to a god. Ezra had already made our relationship public. When he saw those threads, he was furious. He said no one understood how wonderful I was. So, during a massive Philosophy final, he replaced every mention of “Objectivism” with “Chloe-ism.” He nearly failed the class and was publicly reprimanded by the dean for being lovesick. The incident made waves across the entire university. Back then, Ezra wanted the whole world to know I was his girlfriend. But when it came time to actually get married, he said: “Chloe, let’s keep the marriage a secret for now.” “Give me a few years. When I make a real name for myself, I’ll give you the wedding of the century.” I agreed. By our fourth anniversary, Ezra was wildly successful. I never got the dream wedding I was waiting for. Instead, I got his infidelity. On the day of our fourth anniversary, Ezra exploded in a terrifying rage. Because I had “lost” the emerald bracelet he gave me. He stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door. It was the first time in his life he had ever spoken to me with such venom. It was pouring rain outside. I searched every single place I had been to. I eventually remembered the tiny, rundown apartment we lived in during high school. Ezra had actually bought that apartment years later, because the walls were covered with thousands of polaroids from our three years there. The moment I pushed the door open. I saw Ezra pinning another woman to the bed. My scalp went numb. I lost my voice instantly. I knew who she was. Valerie. Ezra had mentioned her before, but barely. At first, he told me her dad essentially forced her into his tech startup, and he thought she was going to be a spoiled nuisance. But later, he started mentioning how capable she was. How brilliant she was. And it was right around that time that Ezra started calling me stupid. Our shared topics dried up. Ezra would always sigh and say: “Can you stop asking? Even if I explained it, you wouldn’t understand.” “Chloe, you’re so dense.” I had genuinely been happy that he found a business partner who clicked with him. But in that apartment, Valerie was wearing my emerald bracelet, staring at me with a triumphant smirk. I had been tortured by guilt, crawling on my hands and knees like a dog looking for that bracelet. I didn’t lose it. Ezra had taken it and handed it to someone else. My ears were ringing. My body lost all its strength. Operating purely on instinct, I grabbed a heavy picture frame off the nightstand and hurled it at them. Ezra shielded Valerie in his arms, his eyes blazing red. “Chloe, you’re out of your mind!” The man who once promised to be my whole world. He shoved me violently to the floor. My hands were covered in bloody glass shards. The photo inside the shattered frame was the first picture Ezra and I ever took together. He had his arms wrapped around me, looking so proud, like he was showing off a prize. But now, the frame was broken, and the eyes of the man standing in front of me were filled with nothing but disgust. Before I could even process the heartbreak, another bomb dropped. “Chloe, can you stop throwing a tantrum? You are suffocating. It’s no wonder your own mother didn’t want you!” It turned out my mother had remarried. She married Valerie’s father. She had spent the last ten years doting on Valerie like her own flesh and blood. My ten years of holding out hope for a family had officially morphed into a nightmare. Later, Ezra demanded a divorce. I refused to give them what they wanted, but I couldn’t fight them. Everyone I loved had turned their weapons on me. My husband. My best friend. And my mother. Ezra locked me inside our Boston house. For nearly a week, he unleashed all his pent-up frustration on me. “I’m not signing. You want to marry her? Keep dreaming,” I spat. At that point, the marriage certificate felt like the only card I had left to play. I was as stubborn as a lunatic. A week later, a blurred, pixelated video leaked online. The audio was crystal clear. “Big brother, I love you the most. Love your Clo a little more, okay?” It was an intimate video from years ago, back when he traveled for work constantly. He had begged me for it, saying he needed something to comfort him when I wasn’t there. Ezra was usually so terrifyingly straight-laced, so when he asked for a dirty video, I was both embarrassed and shocked. I only did it for him. But Ezra and Valerie were master manipulators of PR. That single leaked audio clip pushed me into the crosshairs of public outrage, framing me as a psychotic, obsessed step-sister who seduced him. And the final blow was dealt by Ezra himself, who let the narrative run wild. As I lay numbly in bed, watching the entire world—including my family and friends—condemn me, Valerie came to visit. She told me she had confessed her feelings to Ezra back in college. He had rejected her then. His reason? He said he wasn’t good enough for her yet. He asked if she would be willing to wait a few years for him. Wait until he was powerful enough to stand beside her in the light. That very night, I gave up. I agreed to the divorce. As I signed the papers, I thought about the past. Sixteen-year-old Ezra, full of fire, promising to give me a better life. But twenty-six-year-old Ezra’s future never had Chloe Thorne in it to begin with. I wiped my tears and forced myself to ask him one last question. “What was I, then? Just someone to settle for?” “Or was I just a placeholder to keep you warm until you were ready for the woman you actually loved?”

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My father arranged a marriage for me on his deathbed. The groom was Weston Cole. If you follow Wall Street, you know the name. He’s the coldest, most ruthless venture capitalist in New York. Before I moved into his penthouse, I set three strict rules for myself: Keep it business. Collect the dividends, forget the feelings. Total autonomy. He does his thing; I do mine. If a “True Love” ever appears at his door, I pack my bags immediately—provided I get double the severance pay. Weston seemed perfectly satisfied with how pragmatic I was. Until the day a teenage boy knocked on our door. He had Weston’s eyes and a striking resemblance around the jawline. He looked at me calmly and said: “Hi. I’m Weston’s son. I’m seventeen.” I froze for exactly two seconds. My first thought: Wow, Weston really plays the long game. Kept this a secret for seventeen years. My second thought: I need to mentally review my prenup. What was Rule Number Three again? Oh, right! If True Love shows up, I leave with double the money. A son counts as proof of True Love, right? I immediately stepped aside, opening the door wider. My tone was strictly professional. “Come on in. He’s not off work yet, so have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink?” The boy clearly didn’t expect this reaction. He hesitated. “You’re… not angry?” Angry? Why would I be angry? I was practically praying for Weston to have an affair. Shove a few dozen million in severance my way, and I’m instantly living my best life as a rich, single divorcée! I looked down as he changed into indoor slippers. At seventeen, his frame was nearly that of a grown man. He had Weston’s features, but his vibe was much cleaner, less cynical. “What’s your name?” “Leo.” I grabbed a bottle of fiji water from the fridge and handed it to him, offering some comfort. “Look, Leo, your dad and I have a contract marriage. It’s mutually beneficial business. I have no standing to be angry about his private life.” He gripped the water bottle, his Adam’s apple moving as he swallowed hard. He fell silent. I sat on the single armchair opposite him, observing him across the coffee table. The resemblance really was uncanny. It took me back three years. To the moments before my father passed away, gripping Weston’s hand, entrusting me to him. The Coles owed my father a life debt. Weston repaid it with this marriage. The night before we signed the papers, he handed me a prenup. I skimmed it, then held up three fingers. “I have three conditions to add.” “One: No romance. Strictly profit-sharing.” “Two: You play your games; I play mine.” “Three: If you ever want to bring a True Love home, I pave the way immediately. But the severance pay doubles.” He looked down and signed the agreement without a moment’s hesitation. “Deal.” From start to finish, the word “love” was never spoken. After the wedding, we kept separate rooms and separate schedules. He spent twenty days a month flying internationally. During the other ten, I saw him less often than his secretary did. Three years ago, at City Hall, he walked in first. Signed, stamped. He didn’t look back at me once throughout the entire process. It didn’t feel like getting married. It felt like closing a business merger. Weston got home while I was curled up on the sofa watching a reality show. His footsteps passed the sofa, then stopped for two seconds. I turned the volume up two notches and kept watching. He didn’t go upstairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him standing there, his gaze heavy on me. “Who did you see today?” I paused the TV and sat up straight, putting on a serious face. “Your intel moves fast, Mr. Cole. A very good-looking kid. Says he’s your son. Nice job on the secrecy, by the way.” The air went dead for a few seconds. His face was expressionless. But he didn’t deny it. “I’ll handle this.” I nodded, got up from the sofa, and paused as I passed him. “Great. If you need me to cooperate with the divorce proceedings, just say the word.” I hesitated, but couldn’t help dropping a reminder. “You do still remember the double severance clause in the contract, right?” He looked down at me, his eyes incredibly dark and intense. I waited a few seconds, but the atmosphere was getting weird, so I turned and bolted upstairs. I shut my bedroom door and leaned back against it, staring up at the ceiling light. Since the wedding, he’d been so busy, always gone. I thought our marriage was a blank slate, clean as paper. Turns out, the man had his True Love locked down ages ago, and even produced an heir. I looked down at my phone. Opened my banking app. The pre-marital transfer was sitting brightly in my asset details. $10 million. Double that is $20 million. But he hid a son for seventeen years before letting it leak. That counts as fraud, right? Asking for another $5 million on top doesn’t seem unreasonable, does it? At 1:30 AM, I was still tossing and turning, unable to sleep. After vacillating for ages, I opened my contacts and scrolled to [Lawyer Daniels]. I’d added him three years ago when I signed the prenup. His profile picture was a Golden Retriever. I opened the chat. Type. Delete. Type. Delete. Finally, I just sent: [Mr. Daniels, I need a consultation. If it’s inconvenient, feel free to ignore this.] He replied instantly: [Go ahead.] Talk about professional dedication. I carefully phrased my words. [Hypothetically—and I mean hypothetically—I have a friend. Her husband had a child before they married and never told her.] [Okay.] [That counts as concealing a material fact, right? There’s a clause in their agreement about ‘True Love’ appearing requiring double severance. Can she apply that here?] [Regarding this friend, what does the specific wording of the agreement say?] I stared at the screen. I couldn’t say it was me. I couldn’t be too specific. If the words “Mrs. Cole” circulated through the NYC lawyer group chats, I’d die of embarrassment ten times over. I typed: [My friend didn’t sign a formal prenup. Her husband verbally agreed that if he cheated, he’d leave with nothing.] Even I thought that sounded fake as I sent it. The ‘user is typing…’ indicator appeared… and stayed there for a long time. [Your friend is very… trusting.] I choked. [Mr. Daniels, the point isn’t her trust.] [The point is what she can get right now.] My fingers hovered over the screen. $20 million… $25 million would work too. Weston Cole’s face isn’t currency, but money is. [Severance pay. Preferably doubled.] [Is there evidence proving the husband acknowledged the child?] I thought of Leo’s face. I thought of Weston saying, “I’ll handle this.” He didn’t deny it. Does that count as acknowledgement? I typed: [She said her husband didn’t deny it. Does that count?] [A verbal acknowledgement counts, but it’s best to have a recording, chat logs, or a witness.] [A witness… do I count?] I slammed the phone face-down on the bed. Five seconds later, the screen lit up again. Lawyer Daniels: [Mrs. Cole, it’s not convenient for me to take a case involving the Cole family. However, I can recommend a colleague who specializes in high-net-worth family law.] … I laughed at my own stupidity. While I spent the next two days contacting lawyers and consulting on divorce proceedings, Leo came back. When I heard movement at the entrance, I was decanting red wine at the dining table. Weston walked in first, with the boy half a step behind him. Weston pulled out a chair. “Leo transferred schools. Until the paperwork is finalized, he’ll be staying here.” Wow. Bringing the illegitimate son home in broad daylight. How long until the True Love shows up demanding her title? Divorce! Absolutely must divorce! While mentally calculating the alimony, I didn’t miss a beat calling out to the kitchen: “Marie, let’s add two more dishes tonight.” Six dishes and a soup were served. I plated a piece of sweet and sour rib into $25 million’s… excuse me, into Leo’s bowl, and asked solicitously: “Is the school sorted out?” He looked down. “Yeah.” “What grade?” “Junior year.” “Can you keep up with the coursework?” His chopsticks paused. “It’s okay.” I added another spoonful of greens to his bowl. “It’s getting cold out. There are thick comforters in the guest room closet.” He didn’t respond, nor did he look up. His entire focus was communicating solely with the rice in his bowl. Weston didn’t speak either. Like father, like son—both clams. After dinner, the dishes went into the kitchen. I opened the fridge to find some fruit. I sliced oranges into eight perfect wedges and arranged them on a white porcelain plate. Footsteps stopped behind me. “You aren’t going to ask about my situation? You don’t care that he was running around outside?” Leo’s voice was a bit raspy. I kept arranging the oranges. “That’s between you two. I’m only responsible for cooperating with whatever arrangements Mr. Cole makes.” “…You really don’t care at all?” I turned off the faucet. Turning around, I dried my hands on a towel, smiling flawlessly. “Kid, we have a contract marriage.” I hung the towel back on the rack, my smile becoming enigmatic. “Caring too much counts as a breach of contract.” He didn’t speak again. His gaze fell on my face, searching for confirmation. But just as I picked up the fruit plate to leave, I saw Weston standing at the kitchen doorway. After that day, Weston’s frequency of coming home dropped noticeably. When Marie asked how many places to set, I said two. With the master of the house absent, the wife and the secret son coexisted peacefully. Nobody seemed to find it strange. Friday afternoon, Lawyer Chen, whom I had contacted, sent over a file. [Mrs. Cole, here is the rough draft of the evidence checklist for the divorce petition. Please review.] I opened it. Item Seven: [The husband concealed fathering a child out of wedlock, constituting a material fault.] “Hey.” Hearing Leo’s voice, I casually closed the file. He was standing at the terrace door, looking at me intently. “What were you just looking at?” I set my phone face down. “Work stuff.” He didn’t move. “Liar. Since you married Weston, he’s supported you. You’ve never worked a day. Are you divorcing Weston because of me? You can’t divorce him.” I asked him, “Why?” His back was to me, his voice very low. “Because…” Hey, this brat! Talk about a cliffhanger! How could he just turn around and walk away without saying anything? The next day he got up early. I was sitting on the sofa flipping through documents; he watched me. I went to get water; he followed me to the kitchen door. I came back; he followed me and sat down again. Finally, I closed my laptop. “Leo, is there something wrong with your brain?” He didn’t deny it, but repeated yesterday’s line: “You can’t divorce him.” I stared at him. “Wasn’t your goal in showing up here to let me know he cheated and ruin our marriage?” He pursed his lips. “It was, but…” “Then why are you stopping me now?” He lowered his eyes, silent. I got up to go to the study, slamming the door to shut him out. Five minutes later, a piece of paper was slid under the door. Folded, torn from a notebook. The handwriting was heavy, tearing the paper in two places.

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Chapter 1 I had just started peeling it. My cousin walked in and said she wanted a tangerine. My boyfriend followed right behind her. He looked at me, totally indifferent, and said: “Give it to her. You can just have an orange, it’s the same thing.” I looked at him—the guy who was supposed to always be on my side since we were kids—and compromised. “Fine. We’ll split it.” Mom’s smile vanished. She snapped at me: “It’s just one tiny tangerine, half isn’t enough to taste. “Is it going to kill you not to have a tangerine today?” Before I could answer, she grabbed my cousin’s hand and headed for the door to buy more. My boyfriend stayed behind, glaring at me with a cold face. “You are so selfish. “No wonder everyone likes her more than you.” The door slammed shut again. I stood there stunned for a long time. Then, I picked up my phone and called my dad, who was thousands of miles away. “I want to transfer schools.” Dad sounded confused. After a moment, he asked, “Is something wrong? Are they treating you badly?” I stared at that half-peeled tangerine on the table. My eyes stung fiercely. Since I didn’t answer immediately, Dad sighed. “When we got divorced, I said I’d take you with me. Your mom almost went crazy fighting it. “If you move here now, it’s going to be hard to see her again—” “I don’t care,” I said, my voice cracking. “Chloe is her daughter now. “If I leave, she’ll probably be happy.” There was a long silence on the other end. Then, I heard a woman’s voice in the background. She called out my dad’s name and asked, “Who are you talking to? Dinner’s getting cold.” I gripped the phone tightly, my knuckles white. “Dad… are you… married again?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. I hung up. It didn’t matter. Senior year was almost over. When it came time to apply for college, I’d just pick one as far away from this house as possible. I tried to comfort myself, scrolling through social media to distract my brain. I opened Instagram. The first thing I saw was a post from my cousin, Chloe: [Photo of a bowl of perfectly peeled tangerine segments. Every piece of white pith had been meticulously removed, leaving only pure, flawless orange flesh.] Caption: When they love you, they make sure you have the best ~ ❤️ I recognized those hands in the photo immediately. Before Chloe showed up, those hands held mine every single day, walking me through every street and alley of this city. Looking at the comments filled with people hyping up how “blessed” she was, I slammed my phone face down. I snatched that half-peeled tangerine off the table, ripped the rest of the skin off, and shoved the whole thing into my mouth. Crunch. It was bitter as hell. They were coming back from a fancy steakhouse when I finished my instant ramen. As they walked in, my boyfriend, Tyler, noticed my face—probably pale with a slight yellow tint. He frowned. “You have a bad stomach, and you’re still eating that trash?” I ignored him, keeping my face blank. Mom tried to smooth things over. She giggled and grabbed Tyler’s arm. “Tyler, you’re so handsome, get such good grades, and you’re so thoughtful. There must be tons of girls chasing you at school.” Chloe seemed to know exactly what Mom was implying. Her face turned bright red. “Auntie, why are you asking him that?” “What? I’m just saying, the early bird gets the worm.” Mom winked suggestively. “I’ve watched Tyler grow up. If he could be my nephew-in-law, I’d die happy.” I looked at the pink hair tie on Tyler’s wrist and let out a cold laugh. For once, I decided to play along with my mom. “Yeah, Tyler. You’re number one in class, she’s number two. Even the teachers say you guys are a perfect match. “I think you two should get engaged right after graduation. “Get married in college and have kids. Maybe you’ll get extra credits for it—” “Maya!” Tyler’s expression snapped. Without another word, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of the house. He didn’t stop until we reached a secluded spot. He stood there, looking down at me, interrogating me. “How could you try to pair your own boyfriend up with another girl?” I stared into his cold eyes. I lifted my bangs, revealing a forehead that was swollen and turning a nasty purple. “Oh, you still remember that you’re my boyfriend?” I watched his face cloud over. I knew exactly what he was thinking. This afternoon, Chloe was reading in the bleachers while Tyler was playing basketball. A rogue ball flew right toward her. Everyone in the bleachers was screaming, trying to warn her. But she was too immersed in “the ocean of knowledge” to notice. Just before it hit her, Tyler, who had been drinking water next to me, took a huge stride forward. At the very last second, he powerfully swatted the ball away. It hit my head with perfect precision. I stumbled, the world spinning. I almost blacked out. I barely managed to gasp out, “Tyler,” before I realized he hadn’t noticed my situation at all. Instead, Chloe was tugging at the bottom of his jersey. She was biting the end of her pen, looking at him cutely. “Tyler, could you look at this problem? Is there another way to solve it?” Tyler could never say no to Chloe. So, he didn’t know I got hurt and went home early. He didn’t know that since Chloe appeared, the scales in his heart had tilted so far they were broken. I looked up at him. “Tyler. Let’s break up.” Unfortunately, Tyler didn’t hear me. His phone rang, and his frown deepened as he listened. After hanging up, he looked at me, sounding exasperated. “Chloe doesn’t have a family, Maya. It’s been hard enough for her to grow up into the person she is today. “Why do you have to insist on pushing her away?” Watching his back as he turned and walked away decisively, my heart sank. Five minutes later, my unease was confirmed. Standing just outside the front door, I could hear Chloe sobbing inside. “I know Maya doesn’t like me. I know it. “It’s fine, Auntie. I can move into the school dorms.” “Absolutely not!” Mom’s voice rose sharply. “The dorms are terrible, and living in a group like that will ruin your focus on studying!” “She’s right,” Tyler’s voice added, sounding muffled. “Don’t rush into anything. Let me try to talk to Maya again, she—” Creak. I opened the door. I looked at the messy living room, still trying to process the timeline of events. Before I could, Mom rushed over and slapped me. Her hand was shaking afterward. She looked at me like I was a total disappointment. “How dare you call your father to complain? “If you think I’m kicking Chloe out, you have another thing coming. “How did I give birth to something so selfish and cruel as you?” My cheek stung like fire. My brain was buzzing. A long moment later, I heard Mom say: “Is this all because of that tangerine? Fine. I’ll make sure you eat your fill tonight.” She pulled out a fifty-dollar bill and shoved it at Tyler. “Tyler, sorry to ask, but could you run to the store? Buy a whole crate of tangerines.” I barely managed to stand steady. I looked at Chloe, standing next to her suitcase, her eyes mocking and triumphant. Instinctively, I looked at Tyler, hoping he would say something, anything, in my defense. He didn’t. He turned his head away, his face like stone. “Okay.” As he brushed past me to go to the store, Tyler said coldly: “I guess I spoiled you too much. It made you arrogant, entitled, and completely lacking empathy. “Maybe this will actually teach you a lesson.” After Mom tucked Chloe into bed, she sat in the living room, staring at me. “If you don’t eat them, I’m going to the school tomorrow and pulling you out. You can drop out for all I care.” I looked at the floor. A big, yellow crate full of tangerines. Surprisingly, my heart was eerily calm. I didn’t do what I usually did when I got alone time with Mom—I didn’t cry or explain how unfair it was. I didn’t say how Chloe was taller than me, yet since she arrived, I hadn’t gotten single new piece of clothing. I always had to wear her hand-me-downs. I didn’t say how the big, master bedroom went to her because her grades were better. I didn’t say how Mom, afraid Chloe would feel homesick, strictly forbade me from getting too close to her or showing affection. … The sun was almost up. I looked at the very last tangerine in the crate. I picked it up slowly. Mom snatched it out of my hand. She looked at me like she didn’t even recognize me. Then, she said calmly: “Wow. Look how greedy you are. “You couldn’t even save one for Chloe?” I obediently pulled my hand back. I walked to the bathroom, leaned over the toilet, and threw everything up. That was when Dad made a video call. Seeing my face—I probably looked half-dead—he started stuttering in panic. “What… what happened? What’s wrong? “I warned your mother last night, did she not listen?” I wiped my mouth, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “This is all thanks to you.” Just as I was about to hit delete and block his number, a pretty face appeared on the other end. The woman took one look at me and turned pale. It took her a moment to regain her composure. “Your father and I talked about it. There are only a few months left until graduation. Transferring now won’t do you any good. “It’s better if we rent you an apartment right next to school so you can focus on studying. “As soon as you graduate, you come here.” As she spoke, she flipped the camera to show me a bedroom. “In the meantime, your dad and I will get this room set up for you. “That way, when you come home, it’ll be comfortable.” Tears blurred my vision. I stared at the screen, unable to believe what I was seeing. I choked out one word. “Okay.” Considering that renting an apartment had too many uncertainties, I decided to move into the school dorms for the last two months instead. First thing I did when I got to school was explain the situation to my homeroom teacher. When the bell rang, I walked into the classroom with the teacher. Instantly, I caught Tyler’s eyes. His gaze darkened. “Chloe had some questions about studying, so she’s sitting in your spot temporarily. Do you really have to drag a teacher into something this small?” That was when I noticed. Chloe had taken my backpack and thrown it carelessly onto the floor. She had already arranged all her belongings neatly on my desk. Someone laughed in the back. “Come on, Maya. They’re a couple, they want to sit together. Just let them have it ~” “Yeah, seriously. Save Tyler the trouble of running back and forth between classes…” “You’ve monopolized Tyler for years. He has a girlfriend now. Have some boundaries!” Hearing this, Chloe blushed and whispered, “I really just needed help with studying… It’s not like your grades are as good as mine anyway, sitting next to Tyler is a waste for you… so…” “You two can stay locked together for all I care,” I interrupted coldly. I picked up my backpack from the floor and walked straight to the back row. For some reason, during the lecture, Tyler kept turning around to look at me. Even though I had induced vomiting, my stomach still felt awful. During the long break, I went to the nurse’s office to get some medicine. Walking past the entrance, I heard a familiar voice. “It’s Maya’s birthday today. Tyler, you should come over tonight to celebrate too.” Mom was standing in the sunlight, looking so gentle it was almost blinding. She pulled out her phone. “Chloe, sweetheart, come pick out a cake ~” Chloe smiled innocently, seemingly seeing nothing wrong with this. She took the phone and scrolled for a bit. “This one, Auntie! I’ve wanted to try this for ages. I heard the mango flavor is incredible ~” Mom laughed awkwardly. “Maybe… a different flavor? “Maya… she’s allergic to mangoes.” My feet stopped moving. I stepped back and hid around the corner. I hesitated. I was planning on moving into the dorms tonight… but I didn’t realize Mom was preparing a birthday surprise for me… “Oh, okay,” Chloe said, her eyes filling with tears, her voice trembling. “I’m just happy to have cake. “When I was little, my parents always fought on my birthday… I never got to eat cake, not even once…” “We’ll get this one,” Mom interrupted, her voice suddenly decisive. “It’s just for the ritual, anyway. Maya… she doesn’t even like cake that much. “Good girl, we’ll do what you want.” Tyler didn’t seem to think anything was wrong with that. He just smiled slightly. “I got Maya a gift, but I got one for you too, Chloe.” Watching this scene of a happy, harmonious family, I couldn’t help but mock myself. Why was I so delusional? Trying to dream a dream that didn’t belong to me? I didn’t stay to hear them discuss the details of the surprise. I turned and left. After swallowing the medicine, I went to a convenience store, bought some basic necessities, and set them up in my new dorm room. For the rest of the day, Tyler and Chloe were stuck together, chatting intimately. Every now and then, Tyler would glance back at me. When school let out, Tyler stood in front of my desk. He looked arrogant, his tone condescending, like he was doing me a favor. “Go home first. Remember to clear off your desk so there’s room for gifts. “I have to finish explaining these problems to Chloe.” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He went back to his seat. I just shrugged, grabbed my backpack, and left. Like any other boarding student, I got food from the cafeteria and went back to the dorm to eat while I studied. Until night fell. The dorm matron found me. “Maya, does your family not know you’re staying here? “Your mom and a tall, skinny boy are searching the whole school for you. “They look really worried… You should go see them.”

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Out of the 203 people in the company, 197 voted for me. It was the exact same number as last year. Last year, Mr. Vance called me into his office. “Chloe, Liam’s family is going through a tough financial patch. Could you take the high road and let him have this spot?” I let him have it. This year, the moment the voting results were pinned to the bulletin board, the door to Mr. Vance’s office cracked open. I didn’t wait for him to call my name. I walked right in and slapped my resignation letter onto his desk. “Mr. Vance, no need to ask me to give it up this time.” “I’m walking out on my own.” Robert Vance stared at the resignation letter like his eyes weren’t focusing properly. He actually let out a small chuckle. “Chloe, what kind of tantrum is this?” “It’s not a tantrum.” I stood across from his mahogany desk, my voice perfectly flat. “It’s a carefully considered decision.” He picked up the crisp white paper, glanced at it, and tossed it back down. “You’ve been at Apex Solutions for five years. You know exactly how well this company has treated you.” “Yeah. I know exactly how I’ve been treated.” I nodded. He probably didn’t expect me to be this calm. His smile froze for a fraction of a second before morphing into a look of deep, paternal concern. “I know you have some lingering feelings about what happened last year. But Liam really was struggling. The ten-thousand-dollar bonus that came with the Employee of the Year award meant a lot more to his livelihood.” Ten thousand dollars. He said it so casually. Last year, that “Employee of the Year” title didn’t just come with a ten-thousand-dollar check. It came with a fast-track promotion review. Liam took that spot. By the beginning of this year, he was promoted to Account Supervisor. And me? My desk was moved from a bright spot by the window all the way to the dark end of the hallway next to the supply closet. The excuse was, “We need to clear out a spacious area for the new supervisor’s open-concept workspace.” I didn’t bring any of that up. There was no point anymore. “Mr. Vance, it’s clearly stated in the letter. For personal reasons, I’m requesting to resign at the end of the month.” “A four-week notice is plenty of time for a transition.” His smile finally vanished. He leaned back in his leather chair, tapping his index finger against the desk. “Chloe, you have three major projects in the execution phase right now. The annual retainer for Harrison Corp is up for renewal next month. Walking away right now is incredibly irresponsible to the company.” “Which is why I’m giving you a four-week transition period.” “What good is four weeks? Harrison Corp only recognizes you.” When he hit the words only recognizes you, his tone suddenly grew heavy. He wasn’t complimenting me. He was warning me—you are essential, so you are not allowed to leave. I looked at him dead in the eye. “Harrison Corp recognizes Apex Solutions’ service capabilities, not me personally.” “Once the handover is complete, anyone can take over.” As the words left my mouth, even I knew it was a lie. But I simply didn’t care anymore. The sound of the door pushing open shattered the tense silence. Liam walked in carrying two cups of artisan coffee. Seeing me, he paused in surprise. “Chloe? You’re here too.” He placed one of the cups near Mr. Vance’s hand and turned to look at me. “The annual voting results just got posted. You got the highest votes again this year! Congratulations.” He smiled, showing perfectly white teeth. I knew that smile all too well. Last year, he had walked into this exact office with that exact smile to take the award right out of my hands. Back then, he had said, “Chloe, I seriously can’t thank you enough. Let me buy you dinner sometime.” That dinner never happened. Instead, the Harrison Corp account—a client I had personally cultivated for three years—was transferred to his name by Robert Vance’s pen during Liam’s very first week as supervisor. “You’re too kind, Supervisor.” I didn’t accept his congratulations. I just turned and walked toward the door. Right as I reached the threshold, I heard Mr. Vance call out from behind me. “Chloe.” I stopped. “Think carefully about this resignation.” “I told you, it’s a carefully considered decision.” “Then let me make myself perfectly clear.” His voice dropped to a threatening baritone. “During your transition period, you are not permitted to take a single project file or client contact. If you try to take anything with you…” “The legal department won’t show you any mercy.” I didn’t look back. “Don’t worry. I won’t even take an extra paperclip.” When I pushed the door open, several people in the hallway were pretending to get water from the cooler. They had all seen me walk out of the boss’s office. The gossip would spread across the entire floor in less than ten minutes. I walked back to my desk at the end of the hall and woke up my computer monitor. The potted pothos plant on my desk was something I had bought at a farmer’s market three years ago for five bucks. Now, the green vines cascaded all the way down to the floor. I gently brushed a leaf and started organizing my digital folders. My phone lit up. A text message from Amanda, my point of contact at Harrison Corp. “Hey Chloe, are you still leading the strategy meeting next week? Mr. Harrison specifically asked for you.” I stared at the message for five seconds. I didn’t reply. The first person to approach me was Brenda. The head of Human Resources. She pulled up an empty chair next to my desk, holding a matcha latte, wearing her standard-issue corporate-empathy smile. “Chloe, I heard you submitted your resignation?” “Yeah.” “Oh, sweetie, why so sudden?” She reached out and patted the back of my hand. “Is this about the voting results last year? I know you felt wronged, but Mr. Vance was just looking out for the team as a whole—” “Brenda.” I cut her off. “It has nothing to do with that. It’s just for my personal career development.” Her smile didn’t waver, but her voice dropped an octave. “Chloe, let me speak to you from the heart. You’ve been at Apex for five years, and everyone sees your hard work. The award is just a piece of paper; it doesn’t define your actual capability.” “Take the high road here. Mr. Vance remembers your sacrifices.” Take the high road. I had heard that exact phrase no less than twenty times over the last five years. During my first year, I landed the company’s very first million-dollar contract. At the year-end review, I built the pitch deck, I ran the analytics, and Robert Vance stood on stage presenting it for forty minutes. My name was third from the bottom in the “Special Thanks” slide. Brenda had patted my shoulder then and said, “Chloe, you’re young. The higher-ups see your credit. Take the high road.” My second year, I single-handedly secured the annual retainer for Harrison Corp, totaling $500,000. On the day of the contract signing, Liam was assigned to tag along with me because Mr. Vance said he needed to “learn the ropes.” When the signing photo was posted in the company Slack channel, Liam was standing dead center. I was shoved to the far edge, half of my face cropped out. Brenda said, “Chloe, it’s just a photo. Don’t be so petty.” My third year. The Employee of the Year vote. 197 votes. Brenda didn’t come to comfort me that time. She was the one who handed the plaque to Liam. “Brenda, my mind is made up.” I slid her hand off mine. “But thanks for stopping by.” She stood up, the warmth fading from her face. “Well, I hope you’ve thought this through. The job market is brutal right now. It won’t be easy out there.” I didn’t respond. Within twenty minutes of her leaving, three different waves of people visited my desk. The first was Kevin from Admin, coming to “borrow” a stapler while awkwardly fishing for gossip. The second was Sarah from Marketing, returning a phone charger she borrowed a month ago, her eyes darting everywhere but my face. The third was Liam. He pulled up a chair and sat across from me, letting out a heavy sigh. “Chloe, did I do something wrong?” I looked up at him. His brows were slightly furrowed, wearing a perfectly crafted expression of I am so confused and guilty. It was so familiar. The night the voting results came out last year, he bought the entire department bubble tea to celebrate. He specifically left me out. Later, when someone pointed it out, he texted me: “Chloe! Omg I completely forgot to order yours, my bad! Let me order you one right now?” He was always “forgetting.” He forgot to invite me to client meetings. He forgot to mention my name in project reports. He forgot to tell clients that the strategy proposals were entirely written by me. But he never, ever forgot to add one specific phrase when reporting to Mr. Vance: “I personally oversaw this project.” “You haven’t done anything wrong, Supervisor.” My tone was ice-water flat. “It has nothing to do with you. I just want a change of scenery.” “Chloe, I just took over the Harrison Corp account. There’s so much I’m not familiar with yet. If you leave now—” “There will be a highly detailed transition document.” “About that…” He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Could you put in a good word for me with Mr. Harrison? Their point of contact has been giving me the cold shoulder.” I finally smiled. “Supervisor, that is your client now. You put in your own good word.” The fake smile on his face instantly cracked. He stood up awkwardly. “Right. Well, I’ll let you get back to work.” After he left, I pulled open my bottom drawer. Tucked all the way in the back was a thick brown manila envelope. Inside was a master spreadsheet of every single project I had touched over the last five years. Which proposal was written by whom, which deal was negotiated by whom, which client relationship was maintained by whom. Dates, revenue amounts, email archive reference numbers. Not a single error. I had spent three months quietly compiling this. Not for revenge. But so that when I finally walked out those doors, I would know exactly, indisputably, what my true value was. Once the news of my resignation officially spread, the atmosphere in the office subtly shifted. People who used to walk past my desk would usually nod or say hi. Now, most of them took the long way around. Like I was carrying a highly contagious disease. Only Emily, the young receptionist, secretly slipped a box of fresh strawberries onto my desk during her lunch break. “Chloe, I know these are your favorite.” She whispered it frantically and practically sprinted away, looking like a bank robber. I stared at the strawberries, my heart aching just a little. At 2:00 PM, Robert Vance sent a message in the department Slack channel: “Effective immediately, Liam will take full control of the Harrison Corp account. Chloe will assist with the transition for the next four weeks.” Assist with the transition. With four words, I was demoted from Lead Project Manager to Liam’s assistant. Five minutes later, Liam replied in the channel with a handshake emoji. Then he tagged me: “@Chloe, please compile the meeting minutes, communication logs, and pricing sheets for Harrison Corp from the last three years and have them on my desk by tomorrow.” Three years of data. Hundreds of files. He said “have them on my desk by tomorrow” with the tone of an executive ordering an unpaid intern. I didn’t reply in the public channel. I sent him a direct message: “Three years of data is a massive volume. I am following standard handover protocols. ETA is one week.” He replied instantly: “A week is too long. Mr. Vance needs it ASAP.” I didn’t reply again. I placed my phone face-down on the desk and went back to organizing my files. By the third day, things started getting ugly. At 10:00 AM, I sent my usual email to Amanda at Harrison Corp to confirm the agenda for next week’s strategy meeting. Ten minutes later, Liam marched over from his bright “supervisor workspace” and shoved his phone screen in my face. “Chloe, I just saw you emailed Harrison Corp?” “Yeah.” “From now on, all emails to Harrison Corp go through me. Just CC me.” I stared at him. His desk was the one he had stolen from me three months ago. He had even taken the aloe plant I had nurtured for two years and placed it on his new desk. “Supervisor, I am still the point of contact during this transition period. If an email needs to be sent, I will send it.” “Then could you at least run your drafts by me before you hit send?” He smiled condescendingly. “After all, I’m the one in charge now.” I didn’t say a word. I just turned back to my monitor and kept typing. That afternoon, Brenda came back. She didn’t bring a matcha latte this time, and she wasn’t smiling. “Chloe, I need to notify you of something.” She dropped a legal document onto my desk. It was a supplemental Non-Compete Agreement. “The legal department advises you to sign this. For two years post-resignation, you are prohibited from working in the same industry or contacting any active client resources.” I flipped through the document. Three pages of severe, suffocating legal jargon. The penalty clause read: In the event of a breach, the employee shall be liable for damages to the company in the amount of $100,000. One hundred thousand dollars. I had been at Apex for five years. My salary had barely bumped from $60,000 to $100,000. If I didn’t eat or pay rent for five years, I wouldn’t have enough to cover that penalty. “Brenda, there was no non-compete clause in my original employment contract.” “This is a supplemental agreement.” “Adding a restrictive covenant during an active employment term requires mutual consent.” “I don’t consent.” Her eye twitched. “Chloe, this is just a standard formality to protect the company’s interests—” “Brenda, I’m protecting my own interests.” I pushed the document back across the desk. “I’m not signing it.” She grabbed the papers and stormed off. Her footsteps were significantly heavier than when she arrived. That night, my mom called me. “Chloe, did you quit your job?” I froze. “Who told you that?” “That HR woman from your company called me. She said you’ve been under a lot of stress at work, that you’re emotionally unstable, and asked the family to talk some sense into you.” Brenda called my mother. I gripped my phone, my nails biting painfully into my palm. “Mom, I am not emotionally unstable.” “Then why did you quit?! It’s a good, stable job. Do you have any idea how bad the economy is right now?!” “Mom—” “Can’t you just endure it a little longer?” Endure it. Just like Brenda’s take the high road. The two phrases that had haunted my entire adult life. “Mom, don’t worry. I have a plan.” After hanging up, I stood on my apartment balcony for a long time. Looking down, I could see the company parking lot. Robert Vance’s black Mercedes E300 was parked in the premium reserved spot at the very back. Liam’s white Honda Accord was parked in the spot next to it—the spot that used to be mine. Last month, Admin revoked my parking pass under the guise of “Supervisor privileges.” I commute on an e-bike now. My phone lit up again. A text from Amanda. “Hey Chloe, I heard you’re leaving?! Mr. Harrison wanted me to ask if you’re free for a private lunch this week?” I stared at the message. I typed back one word: “Absolutely.” The lunch with Harrison Corp was set for Thursday. But on Wednesday afternoon, disaster struck. My work computer wouldn’t turn on. The IT guy came over, took one look, and said the hard drive was corrupted and needed to be sent out for repair. “Chloe, did you back up the files on your desktop?” I stared at the black screen, saying nothing. Five years of project files, communication logs, and strategy drafts. All of it was on that machine.

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At 3 AM on Valentine’s Day, my husband’s little mistress bought a trending hashtag on X. “The great Victor Harding just got my nickname tattooed on his ‘manhood.’ Please take good care of him over the next few days, Mrs. Harding.” Social media blew up. The whole of New York City was taking bets. Would I pay a fortune to bury the scandal like I did the year before last? Or would I show up at the mistress’s door to tear her apart, just like last year? Almost everyone was placing bets. Only my husband, the one who loved the drama most, replied lightly under that trending hashtag. “Don’t be jealous, wifey. No matter what they tattoo, they’ll never be as beautiful as you were back then.” Page Six immediately dug up a photo of me at eighteen, arriving in Manhattan with Victor Harding. He carried me off the yacht, bathed in the flashes of cameras and the stares of the crowd. That scene overlapped with the massive headline in the tabloids: [Knocked-Up Mrs. Harding is SO Forgiving!] I looked at the gossip and rumors, but I didn’t get angry like I usually did. I calmly picked up my phone and posted a photo under that explosive hashtag—a picture of me resting against a muscular man’s chest. “Deeply in love. Do not disturb.” … The photo went out, but I didn’t see the expected wave of mockery. Less than three minutes later, my account was banned for “spreading false information.” My iMessage thread with Victor, which had been empty all year, was suddenly flooded with his texts. “Who is that guy?” “Where are you right now? Get your ass home!” “Not replying? Fine. Don’t let me catch you two, or I’ll make you pay!” After seven years of marriage, this was the first time I had to think about how to reply to him, rather than finding an excuse to bother him. But looking at his profile picture—the fifth matching couples’ avatar he had changed to this month just for Ashley—my fingers paused. Suddenly, I felt it was all so meaningless. I simply turned off my phone, rolled over, and went to sleep. Half an hour later, the door to my Four Seasons hotel suite was kicked open. Before I could even react, an iron grip seized my arm. Victor was breathing heavily, his eyes sharp as an eagle’s. “Where is the guy?” I tried to pull my arm away, but I couldn’t. “He just left.” The moment the words left my mouth, he roughly dragged me into the bathroom and shoved me into the bathtub. With a cold face, he held the showerhead and blasted my body with freezing water. Watching me shiver from the cold, he used his free hand to rip open my collar, searching for marks. Smack! I raised my hand and slapped him hard across the face. Instantly, his cheek turned red, but it still wasn’t as red as the fresh hickeys on his neck. Victor laughed and threw the showerhead aside. Seeing the cold water mix with blood, I finally realized he had injured my wrist. “Wifey, I knew you were lying to me. You’re just jealous.” “What man would even want you? Everyone in New York knows you followed me here from the middle of nowhere when you were eighteen. Now, besides the title of ‘Mrs. Harding,’ what do you actually have?” He wrapped me in a bath towel and carried me to the sofa. The fruity cologne on his body mixed with the suite’s aromatherapy. It smelled absolutely nauseating. “I can allow you to be jealous, but you absolutely cannot hurt Ashley. You know full well who she is to me, aside from being my lover.” I lowered my eyes, watching his hand—the one wearing his family signet ring—press against my flat stomach. I said flatly, “Victor, how about I give the title of Mrs. Harding to…” “What?” Victor looked up, having just finished typing a text with a smirk. I shook my head. At that moment, both of our phones buzzed simultaneously. He had texted Ashley: “Happy Valentine’s Day, baby. Love you forever.” I had texted an unknown number: “I want to go home. As soon as possible.” Victor looked at me with my wet hair, staring down at my phone, and inexplicably felt uneasy. In the past, every Valentine’s Day ended with me tearing apart whatever mistress he had, making the whole city know he married a fierce, unhinged woman. So much so that when I came home from fighting his battles, he’d look at me with disgust, retreating to his phone to flirt passionately with his other side pieces. And I would just look at him with pleading eyes, hoping he would quietly sit and share a simple late-night meal with me. Victor cleared his throat. “At the family Thanksgiving dinner yesterday… did you finally get approved for the family trust?” I froze. Getting voted into the family trust was a strict Harding tradition. Only the daughters-in-law who passed the board’s vote were considered true members of the Harding family. But I was the only one. I had waited nearly ten years, and I still hadn’t passed. Even the club dancers Victor casually brought home could easily get an approval vote. He always joked that it was because I was too abrasive and unrefined to blend into New York high society. Thinking of this, I shook my head. “Didn’t get it this year either.” A trace of confusion flashed in Victor’s eyes. “That shouldn’t be right…” If I didn’t know the truth, hearing those words right now would have moved me. I would have thought he was frustrated on my behalf. But his confusion wasn’t out of pity for me. I still remembered the phone call he had with his mother three days ago. At first, I thought he was just telling Ashley a bedtime story like usual. But the more I listened, the more wrong it sounded. “She’s pregnant. Let her into the trust this year. Otherwise, it won’t look good for her to be walking around the social circle with a big belly.” “Mom, I know you don’t like Rain… and I definitely won’t just forgive her either. Her first year, when she was supposed to pass the vote, didn’t I secretly swap her ballot for a veto?” “We’ve punished her enough for what happened back then. It’s time to stop.” Lying in the soft bed, my blood ran ice cold. So, all these years, he had been blaming me for her death (Sarah’s death). Victor seemed like he wanted to say something comforting, but before the words could come out, there was a knock on the door. “Mr. Harding, Miss Ashley says the equipment is ready. She wants you to personally go and… give her a matching tattoo.” Hearing this, Victor stood up so abruptly I was nearly dragged off the sofa. Lust surged in his eyes, and he completely forgot about me. Leaving behind a brief “take care of the baby,” he opened the door and left. My phone’s calendar notification popped up: [Day after Valentine’s Day: Get a divorce.] At the City Clerk’s office, I handed over my marriage certificate. A few seconds later, the clerk frowned and pushed it back. “Ma’am, this certificate is fake. The notary seal is forged.” My breath hitched. “That’s impossible. Please check again…” “There really is no record in the system. You and Mr. Harding are actually both listed as legally single…” The clerk turned the monitor around to show me. I suddenly felt overwhelmingly dizzy. Memories flashed frantically in my mind. One moment, it was our wedding day, when Victor impulsively took me camping on a private island and asked his family to handle the marriage paperwork. The next moment, it was returning from the island, taking the certificate from my mother-in-law’s hands, and noticing the strange look on her face. And then, there was the time after that incident happened. Victor was a mess for days, crying every night. I had heard his drunken confession. He said he didn’t want to get married. Only now did I understand. Maybe it wasn’t that he was afraid of marriage; he just never wanted to marry me. I stood up unsteadily. When I finally came to my senses, I was sitting outside a clinic room in the hospital. A few nurses pushed a cart past me. “Some people just have all the luck. You know Victor Harding’s ‘adopted sister’?” “Which one?” “Oh, you know, his little mistress they claim is his god-sister. Ashley. She’s got it made. Gets a paper cut and comes to the hospital for a full physical.” “Then look at some other people. Like her.” One of the nurses covertly pointed her chin in my direction. “Brought in the middle of the night a while back with heavy bleeding. From admission to discharge, the embryo was disposed of and not a single person came to check on her. So pathetic…” I subconsciously placed my hand on my stomach. That baby… Victor and I had both eagerly awaited her arrival once. Even after Victor stopped caring, I still hoped. But maybe it’s better this way. She left, so I could leave cleanly, too. I planned to go back to the house to pack my passport and IDs to return to the West Coast. But the moment I walked through the door, I noticed the atmosphere was wrong. Ashley was wrapped around Victor like a water snake. Her eyes were red, like she had just been crying. Seeing me walk in, she pointed at me and yelled. “Rain! Do you think just because you live with Victor, you can challenge my sister Sarah’s place in his heart?!” “Where did you hide my sister’s photo? Give it back right now!” Ever since I “married” Victor, Ashley had been finding trouble with me every few days. Either she claimed I hired thugs to ambush her, or she said I was the one leaking her scandals to the tabloids. At first, Victor still believed my explanations. Later, he would just watch me cry coldly, then assign a dozen more bodyguards to protect Ashley. He would brush me off, saying, “Her sister Sarah took care of me in the past. Now that she’s dead, I have to take good care of her little sister.” Even when I caught them in bed together, I was naive enough to believe his excuses. Seeing me standing there, supposedly unable to defend myself, Ashley smirked triumphantly. But then I said, “Who knows? Maybe your sister found out in the afterlife that you’ve been seducing her ex-fiancé, and she got mad.” “What did you say?!” Ashley stomped over in her Christian Louboutin heels, raising her hand furiously. Before the slap could land, I grabbed her wrist and gave her a light push. Exactly as I expected. I didn’t even use any force, but Ashley collapsed into Victor’s arms, acting like she had sprained her ankle. Her eyes filled with tears. “Victor, my ankle hurts so much! What if I can never dance again?” “But Sarah loved watching me dance…” The name “Sarah” was the ultimate taboo in the Harding house. Victor’s eyes instantly turned icy, chilling me to the bone. “Ashley is still young. Why are you picking fights with her?” “If she didn’t take it, she didn’t take it. Do you think she’d frame you?” I suddenly really wanted to ask: Has she framed me a few times? Try constantly. But thinking of our wedding night, when he secretly looked at that woman’s portrait behind my back… Thinking of how he actually went to a psychic to ask if marrying me had cursed that woman to death… I lost all my strength. “Apologize to Ashley. If you don’t…” Before Victor could finish his threat, I bowed deeply at the waist. “I’m sorry.” He froze slightly. He must have forgotten that in this house, my pride had been broken a long time ago. The last time I refused to apologize, the consequence was being forced to stand in the estate’s freezing lake for thirty-six hours in December. Ashley personally supervised, smiling as she watched me. “A homeless country girl coming to New York has to follow the Harding family’s rules.” Honestly, I really hate the cold. My bowing made Ashley smirk. She tilted her chin up. “Take off those emerald earrings and give them to me.” I took off the emerald earrings my mother gave me before I left the West Coast. Victor, of course, knew what they were. He frowned, a rare expression for him, and said, “I’ll have Ashley return them to you in a few days.” Return them? Of course she will. I thought to myself. Not only will she return them, but in a few days, I’ll make sure you both pay it back with interest. I ignored the two of them being overly affectionate in the hallway and went upstairs. They had clearly just had a wild round in the master bedroom. The maids were using glass cleaner to wipe handprints off the glass frame of our wedding photo. Others were carrying out tied-up garbage bags that smelled questionable. When the maids saw me enter, they bowed in greeting, their faces full of indescribable pity. I avoided their gazes and opened the safe. As I stuffed my IDs into my bag, a blank piece of paper fell out. I glanced at it, and an idea formed in my mind. Then, I took the wedding ring off my ring finger and placed it in its velvet box. “Everything is fine, why are you taking the ring off?” Before I could turn around, I felt the cold touch of metal on my neck. Looking down, it was a stunning sapphire necklace. “I’m afraid of losing it, so I’m putting it in the box for now.” I made a weak excuse and dodged Victor’s attempt to embrace me. He didn’t get the joyful expression he expected from me after giving a gift. He looked displeased, and a strange sense of foreboding hit him. “Isn’t this the Tiffany sapphire you wanted most? You’ve been talking about it for a month.” “Yeah, right. Thanks.” I did want it two years ago. But after seeing Ashley wear the exact same one for the last six months, I didn’t think it looked that pretty anymore. I gently pushed away Victor’s hand as he tried to rest it on my stomach. Just in time to meet Ashley’s hateful, doe-like eyes at the door. She swayed her hips as she walked in, bumping me out of the way. “Victor, Mom wants us to go back to the Long Island estate for dinner tonight. Let’s get ready.” Saying this, she glared at me triumphantly. Victor nodded. Usually, I’d go to the estate alone for a miserable, thankless dinner. Then the next day, my mother-in-law would have Victor bring Ashley for the real family dinner. Knowing my place, I calmly looked away. But out of nowhere, Victor said, “Rain, you should come with us tonight.” Those words made Ashley look like she was about to grind her teeth into dust. I thought about the antique safe hidden behind the painting in the Harding estate and nodded. It’s time to take back what belongs to me. Ashley dressed up dripping in jewels. I, however, picked an outfit from my closet that looked exactly like what I wore the day I first arrived in New York. This time, I didn’t desperately try to sit next to Victor and force my way into their conversations. Instead, I chose a seat far away and sat quietly. When we arrived at the Harding estate, Mrs. Harding greeted Ashley warmly. Then, she glanced at me from the corner of her eye and scoffed. “What are you doing here?” Victor, however, proactively took my hand. “Mom, how could we have family Thanksgiving dinner without my wife?” I looked down at our intertwined hands, a bit dazed. For a second, I couldn’t tell what year it was. Was it the year I loved him the most, or the year I still didn’t know someone else was living in his heart? Mrs. Harding said sarcastically, “Fine. Of course.” “But before you sit at my table, you have to follow tradition.” Tradition. The hazing. Years ago, when Mrs. Harding tried to use this to humiliate me—forcing me to serve her tea on my knees—I flipped the table. Back then, Victor laughed and called me rebellious and edgy. He said it was exactly his type. Today, he hesitated for a moment, then waved his hand. A servant shoved a cup of scalding hot tea into my hands. I endured the numbing pain in my palms. “Mrs. Harding, this is the last time I will ever serve you. After this cup, I want my blessed amulet back from the family vault.” “So petty. It’s just a cheap trinket. Our family doesn’t care about it.” Mrs. Harding didn’t notice the shocked look on her son’s face. That amulet was something I had climbed hundreds of cathedral steps on my knees to pray for, just to ensure Victor would live a safe and prosperous life. But today, I finally realized… This man was unworthy. Just as a servant retrieved the amulet and was about to hand it to me, Ashley suddenly raised her voice. “Godmother! My sister Sarah was supposed to be the real Mrs. Harding. Even though she passed away, she is still part of this family. By the rules, shouldn’t Rain serve her tea, too?” “At the end of the day, the first to arrive is the wife, and the latecomer is just the mistress!” With that, Sarah’s black-and-white portrait was brought out and placed at the head of the table. Looking at Ashley’s face, a fire suddenly surged in my chest. I pushed away the boiling tea they tried to hand me again. The hot liquid splashed, perfectly scalding Ashley’s foot. “Your sister and you are exactly the same—nobodies with no titles. Even back in the day, mistresses had to be invited in. You’re the only one throwing yourself at him.” I sneered and turned to scold the servant. “Give me the amulet.” “Don’t give it to her!” Ashley took a step forward. “Who are you to insult me and my sister? I bet you were the one who killed her! Otherwise, why would Victor have ever married you?!” I glared at her. “Don’t you know exactly how your sister died?” Ashley instinctively looked back at Mrs. Harding. In her panic, Mrs. Harding grew furious. “You bitch, what kind of nonsense are you spouting?!” In the chaos, Ashley suddenly leaned back, grabbing my sleeve, and knocked over the black-and-white portrait. Glass shards sliced my arm. The photo Ashley had been screaming about me “losing” earlier that day landed right at my feet. Ashley threw herself into Victor’s arms, wailing. “See! I told you Rain stole my sister’s photo! I heard they practice witchcraft in the countryside—she was definitely trying to curse Sarah!” “And now the portrait is broken! Those people were right, Rain killed my sister, and now she wants to kill me and my godmother!” I looked up and met Victor’s deep, dark eyes. He enunciated every word clearly. “Make my wife kneel. Make her bow and serve the tea.”

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Right in the middle of dinner, Liam suddenly put down his fork, looked at me, and asked, “Who is Jack Falcon?” My fork stopped in mid-air. My heart skipped a beat. Jack Falcon. That was a fake name my best friend, Chloe, and I had come up with one night when we were drunk. We made a pact. If either of us ever got into trouble and couldn’t be reached, we would use “Jack Falcon” as our distress signal. Besides her and me, no one else in the entire world knew this name existed. And Chloe had been missing for exactly one month. She said she was taking a vacation to Thailand. She never came back. I looked at Liam’s casual, unbothered face, and my heart sank inch by inch. How does he know that name? … The name Jack Falcon was born the year Chloe and I graduated from college. After finishing a whole bottle of cheap red wine, we were lying on the roof of our apartment building, just talking nonsense. The moon was huge that night. Chloe threw her arm around my neck, slurring her words, “Harper, let’s make up a secret code.” “What kind of code?” “Like… if one of us ever gets into deep trouble and goes completely off the grid, and someone else brings up this specific name, the other one will know something is terribly wrong.” I laughed at her for being so dramatic. But we still spent half an hour brainstorming until we finally landed on “Jack Falcon.” Because the name was so incredibly cliché and fake, there was no way someone actually had that name. In the entire world, only two people knew the meaning of those two words. Me. And Chloe. And Chloe had been missing for exactly thirty-one days. She had told me she was going to Chiang Mai, Thailand, for a few days to unwind. Before her flight, she even FaceTimed me from the duty-free shop at the airport, yelling, “Harper! What do you want? I’ll buy it for you!” That was the last time I saw her face. After that, my texts went unread. My calls went straight to voicemail. Her Instagram feed stopped updating after a single picture of a night market in Chiang Mai. I called the police. Her family called the police. The Thai authorities were supposedly investigating. But there was no trace of her. Alive or dead. It was like Chloe had completely evaporated from the face of the earth. And now. My husband, Liam. A man who theoretically had absolutely zero connection to Chloe. A man who wouldn’t even “like” one of Chloe’s Instagram posts. Just casually dropped those two words in the middle of dinner. “What’s wrong?” Liam asked, noticing my frozen state. He gave a small smile. “Why do you look so weird?” “Nothing.” I looked down and shoved a piece of chicken into my mouth, tasting absolutely nothing. “I’ve just never heard that name before. Where did you hear it?” “Oh, a friend mentioned it.” Liam picked up his water glass and took a sip. “Just asking.” He seamlessly changed the subject, moving on to talk about something happening at his firm. But I didn’t hear a single word he said. There was only one thought screaming in my head. How does he know that name? How the hell does he know? After dinner, Liam went to take a shower. I sat on the living room sofa, my palms sweating. The sound of running water echoed from the bathroom. I glanced at the bathroom door, stood up, and walked over to his phone resting on the dining table. I knew his passcode. It was our wedding anniversary. I unlocked the phone, my fingers trembling as I scrolled through his texts, his call logs, his Notes app. Nothing. It was perfectly clean. Unnaturally clean. A normal person’s phone is never this empty. I moved to his laptop. It was sitting on his desk in the study. I knew the password to that, too. Or rather, he had never bothered to hide it from me. I checked his browser history, his file folders, his downloads, scrutinizing everything one by one. Until I opened the cached data for a flight booking website. My hand froze on the mouse. One month ago. Liam told me he had to go to Chicago for a three-day business trip. I had even packed his suitcase for him. But the booking records showed a different story. He didn’t buy a ticket to Chicago. He bought a ticket to Chiang Mai, Thailand. His departure date was one day before Chloe’s. His return date was two days after Chloe went missing. The shower stopped running. I immediately shut the laptop, rushed back to the living room, threw myself onto the sofa, and pretended to be mindlessly scrolling through TikTok. Liam walked out, drying his hair with a towel. He glanced at me. “Not asleep yet?” “Yeah, just gonna scroll a bit longer.” I forced a smile. He walked into the bedroom and turned off the lights. I stared at the dark, closed door of the bedroom, my fingers slowly digging into the fabric of the sofa armrest. Liam. What were you doing in Thailand? The next morning, I told Liam my company had an emergency project and I needed to travel for a few days. He was tying his tie, not even turning around. “Where to?” “Seattle.” “When are you back?” “Not sure. Maybe three or four days.” He finally turned to look at me, flashing a gentle smile. “Be safe.” I smiled back. It was a midday flight. I didn’t go to Seattle. I flew to Chiang Mai. When the plane landed, it was 4:00 PM local time. The air in Chiang Mai was hot and sticky, and the unfamiliar scents hitting my face made me dizzy for a second. The last photo Chloe sent me was taken in this exact city. Night markets, neon lights, crowds of people. She was standing in front of a mango sticky rice stall, smiling like a kid. But I didn’t have time to be sentimental. I took a cab straight to the hotel Chloe had booked. I had looked it up before leaving. She had sent me a screenshot of her booking confirmation before her trip. It was a boutique hotel called the Lotus Courtyard, right on the edge of the Old City. When I got to the front desk, I pulled out a picture of Chloe and asked the receptionist in English. “Did this girl stay at your hotel a month ago? Do you remember her?” The receptionist looked at the photo and shook her head. “Her name is Chloe. She’s American,” I added. The receptionist typed something into her computer, then nodded. “Yes, we have a record of her. She stayed for three nights. She didn’t extend her stay, but she also never officially checked out. Her luggage is still in our storage room.” My heart violently twisted. Her luggage was still here. But she was gone. I steadied my breathing and asked the question I was most terrified to ask. “A month ago… did this American man also stay at your hotel?” I slid a picture of Liam across the counter. The receptionist took a look, then typed into her computer again. When she looked up, her expression was hesitant. “Yes. He stayed for five nights.” Five nights. Two nights longer than Chloe. “What room was he in?” “Room 312.” “And Chloe?” “Room 315.” The same floor. Separated by only two rooms. I stood frozen at the front desk, a loud ringing filling my ears. My first thought was the most cliché one: They were having an affair. Chloe and Liam, booking rooms next to each other in Thailand for a secret getaway. But the moment that thought surfaced, another voice in my head violently slapped it down. Impossible. Chloe despised Liam. It wasn’t just a polite, behind-the-scenes kind of dislike. It was the kind of dislike where she would mercilessly roast him to his face. Whenever I dragged Liam to group hangouts, Chloe completely ignored him. Once, when she was drunk, she pointed right at him and said, “Harper is perfect in every way, except her taste in men is absolute garbage.” Liam’s face had turned green. Since that day, they had refused to even look at each other. How could two people who hated each other be sneaking off to Thailand for an affair? Then why was he staying right next door to her? What the hell was he doing? I took a deep breath and looked at the receptionist. “I need to see your hotel’s security footage from that week.” She looked extremely uncomfortable. “Um… we would need to get authorization from the manager for that.” “Please ask.” “And it might require a police warrant.” “My best friend is missing.” I cut her off. My voice was calm, but my hands were shaking violently. “It’s been a month. No one has seen or heard from her. Your hotel might be the last place she was ever seen alive. Do you really think your manager is going to refuse to cooperate?” The receptionist stared at me, stunned into silence. Then, she picked up the phone. Twenty minutes later, the hotel’s head of security took me to the surveillance room. It was a cramped room with screens covering three of the walls. The security chief pulled up the footage from a month ago, starting from the day Chloe checked in. I sat in the chair, staring at the screen, my palms slick with cold sweat. Day One. Chloe dragged her suitcase into the hotel lobby and checked in at the front desk. She was wearing a white sundress, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, chatting and laughing with the receptionist. My eyes suddenly burned with tears. Then, in the bottom right corner of the screen, at the lobby entrance. A man pushed through the doors. Dark blue t-shirt, a baseball cap pulled low, and a black face mask. I knew that posture. I knew that walk. It was Liam. He didn’t go to the front desk. Instead, he sat down in the lounge area, picking up a magazine to shield his face. But his eyes were locked onto Chloe. From the moment she checked in, to when she grabbed her keycard, to when she stepped into the elevator. He watched her the entire time. A cold shiver crawled down my spine. “Fast forward,” I said. The security chief increased the playback speed. Day One, Afternoon. Chloe left the hotel to go exploring. The camera switched to the exterior of the hotel. About two minutes after Chloe walked out, Liam followed her. Same baseball cap. Same mask. He kept a distance of about sixty feet. Day One, Evening. Chloe was eating dinner at the hotel’s ground-floor restaurant. Liam was sitting in the darkest corner of the restaurant, ordering a single coffee. His seat offered a perfect, unobstructed view of Chloe’s table. Chloe never noticed him. Day Two. Chloe went out to visit a temple. Liam followed her. Chloe went to a night market. Liam followed her. Chloe stopped by the side of the road to buy coconut water, crouching down to pet a stray cat. Liam stood across the street, pretending to be engrossed in his phone outside a convenience store. Every single camera angle. Every single frame. He was there. My hands started to shake violently. This wasn’t an affair. People having an affair don’t act like this. Wearing a mask, keeping a massive distance, tracking her every move. People having an affair walk side-by-side, eat together, touch each other. But he didn’t. From start to finish, he never spoke a single word to her. From start to finish, Chloe had absolutely no idea he was there. This wasn’t romance. It was stalking. “What about the third day?” I asked, my throat painfully dry. The security chief pulled up the footage for Day Three. On the morning of the third day, Chloe checked out. Or rather, she left the hotel with a backpack. She was holding a physical map, looking like she was in a great mood. The footage showed her walking out the main doors and heading east down the street. Two minutes later. Liam exited through the hotel’s side door, walking in the exact same direction. And then, the screen went blank. The hotel’s cameras only covered the immediate perimeter of the building. The world beyond those fifty yards was a blind spot. “Do you have any other cameras?” I asked. The security chief shook his head. “That’s all we have. For street cameras, you’d have to go to the local police.” I sat in silence for a very long time. Then I stood up, muttered a thank you, and walked out of the security room. Standing outside the hotel entrance, I opened the maps app on my phone. Chloe’s final direction was east. If you kept walking east down that road, you’d pass a few residential streets, an outdoor market, and a gas station. And at the very end of that road, you hit the ocean. Specifically, a stretch of jagged cliffs overlooking the sea. I stared at that marker on the map, my fingers turning to ice. She went there. He followed her there. And then she disappeared. I rented a scooter and rode down that road for forty minutes. The road ended at an expansive, desolate coastline. The cliffs were terrifyingly high, with nothing but jagged rocks and violently crashing waves below. The wind was howling, so strong it was hard to stand still. This wasn’t a tourist spot. There were no guardrails, no warning signs, just an overgrown dirt path leading right up to the precipice. I stood at the edge and looked down. Nothing but loose gravel, thick brush, and a narrow beach constantly battered by the tide. If someone fell from up here… I couldn’t let myself think about it. I started knocking on doors in the area. There was a tiny, impoverished fishing village near the cliffs with a handful of scattered houses. I held up Chloe’s picture, asking every single resident I could find. No one had seen her. I asked more than a dozen households. Nothing but head shakes. Just as I was about to give up and leave, I spotted a little boy sitting under a massive banyan tree at the edge of the village. He looked about seven or eight years old. He was wearing a filthy blue t-shirt, sitting barefoot in the dirt, playing with something in his hands. I squinted. It was a smartphone. With a pink case. And a pop-socket shaped like a cat’s paw. My brain completely short-circuited. That phone case… I gave that exact case to Chloe for her birthday.

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Before my family went bankrupt, out of a plea from Mrs. Sterling and a bit of my own selfish desire… I chose Alexander Sterling, a man who vowed to stay single forever, as my partner for a strategic marriage. His face turned livid. He sneered, “I didn’t realize you were so desperate for a man. To think I actually treated you as a friend.” After our marriage, he completely dropped his usual aloof demeanor and started bringing girls home frequently. Whenever I tried to get angry, he would simply toss our marriage contract onto the floor. “Don’t forget, you’re the one who forced me into this ten-year arrangement. What made you think I’d play the loving husband?” “Being Mrs. Sterling is enough for you. Don’t wish for anything else.” My hands dropped weakly to my sides. Until the day my family went bankrupt and my father passed away. I couldn’t even scrape together enough money for his cremation. I had no choice but to beg Alex for help. He just replied lazily. “Your father died, why are you asking me for money? Though, out of respect for our marital ties, I suppose I can send over a cheap plastic tarp.” While Alex’s men delivered the tarp, the media was reporting that he had just bought a private island for his new flame. My heart died in my chest. I decided to sell my wedding ring. On the same day I laid my father to rest, I booked an appointment for an abortion. ………….. When I handed the wedding ring over to the auction house, I could hear the mocking whispers around me. “Look at her. The former Miss Hayes. How pathetic she is now. That’s what happens when you cross Mr. Sterling.” “Exactly. No one will even lend her a dime. She insisted on forcing a marriage with him back then. Bet she never expected the Hayes family to fall from grace while the Sterlings rose to the top.” “I heard she didn’t even have the cash to cremate her dead dad. Tsk tsk, talk about karma.” Listening to their undisguised malice, my heart felt entirely numb. After the Hayes family lost everything, with Alex’s tacit approval, everyone wanted to kick me while I was down. The auction began. I dragged my numb feet and stood at the side of the auction hall. As long as the diamond ring sold, I would have the money to pay for my father’s cremation, whose body was still resting in the funeral home’s holding room. Enduring a few sarcastic remarks from these people was nothing. But when it was my ring’s turn to go up, the whole room fell stunned, their eyes shifting to the center of the floor. I looked over in a daze. To my shock, I saw Alex and Chloe Davis. And Alex had clearly recognized the wedding ring. His face was ashen, his eyes locked intensely onto the diamond. No one else dared to place a bid. For the first time in the auction house’s history, not a single bid was made. The atmosphere was suffocating. If no one bid soon, the item would be passed. My father had been kept at the funeral home for too long; I desperately needed this money! I was on pins and needles, cold sweat seeping from my tightly clenched palms. Finally, someone raised a paddle. I looked over gratefully, only to freeze when I saw it was Chloe. She leaned coquettishly into Alex’s embrace. “Alex, honey, it’s still a gemstone worth a million dollars. Plus, it’s your wedding ring. Why don’t I buy it so we can wear it together?” The moment Alex looked at her, his expression softened instantly. “You like this? It’s old and used. Why don’t I just buy you a new one?” But Chloe shook her head. “No, I want this one!” Alex chuckled helplessly, his gaze full of indulgence. “Alright, then I’ll buy it for you.” Alex raised his paddle, but he only bid ten thousand dollars. The starting price was ninety thousand. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford to spend money; he just felt that anything I had worn was utterly worthless. I felt like a bucket of freezing water had been poured over my head. And after Alex bid, no one else dared to compete. This ring, worth over a million dollars, the ring my mother had cherished so dearly, was sold at the rock-bottom price of ten thousand dollars. The ring was delivered straight to Chloe’s hands on the spot. She slipped it on smugly. “Doesn’t this ring look so much better on me than on her?” The crowd immediately chimed in to flatter her: “It looks absolutely perfect on you, Mrs. Sterling.” “It’s like it was custom-made for you.” “Some people have occupied a position that didn’t belong to them for years. It’s time things returned to their rightful owner.” Alex wrapped his arm around Chloe’s waist, leaning down to whisper something in her ear, making her giggle endlessly. It was a tenderness I had never received. Clutching the ten thousand dollars, I numbly returned to the funeral home and smiled. “You can proceed with the cremation now.” After collecting my father’s ashes, I sat exhaustedly on the steps outside. Suddenly, a sharp pain ripped through my abdomen. I clutched my stomach, my face turning deathly pale. I had found out about this baby two weeks ago. I smiled bitterly. What terrible timing. So, gripping my last thousand dollars, I went to the hospital alone. “Hi, I’d like to schedule an abortion.” “At your current stage, the abortion pill is seven hundred, and the surgical procedure is eighteen hundred.” I hugged my stomach tightly, feeling a wave of grim relief. Thank God I found out early. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even be able to afford to get rid of it. “The pill is fine.” “Go down to the department for a physical exam first.” The obstetrician confirmed my intrauterine condition and wrote me a prescription. Just then, a chaotic flurry of footsteps echoed from the hospital corridor. I stared blankly out the door. A group of men in black suits was escorting a man who was carrying a woman in his arms. A swarm of doctors and nurses urgently crowded around them. Just as I looked over, the man seemed to sense something and glanced back toward my exam room. One look was all it took. It was Alex. He seemed to notice me, a flash of confusion crossing his eyes. The next second, the woman in his arms let out a frail whimper. Alex immediately turned back, his voice tense but incredibly gentle: “Don’t be afraid. We’re at the hospital now. You and the baby are going to be perfectly fine.” The doctor in front of me hung up her phone. She casually mentioned to me, “That’s Mr. Sterling’s partner. She just found out she’s pregnant, and he ordered every OB-GYN in the building to attend to her.” Saying that, she handed me the prescription. “Take the pills according to the instructions. The pregnancy will pass by the third day.” On my way out of the hospital, I kept hearing passersby gossiping in awe. “Oh my god, it must be nice to be rich. He got every doctor to drop what they were doing just for a check-up.” “Mr. Sterling is so incredibly sweet to her. I heard they’ve been together for three years now.” Three and a half years, I answered silently. Besides me, she was the woman who had stayed by his side the longest. Alex used to treat me as a friend. To me, he was uniquely considerate and gentle. No matter where he traveled, because he knew I loved stones, he would carefully select local gemstones and bring them back for me. He once orchestrated a breathtakingly romantic fireworks display just to make up for the fact that I missed the Fourth of July show. Everyone, including myself, thought Alex harbored at least a tiny bit of affection for me. Yet, when the marriage was arranged, he roared that I was the type of woman he despised the most. And Chloe was exactly his type. He would never allow his friends—the ones who always marginalized and hated me—to gossip about Chloe’s poor background, always fiercely protecting her pride. Ever since Chloe appeared, there were no other women around him. He even moved her into our home. When I had questioned him hysterically about it… Alex thoughtfully sent Chloe back to her room first. Then he looked at me dismissively. “Sarah, I love her. What exactly are you throwing a tantrum for?” “Have you still not realized that our relationship is nothing but a ten-year contract? The minute the time is up, I will divorce you immediately.” Hearing his cruel words, my eyes turned red. With disheveled hair, I slumped onto the sofa. Alex looked down at me from above. Suddenly, he trapped me beneath him. His hand gripped my neck—not tight enough to choke, but enough that I couldn’t break free. His eyes were bloodshot, carrying a faint trace of agony. He murmured against my ear with lover-like intimacy: “Isn’t this what you wanted? Are you happy now, Mrs. Sterling?” After saying that, he stood up, wiped his hands in disgust, and walked into Chloe’s room. After leaving the hospital, to save money, I walked two miles home. The first snow of early winter began to fall. I looked up, the tears on my face already freezing to my cheeks. Snowflakes landed in my eyes, making them water. But as I pushed open the door to the mansion, a blast of warm heating hit my face. Seeing me standing in the doorway, Alex’s expression turned frigid. “Close the door. Chloe is pregnant. Do you want her to catch a cold?” Chloe looked at me provocatively. “Sarah, what do you think? Doesn’t your ring look lovely on me?” I pretended not to hear her. Alex blocked my path, and that’s when I saw a dazzling diamond ring on his finger. In all our years of marriage, I had never seen him wear it. He had dug it out specifically for today. “Chloe is talking to you. Are you deaf?” I swallowed the burning sensation in my nose and replied with a tremble, “It looks lovely.” Only then did Alex step aside to let me pass. I walked upstairs, only to find the door to my bedroom locked. Alex spoke with a slow, deliberate drawl: “I’m converting that room into a nursery.” “Then where am I supposed to sleep?” “You can have the basement.” I widened my eyes, staring at him in disbelief. “Alex, my family put money into this house when we bought it. Why should I have to sleep in the basement?” Alex sneered, looking at me with pure contempt. “Your family was drowning in debt. If I hadn’t bailed you out, this house would have been auctioned off long ago.” “Sarah, you still owe me over five million dollars. How exactly do you plan on paying that back?” I stumbled a half-step back, my body trembling uncontrollably. Seeing my pain seemed to give Alex a twisted sense of satisfaction. He gripped the banister next to me. “Chloe is pregnant. You serve her. Keep her happy. I’ll give you three thousand a month to pay off your debt. How about that?” Even a basic housekeeper made a decent salary, but he wanted me to be Chloe’s plaything, offering me pennies. He knew perfectly well that right now, I couldn’t find a job anywhere else. I bit my lip so hard I tasted the faint metallic tang of blood. “Fine. I will make sure Ms. Davis is happy.” Alex seemed caught off guard by my submission. The rest of his insults died in his throat. He narrowed his eyes. “Whatever. Go make some pregnancy-friendly food for her. Keep it mild. She doesn’t like ginger, so mince it finely and hide it in the dish.” I nodded shakily. As I turned around, I caught sight of Chloe’s venomous glare from downstairs. Suddenly, my legs gave out, and I pitched forward over the second-floor railing. In a split second, Alex lunged, wrapping his arms fiercely around my waist and yanking me back. We crashed hard against the wall. Alex’s arms were locked like a vice around my waist, his chest heaving violently. It wasn’t until Chloe ran upstairs that he snapped out of it and quickly stood up. Chloe threw herself into Alex’s arms, sobbing. “Alex, are you okay? You scared me to death!” Alex glanced down at me, still sitting on the floor. I happened to look up. As our eyes met, I could have sworn I saw a flash of genuine panic in his gaze. But he quickly hugged Chloe back and comforted her. “I’m fine.” Chloe looked up, sniffled twice, and then glared viciously at me. She marched over, and before I could even process what was happening, she viciously kicked me twice—right in my stomach. “You bitch! If you want to throw yourself off a balcony, go ahead, but don’t drag Alex down with you!” I clutched my agonizingly painful stomach, unable to stand. Alex gave me a cold, indifferent look before pulling Chloe away. “Let it go, I’m fine. Didn’t you say your heart was racing? I’ll have the family doctor come check your heart rate.” When the doctor arrived, he noticed me curled up in agony on the floor upstairs and asked out of concern. Alex didn’t even cast a glance my way. “She just took a couple of kicks. What could possibly be wrong with her?” Hearing those words, the last ember of hope in my heart turned to ash. My gaze slid down to the carpet. The carpet felt warm, but my hands and feet were freezing cold. The pain in my abdomen refused to fade, and dark patches began spotting my vision. My consciousness faded into darkness. When I opened my eyes again, I was wrapped in a blanket, lying on the living room sofa. A broad figure sat at the foot of the couch. Alex was hunched over, elbows on his knees, his fingertips rubbing a foil blister pack of pills. I didn’t make a sound. He was facing away from me, but he knew I was awake. “You’re pregnant.” He turned around, his gaze dark and dangerous. “And these are abortion pills.” I looked at him expressionlessly. “Yes. That’s right.” Alex closed his eyes, forcing down a sudden, inexplicable surge of rage, trying to keep his voice level. “You don’t want to have a baby? Why?” I smiled bitterly. “Let’s get a divorce, Alex.” Chapter 2 Alex stared at me intensely, then suddenly laughed. “Divorce? How is that possible? You racked your brains, even threatened my mother, just to marry me. Just so you could be Mrs. Sterling.” “It’s only been five years. Why on earth would you want a divorce now?” Back then, when the Sterling family was facing ruin, it was his mother who had pleaded with me, begging me to marry Alex for the sake of our past friendship to save their company. So Alex actually thought I had threatened his mother. I let out a miserable, hollow laugh. He casually tossed the blister pack of pills onto my chest. “You left this out for me to find on purpose, didn’t you? Trying to make me go soft on you?” I picked up the pills, clenching them so tightly in my hand that the sharp foil cut into my skin, but I didn’t let go. Alex didn’t notice. He chuckled softly. “Playing hard to get?” “I’m clearing out the position for Chloe. Isn’t that what you want?” “Do you think I need you to clear it for her?” he sneered mockingly. It finally dawned on me. He was right. Chloe already had everything of Alex’s except the marriage certificate. Alex tucked the blanket around me, but his voice was vicious: “Sarah, I’m not divorcing you until the ten years are up. As for this baby, do whatever you want with it.” “However,” he added smoothly, “if you have the kid, I can knock off some of your debt. Fifty thousand for a boy, twenty thousand for a girl. Not a bad deal for you, right?” He patted my cheek condescendingly. “If you want to pay off your debt, have the baby.” With that, he stood up and walked away. He thought I would use this child to cling to him desperately. But as soon as Alex left, I swallowed the first pill. No. A child without its parents’ love shouldn’t be brought into this world. It would never be happy. I would rather be a slave to Chloe Davis than force this child to suffer. The next day, Chloe threw a tantrum, demanding lobster bisque. “Sarah, I really want something special today.” She blinked and lowered her voice mockingly. “But you’re pregnant too. It must be so hard to go out in this freezing weather.” A heavy blizzard was raging outside. Alex chuckled softly. “Three thousand dollars, Sarah. Do you want to earn it or not?” I put down my bowl and met his teasing gaze with dead calm. “I’ll go.” Alex’s smirk vanished instantly. I braved the heavy snow, running to several different upscale grocers before I finally found the fresh seafood Chloe demanded. When I pushed the door open, my hands frozen around the icy plastic bags, I heard her casually mention she wanted red velvet cupcakes from a bakery all the way across town. Alex looked at my boots, which were packed with snow, and frowned. He opened his mouth to speak. But I didn’t wait to hear it. I turned right back around and walked out into the blinding snowstorm. By the time I returned with everything Chloe asked for, my feet were red and swollen from the cold. Alex kept his face blank, but his tone carried a hint of reproach. “You insist on doing this to yourself. You never listen.” He grabbed a tube of ointment, intending to apply it to my feet. I dodged his hand, my voice distant. “I don’t need it.” Alex’s hand froze in midair. Seeing this, Chloe purposely called out for his attention. Alex’s face darkened. “Ungrateful.” He turned his back on me and went to coddle Chloe. By the third day, Chloe couldn’t stand being cooped up anymore and insisted Alex take her out to a club. Alex couldn’t talk her out of it, so he grabbed his keys. I was just getting ready to head to the hospital for my follow-up check. As he draped a thick down jacket over Chloe’s shoulders, he glanced at my thin coat. “Hold on.” Alex blocked my way. “Where are you going?” I obviously wasn’t going to tell him the truth. “The grocery store.” “Get in the car. Keep Chloe company at the club, and I’ll drop you off after.” I stared at him evenly, refusing to move an inch. Alex quickly lost his patience. “It’s a blizzard out there. Do you seriously want to pass out in the snow just so people can say I abuse you?” He forcefully dragged me into the car. Chloe was visibly displeased, but once we got to the VIP lounge, she was in her element. The others at the table didn’t dare force her to drink, so whenever they lost a game, they shoved the shot glasses in front of me. “Sarah, you should be fine to drink this, right?” Chloe smiled at me. “Yeah, Sarah, take the penalty for me. I’m pregnant, you know.” I clenched my fists under the table, my fingernails digging deep into my palms. I was pregnant, too. I didn’t move. The atmosphere at the table grew cold. Chloe frowned, tugging on Alex’s arm and whining. “Alex, make her drink it.” Alex looked over in silence. I said, “I’m allergic to alcohol.” “There’s barely any alcohol in this. It’s just sweet mix.” When I still didn’t move, Chloe’s face darkened. “Not gonna drink? Fine, then I’m not playing anymore.”

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In December 1975, I had a miscarriage at the military base hospital. When the nurse came out to find my husband, Arthur, to sign the paperwork, he was crouching at the end of the hallway, gripping the payphone. “Clara, please don’t cry. I’ll figure out the money for the baby formula…” After he finally signed my papers, he barely glanced at me. “Hazel, just hold on for a bit. Clara’s kid is sick.” And then, he left. I lay on the hard wooden bench in the corridor all night long. What I eventually got was a freezing, congealed bowl of cafeteria macaroni. I didn’t cry. Because I had already died once. In my past life, I waited for Arthur for thirty years. I waited until he climbed the ranks and got rich. I waited until Clara got severely ill and he stayed by her hospital bed, refusing to leave her side for even a second—while I was left to die alone in our freezing house with a 104-degree fever, completely ignored. Reborn into this life, I took that bowl of cold macaroni and dumped it straight into the trash can. “Arthur, we’re getting a divorce.” He froze. His metal thermos dropped to the floor with a loud clatter, splashing cold soup all over his boots. Arthur couldn’t believe it. “Hazel, what kind of nonsense are you talking about?” He stood in my hospital room, legs planted apart, arms crossed over his chest. He wore that classic Hazel, you’re being unreasonable again expression. I knew that look too well. I had stared at it for thirty years in my past life. “I’m not talking nonsense. We don’t have a kid now, so the paperwork will be simple.” “Is this because of last night?” He furrowed his brows. “Clara’s kid was genuinely sick. I just ran to the clinic to help out—” “And gave her the cash for the baby formula?” His jaw dropped, but no words came out. “That was the money I saved up for six months. A few dollars every week, hidden under my pillow. I counted it over and over.” I looked at him, my voice dead quiet. “I figured when our baby was born, I couldn’t let him go hungry.” “But my baby died last night. He never even got the chance to use it.” Arthur’s arms slowly dropped to his sides. “About that formula money—” “I’m not just talking about the formula money.” I threw off the thin blanket and got out of bed. My knees were weak, and I had to grip the bedframe to stand steady. “Arthur, when I married you, my mother gave me five hundred dollars in savings, a bolt of imported blue velvet, our emergency grocery fund, and an antique silver bracelet. Where are those things now?” His face changed color. “You took the velvet, saying you were going to have winter coats made for your unit. But on Christmas, Clara wore a brand-new dress. The exact same shade of blue as my fabric.” “You took our grocery fund last month, saying the squad was pitching in for a banquet. The mess hall never had a banquet.” “You stole my silver bracelet and pawned it for a hundred and twenty-five bucks. On Clara’s son’s hundredth day, he was wearing a brand-new pair of leather shoes that cost exactly a hundred and twenty-five bucks.” “As for that five hundred dollars, you claimed you mailed it to your parents our second month of marriage. Your brother wrote to us last year saying they hadn’t received a single dime.” He went from red to white, and from white to a sickly green. After a few seconds of dead silence, he managed to choke out one sentence. “How do you know all that?” Even though I had mentally prepared myself, my nose still stung. “You don’t need to explain.” I bent down and slipped on my shoes. “I’ll write the divorce application. You just need to sign it.” “Hazel!” he roared. “Over a few material things, you’re really going to divorce me?!” I straightened my back and glared at him with dead eyes. “That silver bracelet was slipped onto my wrist by my mother right before she died. She told me to wear it, to pretend she was still with me.” “You pawned it for a hundred and twenty-five bucks. To buy Clara’s kid shoes. He outgrew them in a month, and she threw them in the trash.” “My mother’s last memory of me. A hundred and twenty-five bucks. One month. The garbage dump.” “You tell me—is it worth a divorce?” His mouth hung open. He couldn’t force out a single syllable. I grabbed my duffel bag from the bedside and walked out. At the military base housing. I pushed open the front door to pack my things. Someone was sitting in the living room—Clara. She was wearing a vibrant, aqua-blue blouse. I recognized the color instantly. It was the exact shade of the last few yards of my blue velvet. Seeing me walk in, she stood up, her face plastered with the perfect blend of fragility and apologetic concern. “Hazel, I heard you weren’t feeling well. I came to check on you.” “Clara, your intel is pretty fast.” I walked right past her, crouching down to pull my trunk from under the bed. The trunk was completely empty. The grocery cash was gone, the fabric was gone, the wages I had saved up were entirely wiped out. All that was left was a few worn-out clothes and an enamel washbasin. Clara stood behind me, her eyes sweeping over the empty trunk, the corners of her lips twitching into a micro-smirk. “Hazel, I heard you and Arthur got into a fight?” “Not a fight. A divorce.” Her eyes lit up for a fraction of a second. Then, she quickly lowered her eyelashes, swapping her expression for one of deep worry. “Hazel, you need to think this through. Arthur is a military officer; a military divorce isn’t easy. With your health like this, if you leave, you’ll be all alone—” “Clara.” I stood up, dusting off my knees. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” “Go ahead.” “You’re wearing clothes made from my fabric, spending the cash he pawned my wedding gifts for, and eating the groceries I skimped and saved for—and you have the nerve to stand here and tell me to think it through?” Her face stiffened. “I—those weren’t—Arthur said they were issued by the military—” “Issued by the military?” I pointed at her blouse. “My mother bought that fabric in town right before she passed. Blue velvet, imported. The local tailor only got one shipment. Clara, do you want me to dig out the receipt and show it to you?” Clara’s lips drained of color. She took a half-step back, subconsciously tugging at the hem of her shirt, as if trying to hide it. “Hazel, don’t just spit venom at people—” “What venom am I spitting? You’re literally wearing my stolen property, flaunting it in my face. Pointing that out is spitting venom?” I took a step forward. She took another step back, her spine hitting the wall. “Clara, your brother saved Arthur’s life. I acknowledge that debt. But Arthur should be the one paying that debt, not carving the flesh off my bones to do it. If you want to eat well, dress well, and live the good life, go ask Arthur for his own paycheck. What right do you have to take mine?!” “I never asked for it! Arthur gave it to me himself—” “Himself? When he was stealing my dowry behind my back, you didn’t know? When he pawned my dead mother’s bracelet, you didn’t know? When your son was running around the yard in those expensive leather shoes, you didn’t know where the money came from?” Tears spilled from Clara’s eyes. I had seen those tears too many times. In my past life, every time she cried, Arthur would rush over to shield her, then turn around and berate me for being petty. But in this life, Arthur wasn’t here. It was just the two of us women in this room. “What are you crying for?” My voice turned to ice. “Do you have any right to cry? The one who should be crying is me. I lost my baby yesterday, and my husband ran off to call you about baby formula. I lay bleeding in a hospital hallway all night, and all I got was a bowl of cold macaroni. What right do you have to cry in front of me?” My words choked Clara’s sobs right back down her throat. She glared at me. The layers of her fragile facade peeled away, revealing what lay beneath—pure hatred. “Hazel, you’ve changed.” “I’ve changed? Good. The old, unchanging Hazel was almost bled dry by you two parasites.” I stuffed a few old clothes into my duffel bag and pulled the drawstring tight. As I walked to the door, her voice chased after me from behind. “Do you think you’ll have a good life after you divorce him? You have nothing! The second you walk out that door, you’re just a—” I didn’t look back. “It’s true that I have nothing. But at least from now on, every bite of food I eat and every inch of fabric I own will belong to me. And nobody will ever take a single thread from me again.” I slammed the door behind me. There was an old elm tree by the gates of the base housing, its bare branches dusted with snow. A man was standing under it. It was my cousin, Wyatt. He was wearing a heavy winter coat, a layer of snow settling on his broad shoulders. “Hazel!” He ran over to take my heavy bag, his thick brows knotting together. “I heard what happened. Arthur, that son of a bitch—” “Wyatt, let’s just go. We can talk on the way.” Wyatt drove his rusted Chevy pickup, and I sat in the passenger seat. Aunt Martha was already bustling around the house when we arrived. Seeing my face as pale as a ghost, she didn’t say a word. She just pushed me onto the warm sofa and went straight to the stove to bring out a massive bowl of hot chicken stew. It was a rich, golden broth, steaming hot and comforting. I took one sip, and a tear dropped right into the bowl. How long had it been since I had a hot meal? Married to Arthur for six years, every penny and grocery I saved went straight into Clara’s stomach. I ate stale bread and pickles every day, leaving me weak and anemic, barely able to stand while doing chores. Aunt Martha watched me devour the soup, wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and turned to Wyatt. “Go! Butcher that fat hen in the yard! I’m making Hazel a proper chicken roast tomorrow!” “You got it!” Wyatt rolled up his sleeves and marched out the back door. That night, Aunt Martha brought out a freshly made quilt for my bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress, gripping my hand tightly. “Hazel, this is your home. You stay here as long as you want.” I nodded. My throat was too tight to speak. I rested at my aunt’s house for two days before Arthur finally came looking for me. He wasn’t alone. Clara came with him. Aunt Martha was in the yard feeding the chickens. When she heard the noise at the gate and saw who it was, her face instantly darkened. Arthur stood in the front. Clara stood a half-step behind him, holding Toby, her head bowed like a fragile flower about to be blown over by the wind. “Martha, I’m here to take Hazel home,” Arthur said. Aunt Martha didn’t even put down the chicken feed bucket. She looked him up and down. “Take her home? What kind of nerve do you have to show your face here and say that?” “Martha, what happened between me and Hazel—” “What happened between you and Hazel is the talk of the entire base!” Aunt Martha slammed the feed bucket onto the ground, her voice booming. “You took her dowry to feed a woman on the side! You left her to miscarry alone! What right do you have to stand at my door and demand to take her back?!” Clara gently tugged at Arthur’s sleeve from behind, whispering something in a low voice. Arthur’s face shifted. He glanced back at her, then turned back to my aunt. “Martha, there’s a huge misunderstanding here—” “What misunderstanding?” I stepped out of the house. I hadn’t planned on coming out. But hearing Clara’s voice made me change my mind. Some things are better handled face-to-face than gossiped about behind closed doors. Seeing me, Clara’s eyes immediately reddened. “Hazel, I know you’re angry, but you can’t just—” I completely ignored her. I looked straight at Arthur. “Why did you bring her here?” “She said she wanted to explain things to you—” “Explain what? Explain where the clothes on her back came from? Or explain whose money bought the shoes on her son’s feet?” Clara’s face went white, and the tears immediately began to fall. Aunt Martha let out a cold scoff, marching over to stand beside me, hands on her hips. “I recognize that blue blouse you’re wearing. That fabric was bought by Hazel’s mother right before she passed. She only bought a few yards. Do you think our family is blind?” Clara’s tears fell like a broken string of pearls, but she kept defending herself. “I really didn’t know…” Aunt Martha snorted, turning her crosshairs to Arthur. “Arthur, you’re a military man. You’re supposed to have honor and logic. You steal your wife’s wedding gifts to subsidize an outsider, refuse to admit it when you’re caught, and then bring that outsider to our doorstep to put on a soap opera? Do you think our family has nobody left to defend her?!” Arthur’s face turned the color of bruised liver. “Martha, I didn’t steal—” “Then what do you call it? Borrowing? Did you ever pay it back?!” Arthur was struck dumb. Clara suddenly stepped forward, her voice pitching higher. “Hazel! What makes you so special?! So what if a few of your things were used? Arthur helped me because my brother saved his life! Since you married him, you should be willing to stick by him through thick and thin!” “Through thick and thin?” My voice overpowered her crying. “Clara, touch your conscience when you say ‘thick and thin’. Where was the ‘thick’? I was married to him for six years. I wore patched clothes and ate stale bread. And you? You wore brand-new winter coats, and your son wore imported leather shoes. Where was the ‘thin’? I swallowed all the suffering, and you swallowed all the sweetness. And you have the audacity to lecture me about sticking through thick and thin?” I backed Clara into a corner with my words. The toddler in her arms, Toby, got scared and started wailing. “You—you’re crazy!” “I’m not crazy. I’m completely sober.” I looked at her, enunciating every word. “Clara, what exactly did you come here for today? Did you come to persuade me to go back, or did you come to confirm that I’m really leaving so you can comfortably take your place as Mrs. Arthur?” That sentence acted like a scalpel, slicing off the very last layer of her disguise. Her lips trembled. The tears were still falling, but her eyes had changed. There was no more grievance in that gaze—only the furious resentment of being completely exposed. “Hazel, don’t think you’re going to live a good life just because you divorce him. You have nothing—” “It’s true that I have nothing. But at least I have myself. What about you? Even the tears on your face are fake.” Aunt Martha grabbed my arm and pulled me behind her, waving her hand at Clara. “Alright, alright! You’ve done your crying and you’ve done your acting. Now get lost! Our family doesn’t welcome you!” She pointed at Arthur next. “You leave too! If you want to take your wife home, start acting like a real husband! If you can’t do that, sign the papers and let her go! Stop wasting Hazel’s time!” Arthur, his face ashen, opened his mouth several times, but not a single word came out. Clara, clutching the screaming Toby, turned and stormed off. After a few steps, she looked back and shot me a vicious, venomous glare. Arthur stood there for a moment longer, before finally turning and leaving as well. Aunt Martha slammed the yard gate shut, dusted her hands off, and looked back at me. “That woman is bad news.” “I know.” “You were right to leave him.” “I know.” After resting for three days, I got down to business. I found a notebook and listed every single dollar, every single item, and every single grocery run Arthur had taken from me over the last six years. The date, the quantity, the destination—I wrote it all down, line by line. Wyatt helped me corroborate the list—he had helped me transport some of those items originally, so he remembered them clearly. On the fifth day, Arthur showed up again. Wyatt blocked the doorway, refusing to let him in. Arthur’s lips were purple from the freezing cold. Standing in the snow, he yelled into the house, “Hazel! Come back with me! It’s completely inappropriate for you to be living in someone else’s house!”

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I have been married twice in my life. The first time was a shotgun wedding to my childhood sweetheart, Arthur Vance, the heir to a massive New York real estate empire. Back then, I was young, proud, and completely uncompromising. When I discovered he had started looking twice at his new, young assistant, I had an abortion and filed for divorce. The second time was a marriage that grew into love with Ethan Sterling, a self-made tech billionaire in Silicon Valley who claimed it was love at first sight. After I remarried, my ex-husband Arthur sent me a birthday gift every single year. I never signed for them, and I never replied. I was determined to prove that I could live a wonderful life without him. Until the third year of my marriage, when I accompanied Ethan to his college reunion. A drunk former classmate gave him a thumbs-up. “When it comes to devotion, out of all of us, you take the crown.” “Back then, Chloe dumped you because you were broke. She took all your savings and ran off to Europe.” “You said you were going to tear her limb from limb. And then what happened?” “The woman you ended up marrying… isn’t that still her?” I turned to look at Ethan beside me. He feigned composure and explained, “He’s drunk and talking nonsense. You actually believe him?” The classmate grumbled in protest. “How am I talking nonsense?” “I still remember the night you guys broke up. You cried the entire night…” Ethan abruptly stood up, his voice cracking like a whip. “Shut your mouth!” The classmate sobered up halfway, his gaze lingering on my face for a long time. From his bizarre expression, I pieced everything together. No wonder this rising Silicon Valley star fell in love at first sight with a divorced woman like me. No wonder he never let me curl my hair and always preferred me in long white dresses. No wonder he was infinitely tolerant of my occasional mood swings. It turned out that before me, he had an unforgettable college sweetheart. I grabbed my phone and stood up to leave. My wrist was suddenly grabbed. It didn’t hurt, but it felt sickening. I yanked my hand free and slapped Ethan hard across the face. The entire room gasped. Ethan wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, but a faint smile touched his lips. Knowing him for three years, I was intimately familiar with this—it was the precursor to his fury. When I first moved to California to marry him, my ex-husband had followed. Arthur would show up at our mansion’s gates every day with a new stunt, begging for a reconciliation. When Ethan saw it, he smiled and asked if I wanted to go back to my ex. Before I could answer, he rolled up his sleeves and got into a physical brawl with Arthur. That very night, he launched a ruthless, scorched-earth corporate war against Vance Enterprises. That was what finally forced Arthur to retreat back to New York. But now, what right did he have to be furious? I was the one being used as a stand-in. Just as I was about to leave, a woman in a white dress walked into the private room with a radiant smile. One look was all it took for me to guess she was Ethan’s first love. The exact same white dress. The exact same long, straight black hair. Chloe noticed me as well. A glimmer of understanding slowly surfaced in her eyes. I bit my lip in humiliation, my nails digging hard into my palms. Chloe brushed past me and greeted Ethan with familiar ease. “New girlfriend?” “She looks so much like me. Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on me?” Ethan’s face turned even colder. “This is my wife. Show some respect!” She lowered her head, her voice beginning to tremble. “I didn’t know you were married. Why are you being so mean to me?” Ethan instinctively crouched down slightly, his tone becoming panicked. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry…” Before he could finish, Chloe covered her mouth and giggled. “Three or four years have passed, and you’re still so easy to fool.” Ethan ground his teeth. “Chloe!” He was annoyed, she was laughing. The others in the room went back to their drinks, accustomed to the display. I couldn’t take it anymore and stormed out the door. From behind, I heard Chloe’s malicious teasing. “Aren’t you going to chase her?” My footsteps paused. But I heard the man’s breezy reply. “Her temper isn’t as bad as yours. She’s easier to coax.” I don’t remember how I got home. As soon as I walked in, the wedding photo hanging in the living room looked blindingly painful. When Ethan told me it was love at first sight, I hadn’t believed him at all. After all, my childhood sweetheart of over twenty years had betrayed me. Let alone a stranger I had only met once. But after the messy divorce with Arthur, my parents blamed me and cut off my credit cards. And because I lacked hard evidence of Arthur’s infidelity, the tabloids tore me apart, labeling me a high-maintenance drama queen. The socialites in my circle were just waiting to watch me become a joke. Everyone said I would never find a better husband than Arthur. I refused to believe it. I was determined to prove them wrong. And luckily, I bet right on Ethan, a man with limitless potential. His devotion to me allowed me to make a stunning comeback. Those who mocked me for throwing away a diamond for a pebble were forced to shut their mouths. But it wasn’t until tonight that I realized his so-called “love at first sight” was built entirely on the lingering feelings for his first love. My stomach began to churn. I ran to the bathroom and threw up violently. When I came out, I walked into his home office—a room I had never set foot in. Among the rows of economics textbooks, a battered old journal stood out. With trembling hands, I opened it. A photograph fell out. Ethan, wearing his graduation gown, was looking with deep devotion at the girl beside him. The man I remembered as being incredibly calm—even in a fistfight—was, in this journal, just an ordinary guy who got jealous and heartbroken. [She said staying with me was a dead end. She wants to break up and move to Europe.] [I said no, but she left anyway. She took all my money with her.] [That heartless woman. When she comes back, I’m going to make her wish she was dead.] The ink on this page was smeared by water stains, the paper slightly crinkled. I turned the page. [I met a woman who looks exactly like her.] [The day we got our marriage license, I texted her.] [If she comes back, I’ll marry her.] [She didn’t show up. I’m not waiting for her anymore.] My vision blurred. So, while I was excitedly planning our wedding, Ethan was waiting for another woman to crash it. The sound of keys turning in the lock echoed from the front door. I didn’t move. Until Ethan rushed into the room. Seeing the journal in my hands, his voice dropped to freezing temperatures. “Who told you to touch my things? Give it back.” The day he proposed, Ethan did it to give me peace of mind. He voluntarily transferred half of his company shares to me as a gift. After we married, he was completely transparent with me. No passcodes on his phone, real-time updates on his whereabouts. But now, just because I touched something related to Chloe, he was furious. I offered a slight smile. “If your heart is already occupied, why are you afraid of me looking?” He didn’t answer, just reached out to snatch it. I gripped it tightly, refusing to let go. He started prying my fingers open, one by one. The sound of joints popping was clearly audible. I went pale from the pain and violently threw the journal at his chest. “If you love your first love so much, why did you marry me?” He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “That’s all in the past. Stop being unreasonable.” “Then look me in the eye and tell me you married me because you love me.” I didn’t look away, staring straight at him. Ethan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His eyes flickered away for a second. The next second, he let out a cold laugh born of humiliation and anger. “You want the truth?” “Fine. I’ll tell you.” “I married you because you look like her.” “But haven’t I treated you well enough these past three years?” It was precisely because he treated me too well. So well that I thought he indulged me because he loved me. But what was the reality? Arthur loved the new and threw away the old. Ethan was nostalgic. But the person he was nostalgic for, the person he loved, was always his first love. Watching him carefully put the journal away, I only felt a sickening sense of irony. “Ethan. Let’s get a divorce.” Ethan’s movements paused, his tone impatient. “Evelyn, can you stop throwing a tantrum?” “As the lady of the Sterling household, who in Silicon Valley doesn’t treat you with respect?” “Throwing a fit about divorce now will only make us a laughingstock.” Those words sounded incredibly familiar. When I was divorcing Arthur, he said the exact same things. He said he just had “a little crush” on that assistant. He said there was no physical cheating, told me to stop making a scene. But I refused to be with a man who had someone else in his heart. If I could leave Arthur back then, I could definitely leave Ethan now. “Tomorrow morning, 9 AM. At the courthouse.” After saying that, I turned to walk past him. Ethan grabbed my shoulder. “Evelyn, don’t be so childish.” “Nobody wants to marry a woman on her third marriage who’s had an abortion.” I suddenly couldn’t see the man in front of me clearly. When I cried and told him about my past with Arthur, he had held me tightly, saying he wished he had met me sooner. Perhaps the heartbreak in my eyes was too obvious. Ethan’s tone softened slightly. “I’m sorry, I was just…” Before he could finish, his phone rang. I glanced down. No caller ID saved. Ethan hesitated, but ultimately chose to answer. “Arrested for a DUI? I’m not coming to bail you out.” “When you took all my money and ran off to Europe, you didn’t care about my situation either!” Every word was laced with disdain, yet every syllable betrayed how much he cared. Even though I had just demanded a divorce a second ago, it wasn’t as important as a phone call from Chloe. Seeing how desperate he was to go bail her out, the corner of my mouth twitched. “In such a rush to see your old flame? At least let’s finalize the divorce details.” Ethan frowned deeply. “Stop overthinking things.” “She just got back to the States. She doesn’t know anyone here.” “I’m her ex-boyfriend, after all. I’m just doing her a small favor.” He grabbed his car keys and hurried out the door. After the door slammed shut, I was left alone in the study. I went back to the bedroom and started packing my things. Not long after, a friend request popped up on my phone. The profile picture was a simple doodle of a kitten. Ethan’s profile picture was a puppy. After all this time, he still couldn’t bear to change his matching couple profile picture. After accepting the request, Chloe didn’t send a single message. I clicked on her social media feed and saw a completely different Ethan. He would let a woman draw all over his face with lipstick; He would go to the amusement park with her and take those cheesy photo booth pictures; He would even cook for her, making hot cocoa when she had cramps. These posts were from three years ago. Before Ethan even met me. Just then, Chloe posted a new update. [The bad girl gets everything.] The location tag was the most famous boutique hotel in the city. The photo attached was of two hands with interlocked fingers, clearly taken post-coitus. The man wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. But there was a pale indent on his ring finger. Ethan couldn’t even wait out the mandatory cooling-off period for the divorce. I bit my lip until it bled. In a moment of pure impulse, I called an Uber and headed straight to the hotel. The front desk refused to give me the room number. So I searched room by room. Apologizing over and over again. When I reached the very last door, I couldn’t bring myself to knock. What was the point of catching them in the act? Have a screaming match like a hysterical banshee? And become the laughingstock of the tabloids all over again? After a moment of hesitation, I didn’t knock on that door. I went home, dead inside. I consulted a divorce lawyer about the process, then fell into a heavy sleep. But early the next morning, I woke up to find myself trending: Evelyn Sterling Caught Sneaking into Hotel for Midnight Rendezvous with Ex-Husband. Before I was fully awake, an enraged Ethan yanked me out of bed. He shoved his phone in my face. The picture showed me standing outside the hotel, looking anxious. “Evelyn, running back to let your ex screw you—do you have no shame?!” My head was spinning, but I instinctively fired back. “I haven’t even seen Arthur.” “But what about you? Weren’t you also at the hotel last night?” A flash of panic crossed Ethan’s eyes, quickly covered up by furious indignation. “Nothing happened between me and her!” “But what the hell is this midnight rendezvous with Arthur?” I let out a bitter laugh, deciding to just lean into his accusation. “Then just assume I went to see him.” Seeing his pupils shrink in shock brought a twisted sense of vindictive pleasure. “I didn’t just see him. I told him I regretted divorcing him.” “Because no matter how garbage he was, he never treated me as a stand-in.” Ethan’s breathing instantly grew heavy, his fingers digging into my shoulders turning white. “You think I don’t regret it?” “No matter what Chloe did to me, she was never touched by another man.” “I married used goods for my first marriage. Do you have any idea how many people mock me?” A sharp smack echoed in the room. My palm stung. Ethan’s head jerked to the side, violent red veins instantly flooding his eyes. He raised his hand to hit me back, but froze mid-air. I tilted my chin up. “Hit me!” “If you have the guts, hit me back!” Ethan stared at me for a long time. Suddenly, he reached out and dragged me all the way into the bathroom. He turned the tub on full blast with freezing cold water. Ignoring my struggles, he forced my head under the icy water. “Cough… Ethan! You’re crazy!” He scrubbed violently at my skin. “Evelyn, I don’t hit women, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a temper.” “This is your one and only warning. I never want to see you contact your ex-husband again.” The icy water cut to the bone, but it was a fraction of the chill in my heart. “Ethan, what gives you the right to be such a hypocrite?” “You and Chloe were alone in a hotel room last night. You expect me to believe nothing happened?” He held me down in the tub, his voice dark. “You don’t have the right to question my business!” Water rushed into my nose. Panic and suffocation set in instantly. Just as I thought I was actually going to die by his hands, the pressure on my head suddenly vanished. I shot up, gasping desperately for air. Ethan looked down at me from above. “You stay in here and think about what you’ve done.” I scrambled up, instinctively trying to run out. But I was locked inside the bathroom. “Ethan, you can’t do this to me! Let me out!” Through the door came his cold voice. “I’ll let you out when you realize you were wrong.” A sudden, violent cramp ripped through my lower abdomen. A warm stream of liquid slid down my inner thigh. With trembling hands, I reached down. My fingertips came back covered in a horrifying crimson. “Ethan… my stomach hurts. Let me out…” I weakly pounded on the door, my voice trembling uncontrollably. Footsteps approached. Just as I thought he was going to open the door, I heard a scoff. “Evelyn, the lengths you’ll go to just to get me to open this door.” “Faking sick this time. Are you going to fake your death next?” The red pooling beneath me grew darker. Scalding tears mixed with the bathwater on my face. I had never been so terrified in my life. Even when I had the abortion with Arthur, it happened under anesthesia. Now, I was watching my own child dissolve into a pool of blood with my own eyes. “Ethan, I’m not lying.” “I’m having a miscarriage. Please… take me to the hospital.” The silence outside the door lasted only a second. “Evelyn, do you think I’m an idiot?” “You’ve had an abortion before. The doctors said it would be nearly impossible for you to ever get pregnant again!” “And even if you are pregnant, I have no intention of keeping that bastard child.” It felt like a knife plunged straight into my heart. Even drawing breath brought a dull, agonizing pain. I couldn’t hold on any longer, and I slipped completely into darkness.

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I was in the middle of something when I happened to glance at my husband’s phone and saw a text message pop up. [Dear Sunshine Academy Parents! Please remember to bring your little ones to the school’s opening ceremony on time tomorrow morning. Don’t be late!] I froze. My husband and I had been married for five years, and we didn’t have any children. Why on earth was he receiving a message like this? I initially thought it was just a wrong number. But a second later, another notification popped up. [Leo’s Dad, the children are going to absolutely love the million-dollar playground you donated!] [Also, the academy has prepared a grand thank-you presentation for you and Mrs. Sterling. Feel free to arrive a little early tomorrow! ~] Leo. Wasn’t that the name of my husband’s secretary’s son? I took a deep breath and quietly put the phone back exactly where I found it. Then, I sent a quick text to my assistant: [Pick me up tomorrow morning. We’re going to Sunshine Academy.] … A few minutes later, Arthur Sterling walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. He picked up his phone, checked the screen, and a subtle, almost imperceptible smirk touched the corners of his mouth. Right after, his phone buzzed with an incoming call. Instead of answering, he started getting dressed and turned to me. “Honey, there’s a minor emergency at the company I need to handle. Don’t wait up for me tonight.” I pretended I hadn’t seen a thing. I nodded and walked him to the front door. But the moment he left, I pulled out my phone and opened the GPS tracking app for his car. That limited-edition Rolls-Royce was the five-year anniversary gift I had given him a week early. I didn’t expect him to use it to drive straight to his mistress this fast. Half an hour later, I followed the GPS signal to the most exclusive, ultra-luxury gated community in the city. I watched as Arthur smoothly pulled the car into the driveway of a massive mansion. Almost immediately, his secretary, Mia, ran out the front door. She threw herself into Arthur’s arms, whining playfully. “Arthur, I specifically dropped Leo off at my mom’s house today. Why are you so late?” My breath hitched in my throat. It really was her. Suddenly, I heard the voices of a few neighbors taking an evening stroll nearby. “That young couple is so in love. They’re so loud every night.” “I know, right? Once I even saw them doing it in their private pool…” “Well, that mansion cost thirty million dollars. Rumor has it the guy paid cash and put the deed entirely in his wife’s name. Don’t be jealous of young love.” I couldn’t help but let out a bitter, hollow laugh. The truth was, six months ago, I had found a real estate brochure for this exact neighborhood in Arthur’s briefcase. Back then, I was stupidly thrilled, thinking he was planning to surprise me with a new home for our anniversary. I never imagined he was actually buying it for Mia. Before I could fully process the sting, Arthur’s doting voice drifted over. “Did I not feed you enough in my office this morning? You’re that impatient?” Mia playfully slapped his chest. “I bet Mrs. Sterling keeps you on a tight leash, doesn’t she?” Arthur scooped her up into his arms effortlessly. “What Mrs. Sterling? You are my Mrs. Sterling.” “Besides, how could she ever compare to you?” What? Even though I had braced myself, hearing him say those words out loud still made my heart cramp with pain. When Arthur first met me, he was a broke kid with absolutely nothing to his name. My dad was fiercely against our relationship. To stay with Arthur, I eventually caved and agreed to my dad marrying his new girlfriend, Sarah. Only after I accepted Sarah as my stepmother did my dad finally stop opposing our marriage. Because of that compromise, I felt so guilty that I knelt in front of my biological mother’s headstone for three days and three nights, begging for her forgiveness. And this… this betrayal and humiliation was what I got in return. I bit my lip, pulled out my phone, took several clear photos of the mansion, and sent them directly to my private investigator and my lawyer. If I had the power to turn Arthur Sterling into a rising star in the business world, I certainly had the power to strip him of absolutely everything. Once that was done, I dialed Arthur’s number. It rang for a long time before he finally answered. His tone was laced with impatience. “Honey, didn’t I tell you there was an emergency at the office? Why are you calling me?” “Oh, right, how could I forget you’re at the office,” I said softly. “I just wanted to let you know that my dad is on his way to your office right now. He said he wanted to drop by and see you since he was in the area.” There was a dead silence on the other end, followed by the sound of frantic rustling. “Dad is coming?! Okay, I’ll get ready.” He hung up immediately. I let out a cold laugh. I looked up and watched him sprint out of the mansion, his shirt half-unbuttoned and his tie askew. Mia stood at the doorway, her eyes red, looking incredibly reluctant to let him go. I smirked. Why would my dad randomly drop by his office at this hour? I was just messing with him. But so what? I just couldn’t stand seeing them happy. After Arthur drove off, I walked up and knocked on Mia’s door. Thinking Arthur had come back, she threw the door open and lunged forward playfully. “Arthur! I knew you couldn’t bear to leave me!” But the moment she saw it was me, she froze solid. She stumbled backward in a panic. “Mrs. Sterling… no, please don’t misunderstand!” “What I just said was… no, it’s not what you think…” I looked at her, my face twisting with instinctive disgust. “All the ambition of a thief, but none of the guts?” “Secretary Mia, if you’re this pathetic, what am I supposed to do with you?” She wavered for a second, then finally straightened her posture and stared at me. She let out a laugh. “Mrs. Sterling, if you already know everything, why are you here asking questions?” “Don’t you think you look completely pathetic right now?” I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t expect her to have the nerve to talk back to me. “Pathetic? What’s pathetic about me?” Mia lifted her chin. There wasn’t a shred of guilt in her eyes; instead, they were filled with contempt. “You know Arthur doesn’t love you, yet you refuse to let go.” “Do you really think you can buy a man’s heart with money?” She seemed to gain confidence as she spoke, her voice rising. “Arthur has been sick of you for a long time! Otherwise, why do you think he hasn’t let you get pregnant in five years?!” “Heh, you don’t even know, do you? To make sure you never had a baby, he’s been secretly slipping birth control into your drinks every single day!” “If I were you, I would have packed up and left a long time ago!” I listened quietly, not interrupting her. Actually, I found it a little amusing. I crossed my arms, looking past her to take in the sprawling mansion, and then raised my hand and slapped her hard across the face. “So what if you gave him a child?” “As long as he hasn’t divorced me, you and your son are nothing but a dirty mistress and an illegitimate bastard who can never see the light of day!” “And this house behind you? It was bought with my money!” “If anyone is packing up and leaving, it’s going to be you!” “You!” Her head snapped to the side from the force of the slap. She looked at me in absolute shock. “You! You dared to hit me?!” I smiled, pulled the massive diamond wedding ring off my ring finger, and tossed it into the drainage gutter by the driveway. “Congratulations. You just picked up a piece of trash I don’t want anymore.” Her face turned pale, but she stiffened her neck and spat back, “What are you so smug about?!” “Arthur is the famous CEO of Sterling Enterprises now! He doesn’t need you anymore!” “Believe it or not, all it takes is one word from me, and he’ll divorce you!” I laughed out loud. “Is that right? Then let’s see exactly what he chooses tomorrow morning.” Without giving her a chance to retort, I turned and walked away. Arthur didn’t come home the entire night, but he didn’t try to contact me, either. It seemed Mia was a coward after all. She didn’t even have the guts to tell him I had confronted her. I slept incredibly well. Bright and early the next morning, I got into my assistant’s car. “Let’s go. Sunshine Academy.” I was genuinely curious to see what Arthur looked like playing the role of a loving father. By the time we arrived, the street in front of the kindergarten was already lined with luxury cars. A few minutes later, Arthur’s car pulled up. Right on cue, Mia stepped out of the backseat, holding her son, Leo. “Mr. Sterling! Mrs. Sterling!” The kindergarten principal rushed forward to greet them with a beaming smile. “You’re here! Please, come right in. The thank-you presentation is about to begin.” A crowd instantly formed around them. “So he’s the CEO who donated the new playground!” “Mr. Sterling really spares no expense for his child!” “I know, right? I heard he built his company from scratch and is worth over a hundred million in just a few years. Incredible!” Hearing the praise, Arthur looked incredibly smug. He took Leo from Mia’s arms and said with a doting smile, “If it weren’t for my wife building this empire by my side, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” “As long as my wife and Leo are happy, no expense is too great.” I found it utterly hilarious. Mia built an empire by his side? Did he forget that if my dad hadn’t invested fifty million dollars, he’d still be a low-level sales rep at a nobody firm? If I hadn’t leveraged my family’s network and resources, he never would have landed any of those massive contracts. Just as they were about to walk through the academy gates, I let out a cold laugh and stepped out of my car. I pulled off my sunglasses, staring directly at Arthur, and spoke loudly enough for the crowd to hear: “A man who married into his wife’s money actually has the nerve to keep a mistress and a bastard child on the side. You’ve got some real guts.” The moment Arthur saw me, his entire body went rigid. Mia, however, was quick on the draw. She immediately linked her arm tightly through Arthur’s. I walked up to them with a mocking smile. “CEO Sterling really goes above and beyond to take care of his employees, doesn’t he?” “Taking care of your secretary to the point of getting her pregnant, and then dropping a million dollars on a playground to keep her happy. What a generous boss.” The crowd exploded into gasps and whispers. The way they looked at Mia changed instantly—from envy and admiration to blatant disgust and contempt. “What? That woman is his secretary?!” “So she’s a homewrecker! Does that mean Leo is an illegitimate kid?” Mia’s face drained of color, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. “I’m not a mistress! Arthur and I have been together for six years! Leo is five years old!” She looked up at Arthur with a pitiful, tear-stained face. “Arthur, tell them. Isn’t that true?” Arthur finally snapped out of his shock and glared at me fiercely. “Chloe, why are you here?” “What exactly are you trying to pull?!” He wrapped his arm tightly around Mia, then turned to the crowd with an apologetic look. “Everyone, I am so sorry you had to witness this.” “This woman is our family’s maid. She’s suffered from severe delusions for years. She genuinely believes she is my wife.” “I kept her employed out of pity because she’s taken care of our household for so long.” “I never imagined she would follow us here today and cause a scene.” What? I couldn’t believe my ears. He actually called me his maid? The parents in the crowd immediately rallied behind them, pointing at me and whispering loudly. “So she’s just a crazy maid.” “The help these days is out of control. Delusional enough to think she’s the lady of the house.” “Look at her clothes. How could a maid afford that? She definitely stole them from Mrs. Sterling’s closet!” “Shameless trash! How dare she slander the real Mrs. Sterling by calling her a mistress!” Right then, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Mia: [See that? Arthur chose me!] [Why didn’t he come home last night? Hmm, so hard to guess. 😉] [I was going to let you off the hook and not tell Arthur you hit me, but you just had to come here and humiliate yourself.] Immediately after, a video file popped up in the chat. In the video, Arthur and Mia were in his office… in extremely compromising, explicit positions. No wonder Arthur didn’t come home last night or call to interrogate me. What I didn’t understand was where Arthur found the audacity to treat me like this. I looked up, staring dead into his eyes, and asked coldly, “Arthur, aren’t you afraid my dad will find out about this?” Hearing that, Arthur’s brow furrowed. Then, he actually leaned in close to my ear and sneered in a low voice, “Your dad? Your stepmother is about to pop, and rumor has it she’s having a boy.” “Do you really think you’re still getting a piece of the Davis family fortune?” So that was it… But what he didn’t know was that long before I agreed to let my dad marry Sarah, they had already signed a bulletproof prenuptial agreement. The contract explicitly stated that everything belonging to the Davis family would go to me. To put my mind at ease, Sarah had even convinced my dad to transfer all his voting shares in the company to me on the spot. Thinking of that, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I quickly forwarded the explicit video and chat logs directly to my dad. Seeing me stay silent, Arthur’s face darkened. “Are you going to get lost or not?” “If you ever dare to pull a stunt like this in front of my wife and son again, don’t blame me for what happens next!” Hearing his threat, the crowd felt fully validated. The principal immediately rushed forward, eager to please. “Mr. Sterling, please don’t worry! I’ll have security throw this crazy woman out right now!” The other parents chimed in in agreement. “Hurry up and leave! Stop embarrassing yourself!” “Seriously! If you’re that desperate for a man, go stand on a street corner! Coming to a kindergarten to try and steal a child’s father—you have no shame!” Within seconds, several security guards carrying batons marched up to me. I instinctively took two steps back. “Don’t you dare touch me!” Suddenly, someone in the crowd reached out and tried to yank my handbag off my shoulder. “Isn’t this the new limited-edition bag that’s been sold out for months?!” “You psycho! Give that back to Mrs. Sterling right now!” “Stealing clothes is one thing, but trying to steal a husband?! Who do you think you are?!” “I say we strip her right here! Let the kids learn exactly what happens to thieves!”

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