### Chapter 1

I forgave my cheating husband ninety-nine times.

Until the hundredth betrayal arrived on a video, at the party for our fifth wedding anniversary: Randolph Farley in a bar, knotting a cherry stem with a stripper, a B-list starlet, their mouths locked together for a solid half hour.

Every guest in the room turned to watch the show, waiting for me to fall apart the way I always had, to break down sobbing and beg Randolph to come back to me.

I just cut the cake myself, calm and quiet.

After the party emptied out, six months pregnant, I went to see Kieran Farley and set a fake marriage certificate gently on the table in front of him. "Grandpa Farley, the ten-year agreement is finished. It's time for me to go."

He froze. "Mel, but you're carrying his child. Won't you reconsider?"

He couldn't believe it. The woman in front of him, who had loved his grandson so deeply she'd once have taken a knife for him, was actually leaving.

I looked down, stroking the swell of my belly, and gave a bitter smile. "I'll keep your great-grandchild, but the baby will have nothing to do with Randolph Farley."

From eighteen to twenty-eight, Randolph had taken up almost my whole life.

In our circles we were famous as conjoined twins, and every step of his climb to the top of the Farley Group carried my shadow. He even named a new company after me.

I'd believed those happy days would last until our hair turned white. Then I got pregnant, and everything changed.

Hostesses, lingerie models, little starlets. The women he slept with became trophies he and his buddies bragged about, while my screaming, my crying, my begging, time after time, became the joke.

Until the ninety-ninth time. The pain in my stomach was unbearable and I called Randolph; the call connected by accident. His hoarse breathing came through, followed by a snicker.

"You're still the best. Once she got pregnant she ballooned up like a pig. Just thinking about her makes me sick."

In that moment, the tears simply dried up. My heart felt like it had stopped swinging, and I couldn't even feel the pain anymore.

Since spilled water can't be gathered back, since the love was dead, I chose to keep the baby and set him free.

So why, after I left, did he kneel in front of the whole world and beg me to come back?

……

That afternoon, Randolph had still been kneeling on the bedroom carpet, kissing my belly, making promises to our child.

"Baby, Daddy's going to give you everything, the best of everything, all the love for you and your mommy."

His devout expression fooled me into thinking he had really changed.

But that man's betrayal was like the weather. One second later, it turned.

At the party, I stood alone in the middle of the crowded hall, clinking glasses all around me, facing the malice whispered from every direction.

"Has Melanie Hughes gone stupid from rage? Standing there, not moving a muscle. Every time she catches her husband cheating, doesn't she always carry on like a fishwife, crying and screaming?"

"Right, that last little starlet nearly made her miscarry in the middle of the street. She had to kneel and beg her husband before he'd come home."

"This time Mr. Farley didn't even show up for his own anniversary. Proves he stopped caring about her long ago. That's why she's faking calm, just trying to save a little face."

I didn't argue back.

I wasn't faking calm. I was just tired.

Ninety-nine forgivenesses had used up all my love and cried out all my tears. The exhaustion seeped from my bones, until even breathing felt heavy.

Outside the window, fireworks burst open, the sky ablaze with color, gone in an instant. So much like our ten years.

After the party ended, I set that fake marriage certificate down in front of Kieran Farley.

The old man was trembling all over, and on that always cold, stern face surfaced a grief I had never seen before.

He grabbed my hand, grinding the words out through his teeth. "Mel, it's that little brat who wronged you. It's our Farley family that owes you!"

I cradled my belly, my voice very soft.

"Grandpa Farley, I'm so grateful to you. When my parents died in that accident, you took me in, put me through college, gave me a way to keep living. So I agreed to stand at his side and support him for ten years."

"Randolph never knew our marriage was only a contract. But I really did fall in love with him. I thought I could spend this whole life with him as his wife."

I paused. Something seemed to clog my throat, and I forced the words out.

"But after I got pregnant, he started finding women outside. Once, twice... I gave him ninety-nine chances."

"Now, I'm letting go."

The old man's tears streamed down. "If you've made up your mind, then I'll support you."

He called in his lawyer and signed a thick stack of documents through the night.

"These deeds, these shares, are the compensation you've earned after all these hard years."

"This is a family trust fund for my great-grandchild, so he'll never want for anything his whole life."

He pushed the heavy stack of papers toward me, his hoarse voice full of aching tenderness. "Don't you worry. Your grandfather will never let you or the child suffer a single wrong."

My nose stung and my eyes went red.

Randolph and I had truly loved each other once, too.

As the heir to the Farley empire the old man valued most, he had given up every bad habit of a rich young playboy for me.

He turned down his buddies' invitations to go out and party, and studied through the business school courses at my side. After graduation we joined the Farleys together, often working shoulder to shoulder until dawn.

The day he took the seat as CEO of the Farleys, the first thing he did was marry me, and he gave me the biggest surprise of all: a new company named after me.

He said he hoped our love would be like the Farleys, long-lasting, brilliant, complete.

It wasn't even five years before that perfect love shattered.

Randolph didn't come home until the small hours.

In the dark, the mattress dipped, and a pair of hands wrapped around me from behind, settling over my belly, stroking it gently.

He kissed my hair, his tone carrying a satisfied little laugh. "I'm glad you didn't make a scene tonight. You finally look like the lady of the Farley house, Mel. I hope you keep it up."

The smell of liquor on him mixed with the cloying sweetness of cheap perfume, and my stomach churned.

I kept my eyes shut tight and didn't answer.

Randolph, the reason I'm not making a scene isn't that I've grown sensible. It's that I no longer care.

Randolph got up to shower, and the phone screen on the pillow lit up.

It was Lily White, the stripper.

At the top of the screen was a photo she'd sent earlier, in black lingerie, posed to entice.

Below it was their conversation.

"I just realized one of the condoms broke. What if I got pregnant?"

"It's not that easy," Randolph replied.

After a while, he added more.

"But if you really are, it's not like you can't have it. She didn't cry tonight, so maybe she could even accept my illegitimate kid."

### Chapter 2

I stared at those few lines until the screen went dark and the room sank back into black.

I'd expected my heart to twist like it was being cut open. There was nothing. Just numbness.

I gripped the signed papers under my pillow. The cold sheets pressed into my palm, the only thing in the room that felt real.

The next morning I opened my eyes to a soft laugh. Randolph was rolling my earlobe between his fingers, his gaze full of mockery.

"You didn't call me once last night. You saw me with another woman and you weren't jealous at all?"

He liked watching me fall apart, liked the crying, the scenes. Holding me in his palm like a lamb to play with always put him in a good mood.

Once I understood that my helpless tears and my groveling pleas were nothing but the seasoning that livened things up for him and those women, I knew I would never do it again.

I pushed his hand away, got out of bed, and walked toward the bathroom without looking back.

"Don't you hate hysterical women?" My voice came out calm, cold enough to chill. "Fighting over other women would be beneath the dignity of Mrs. Farley."

His eyes followed my back, and a small crease formed between his brows.

He came after me quickly, wrapped his arms around me from behind, and tilted my chin up with one long finger. In the mirror, he studied me the way a man studies cornered prey, smiling without a care.

"Relax. The place of Mrs. Farley will always be yours. Those women and I, we're just passing the time."

The words were gentle. Every one of them was a needle, leaving my heart bleeding from a hundred places.

A memory surfaced from years ago.

With my help he had become the heir the old man valued most, and the rest of the family resented him for it. That night we came out of a bar and a man who looked like a vagrant suddenly rushed at him. I saw the cold glint in his hand.

My body moved faster than my mind. I threw myself in front of him.

The blade went into me.

I lost so much blood that I was unconscious for ten days, and he stayed by the bed the whole time, never sleeping. The moment I woke, he slid an engagement ring onto my finger.

I still remember his red-rimmed eyes, the way he went down on one knee in front of me, as devout as my most faithful believer.

"Mel, I love you. I'll protect you for the rest of my life. If I ever betray you, let heaven strike me down and let me die a terrible death."

The hands that once held mine so tightly were used now to touch other women.

Those scalding vows had long since been forgotten in his betrayals.

When I didn't react, Randolph ruffled my hair. "I missed last night's party. Today I'll stay home with you and the baby. Happy now?"

The tone you'd use to throw a scrap to a stray animal.

I almost laughed. Before I could say anything, the phone at his waist rang.

He answered it, and in pieces I caught words like "local muscle" and "grabbed Miss White."

He glanced at me on reflex, a flicker of probing in his eyes.

I met his eyes in the mirror, cold and blank.

He immediately barked into the phone, "Useless, all of you! Didn't I say I'm spending today with my wife? Stop fucking bothering me!"

After he hung up, Randolph told me to take my shower first, said he'd cook lunch for me himself.

I let myself think maybe there was still a shred of love left in him. But when I came out of the shower, the room was empty.

A sticky note was pressed to the vanity mirror.

"Something came up at the company. I'm heading over. The chef will make your lunch."

After he left, a video arrived from an unknown number.

It ran a full hour. The hotel VIP suite. Randolph was on top of Lily White, wild beyond anything I had ever seen from him. I had never watched him lose control like that.

In five years of marriage, Randolph had always held himself back in bed, terrified of hurting me, of wearing me out.

So it turned out he wasn't born restrained. The person who could light that fire in him had just never been me.

In the video, Lily White moaned loudly beneath him, her nails dragging red welts down his solid back. She wept pitifully. "If it weren't for you, that old man would have sold me onto the dark web... I love you so much, Randolph, so much!"

The way Randolph looked at her was focused, scorching, edged with an almost mad possessiveness.

I had never once seen that look turned on any of his other mistresses.

I watched the video like I was punishing myself, until my assistant called to remind me it was time to go to the hospital for my prenatal checkup.

No matter how busy Randolph and those women had ever been, on this one day he had always pulled himself away to come with me.

This time, he had forgotten completely.

I had barely walked into the hospital when someone stopped me.

"Sorry. Mr. Farley has booked out the entire place."

### Chapter 3

From a distance, Randolph came rushing in with a woman in his arms, and a guard quickly shoved me out of the way.

Randolph didn't notice me at all. Every part of him was focused on Lily. She leaned against his shoulder, face pale. "Am I too heavy? Put me down."

"You weigh nothing at all, baby."

That face of his, always so careless with women, was now full of the kind of caution you'd give something precious. My chest felt crushed under a boulder. I couldn't breathe.

Nearby, the nurses traded whispers.

"Mr. Farley really dotes on his wife, doesn't he? He booked out the whole hospital just for her."

"I heard there was an accident… some tearing. He had her flown in by helicopter. Who wouldn't want a husband like that, so intense and so devoted."

I stood in the corner, listening. Then I turned and ran out to the flowerbed, bent over it, and threw up.

What a good man. If only he weren't my husband.

I retched until there was almost nothing left but bile before I stopped.

I wiped away the tears and the mess at the corner of my mouth, then went to a different hospital and finished the checkup alone.

After that I went straight to Farley. I began taking stock of the businesses that were mine, sorting through every division, pulling together all the resources in my hands.

I had poured everything into Farley. Its glory was built out of my blood and effort. These things were mine by right, and I would take all of them with me.

All of it, for my child.

I had to plan everything for her myself, so that even without a father she would live better than any other child, never having to depend on anyone, never having to live under someone else's roof and read someone else's face.

Then I handed off the matters I couldn't settle in time to Grandpa Farley.

"Mel, give me half a month. I'll take care of everything for you."

I nodded.

Just half a month more, and I'd be free.

Today was the tenth anniversary of my parents' deaths. Once all of it was done, I bought a bouquet of irises, my mother's favorite, and hurried to the cemetery.

I'd barely set foot inside.

Crack! The sound of something shattering carried from far off.

A bad feeling rose up in me all at once, and I went straight to the grave.

Lily was sitting in front of my parents' headstone, blood running from her fingers.

My eyes went cold. "Why are you here?"

"Lily heard today was your parents' memorial. She begged me to bring her so she could pay her respects." Randolph crouched in front of her, not lifting his head, carefully dabbing medicine on her cut.

In the past, no matter how far he took his games, he'd never once brought anyone before my parents.

He used to say this place belonged to our family alone, that no one else would ever have the right to set foot here. For her, he'd broken his own rule.

Rage burned in my chest, and I screamed at Lily, "Get out. You're not welcome here!"

Then my eyes caught the ceramic shattered into shards beside her, and a cold dread swept through my whole body.

"You broke this? My parents made this jar with me while they were alive. The only one!"

Lily flinched. "I touched it by accident, I'm so sorry. Whatever it costs, let me pay you back, all right?"

By accident?

I'd left it at home. She'd deliberately brought it here to smash it.

I couldn't hold myself back anymore, and I swung my hand hard across Lily's face.

"How are you going to pay me back? Can you bring my parents back to life?!"

"Ah!" Lily clutched her cheek and toppled into Randolph's arms.

Randolph shoved me away with one hand and wrapped his arm around the sobbing Lily, as if she were the one who'd been wronged.

"It's just a dead object. Is it really worth more than a living person? When did you turn so vicious?"

I lost my balance and pitched into the shards, the burning sting tearing across my palm. But my heart hurt a thousand times more.

When my parents were alive, they treated him like their own flesh and blood.

Back then he was only an illegitimate son. His brothers and sisters froze him out behind their grandfather's back, and he often didn't even have enough to eat.

My mother scrimped and saved, and with the money she set aside she made the braised short ribs he loved.

My father took on two extra jobs and worked himself sick, just to buy him a more presentable suit.

And now, for a woman who'd destroyed my parents' keepsake, he was calling me vicious.

A rough laugh forced its way out of my throat, uglier than any crying. I stared straight into his eyes.

"You bring a piece of trash to my parents' grave, you let her destroy something precious they left behind, and you're not vicious?!"

Randolph's face went dark in an instant, a black anger spreading out from him.

He reached out and seized my arm.

"Melanie, I thought you'd finally learned to forgive. I didn't expect you to be as incurable as ever."

"Lily meant nothing but well, and there's nothing wrong with me bringing her to lay flowers for your parents. Your narrow little heart makes me sick."