### 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."

### Chapter 4

He hauled me into the car and dragged me home, then threw me into the bathroom.

He picked up the showerhead, twisted it to cold, and turned the water on me.

The water was freezing, and I kept flinching and twisting away from it.

"Randolph, are you out of your mind? I'm carrying your child!"

His eyes were red with the fury of a man who couldn't stand being defied. He roared.

"If anything happens to that child, it's the sin of you, its mother!"

I curled around my belly, sprawled on the floor, and remembered the day we first learned I was pregnant, when this man cried like a child.

He'd knelt in front of me, kissing my stomach again and again. "My baby, Daddy will give you everything, the very best. I swear it."

Half a year. That was all it took for him to stop caring about me, and about the child too.

Only when I was soaked through did Randolph throw the showerhead aside.

"Fix that princess temper of yours. The Farleys don't need an arrogant, overbearing lady of the house."

I looked into his cold, merciless eyes, and dimly remembered years ago, when I'd pouted and sulked because a pair of shoes I loved had broken.

He'd dropped to one knee, let me rest my foot on his trousers that cost a fortune, and gently rubbed it for me.

I'd asked him, half-joking, "Everyone says I have a bad temper. Will you get tired of me one day?"

"Other people can't handle it. I can. That way, you're mine for life."

Randolph, your life turned out so short.

I kept my head down, and on my dripping face the expression went colder.

"Fine. I'll let you have your way. Let's divorce."

Randolph took two steps, then stopped.

"What did you say?"

My voice had been too small. He hadn't caught it.

Before I could speak again, his phone rang. Lily's coy, weepy voice came through.

"Randolph, I twisted my ankle, it hurts so much."

His gaze flickered, hesitating, and then he walked out of the bathroom anyway. "Calm yourself down."

I watched him go without a backward glance, pulled at the corner of my mouth, and struggled up off the floor.

I held my parents' portrait, my fingers tracing the cold frame, shaking so hard I couldn't stop. "I'm sorry, Mom, Dad. Today's the anniversary of your deaths, and I couldn't even keep your things safe."

After a long while I wiped my eyes dry and gently tucked the frame into my suitcase.

Then I walked to the nursery next door and said quietly to the child inside me, "You must be disappointed too, having a father like this. Mommy's taking you away."

But the moment I pushed the door open, my head went hollow with a roar.

The ultrasound photo by the crib had been torn to shreds and scattered across the floor. In its place, the walls were covered with Lily's racy pinups.

The hand-painted forest and little animals had been painted over, the room turned a glaring fluorescent pink.

The 180 letters I'd written to my baby, the ones I'd kept in the cabinet, had been dumped into a metal pail and burned to ash.

I could barely stay on my feet. My voice came out shrill and broken.

"Who did this?!"

The housekeeper hurried over, stammering. "It, it was on Mr. Farley's orders."

He wiped at his sweat.

"Miss White wasn't feeling well, and Mr. Farley had us put the ashes in a sachet for her to wear, to ward off bad luck."

I couldn't hear anything but that shrill ringing in my ears.

My phone lit up.

A photo popped up.

Lily sat in Randolph's office chair, beaming. The sachet dangled from her finger, and she had something in her mouth.

I looked closer, and the blood in my body froze.

It was the pacifier I'd had custom-made for my baby.

"I figured I should reward him with something to 'bite' on too. What do you think makes a good reward?"

Staring at her message, the pain drove into me like a knife, into every organ, and the last thread of my reason snapped.

I rushed into the Farley Tower and went straight for the top floor. Randolph's secretary scrambled to block me. "Ms. Hughes, Mr. Farley is very busy right now—"

"Get out of my way!"

I shoved him aside and kicked open the door of the CEO's office.

In that instant, my legs nearly went out from under me.

### Chapter 5

Randolph sat on the couch, clothes half off, Lily coiled around him like a snake, her face flushed nearly red enough to bleed.

The moans and ragged breathing mixed with the sound of the couch knocking against the wall, and the cold spread through me.

When she saw me, Lily screamed.

Randolph froze for a second, then yanked his shirt over to cover her.

The scene in front of me was like some warped nightmare, the sour smell of it rolling toward me. I forced down the shaking in my body and asked him,

"Why did you destroy the nursery? Why did you burn the letters I wrote to my baby? Why give her the pacifier too?"

Lily's eyes went red at once. She shrank into Randolph's arms, her voice catching on a sob.

"I—I'm sorry, I get so anxious, I keep biting my nails, so Randolph gave the pacifier to me."

"I didn't know the ashes in the sachet were the letters you wrote to your baby. If I'd known, I never would have taken it."

She wept in little hiccuping gasps, as if she were the one who'd been horribly wronged.

I clenched my fists, the nails driving deep into the cut in my palm, blood running down.

Randolph only let out a contemptuous little laugh. He kissed Lily's cheek to soothe her, his tone utterly indifferent.

"They were just worthless junk. Put to use on you, they're worth more."

Worthless junk?

That room. From the first day I knew I was pregnant, I had poured every ounce of love into it.

I'd painted the picture on the wall stroke by stroke. The pacifier had taken months of searching the world over, asking everyone I could, before I settled on it. The letters I'd written night after night, deep into the dark. I'd thought I would keep writing them until she was grown, a gift to hand her when she came of age, the most precious thing she'd ever receive.

All of it ruined by her own father, just to make his mistress smile.

My voice scraped out of my throat, hoarse.

"Randolph, those things took me searching all over the world to get. I put so much into them—"

"Enough." He cut me off, his voice thick with irritation. "Can you stop making a scene? Lily's not even holding the past against you. She's willing to be the child's godmother. You should learn from her. Be more forgiving. Be kinder."

Destroying everything I'd poured my heart into for my baby, all to win his mistress a smile.

That was forgiving? That was kind?

"My child does not need a mistress for a godmother!"

I closed my eyes and held back the tears about to spill over.

I had always believed that, at least when it came to the child, he would do right by it. Only now did I understand how foolish I'd been.

The baby wasn't even born yet, and already he could strip away everything that should have been hers without a second thought, just to please another woman.

I didn't dare imagine it. If this child were really born, would she end up like Snow White, denied her father's protection, driven step by step into a corner by someone else?

I had still held one thin sliver of hope that Randolph could be a good father. In that instant, he destroyed my last illusion without mercy.

I couldn't speak.

His dark gaze dropped to my belly. Then he set Lily down gently, pulled his pants on without hurry, and walked toward me.

"All right, don't act like I've done something terrible to you." He hooked my chin up with a fingertip, the way he handled his mistresses. He looked at my red, swollen eyes. "Poor thing. I'll make it up to you."

His face wore that charming smile he always had, the smile that had once made me feel I was everything to him.

But when I looked at him now, this face I had spent ten years beside and loved for five had become so strange to me, twisted like a devil's.

The highest point in this city had once been where we began.

We had fought side by side here, building the new map of the Farley empire under the late-night lights, sketching out our dream of an empire on blank paper.

Dawn would break across the skyline, witness to an understanding that belonged only to us. On that couch, two figures had always lain sprawled, drained to nothing.

But now there was only a filthy stain left on it.

Precious documents scattered across the floor, trampled, footprints stamped over them.

Everything before me was foul beyond words.

"No need. Save it for your mistress."