“Why were you pretending to be dead when I messaged you?”

“Do you even realize it’s raining outside? If I catch a cold, who’s going to run the company?”

“You stay home all day doing absolutely nothing. What could be keeping you so busy? Even the UN president isn’t this hard to contact!”

I looked up, my eyes landing on the lipstick smudged across his collar, and suddenly, I let out a laugh.

“Isn’t someone already delivering things for me? If I showed up, wouldn’t I have just ruined your little fun?”

Catching my gaze, Maverick’s face tightened into a frown.

“Lainey had too much to drink tonight and nearly fell. I was just helping her, it rubbed off by accident.”

He tore off the shirt in frustration and flung it at me again.

“What’s with that attitude? I worked all day and came home to your sour face?”

“I haven’t even brought up you being late, and now you’re throwing sarcasm at me?”

“That’s enough. I don’t have time to baby you. Lainey’s not feeling well. Where did you get that hangover medicine? Send her some so she won’t miss work tomorrow.”

“Oh, and these two shirts, hand wash them tonight, dry them, and iron them properly. I need them for my business trip.”

I ignored his commands.

My eyes narrowed slightly, my voice cold and composed.

“Maverick, don’t you think you’ve been a little too considerate toward that secretary of yours?”

That set him off immediately.

“What’s wrong with taking care of an employee? Can you stop being so paranoid all the time? I’m exhausted. I come home to rest, not to get interrogated. If this keeps up, I might as well move out!”

I let out a faint laugh, the kind that stung more than it soothed, my gaze fixed on my phone.

“Move out? Haven’t you already done that?”

“Those two-meter beds in your office must be cozy. Probably more comfortable than anything you’ve ever shared with me.”

His fury snapped like a whip.

“Are you done? You’re always stuck on who I’m drinking with or which woman visits my office. With all that effort, why don’t you try being a mother instead?”

“When was the last time you even looked at your son? Do you still remember him?”

“Mom’s reminded me at least a dozen times, keep this up, and he’ll grow up thinking he only has one parent.”

At the mention of my child, something tugged at my chest, sharp, bitter, aching.

Back when I married into the family, not a single one of them welcomed me.

Their only condition for agreeing to the marriage was that, after giving birth, I had to hand the child over to them.

They said once he was older, they’d consider letting me have him back.

But that so-called arrangement dragged on for eight long years.

I saw my son only a handful of times, so few that even Lainey saw him more often than I did.

I cried. I fought. But in Maverick’s eyes, I was just being difficult.

He always said the family could give our son the best education.

That if I raised him, I’d only ruin his future.

But now I knew better.

What would truly ruin him was growing up in a house that had everything but love.

I laid the divorce papers flat in front of him and spoke with a voice stripped of emotion.

“Let’s get divorced. Please return custody of our son to me. From now on, whatever you do, whoever you’re with, I won’t care.”

Maverick’s face went stone cold, his voice low and sharp. “Divorce? Are you serious? The child is already eight.”

“Give me one valid reason.”

I tapped my phone and played the livestream recording on loop, the part where he said, “kid’s mom.”

His eyes flared red with anger.

“I said that casually! You are the kid’s mom, what’s wrong with me calling you that?”

“You want a divorce over something so trivial? Eliana, I don’t have time for your tantrums!”

I let out a long, exhausted sigh.

“Maverick, I’m not just your housewife. I have my own life. I sketch designs every single day.”

“If I were working outside, I’d already be a design director by now.”

“So what? Have I ever denied you money? Are you starving? Lacking clothes? Can you stop making a fuss for no reason? It’s not like I ever called you useless!”

He never understood what that one form of address truly meant to me.

And by now, I was too tired to explain.

“If you won’t sign, then fine, we’ll settle it in court.”

“Starting tonight, I’m moving out. If you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”

By midnight, I left the villa with my packed suitcase. Behind me came his voice, loud and uncontrolled.

“Eliana, remember your words! Even if you beg me on your knees, don’t ever think of coming back!”

“There are plenty of women lining up to marry me! If I hadn’t met you first, do you think you’d even have had a shot?”

Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t turn back.

I walked out of the residential complex and hailed a taxi to the apartment I had bought before marriage.

Memories flooded in.

When I first met Maverick, he had been nothing more than an arrogant, reckless heir.

Back in college, he was infamous, known for fights and chaos, the kind of trouble that made everyone stay away.

Used to chasing after flashy, arrogant rich girls, Maverick noticed me on the very first day of school.

“Hey, are you in this major too? We’re in the same class, why not add each other on WhatsApp?”

I avoided him like the plague. “Sorry, I don’t have WhatsApp on my phone.”

His smile stiffened, pausing mid-air for two seconds. He clearly hadn’t expected to be brushed off.

I didn’t bother explaining. I simply turned and jogged back to the dorm, missing the flicker of curiosity that lit up in his eyes.

My roommates later said Maverick waited outside the girls’ dorm every day.

But I was too busy juggling part-time jobs, struggling to survive, and barely spending any time on campus at all.

We kept a peaceful distance for half a semester, until I got a phone call from the hospital.

They said my father had committed domestic violence again, and my mother had been seriously injured.

I rushed home after filing for leave, but by the time I arrived, the hospital had already discharged her. We couldn’t afford the bills.

She was kneeling on the cold cement floor at home, bruised, disheveled, and utterly broken.

My father reeked of smoke and liquor, cursing with foul, vicious words.

"You filthy bitch, had a child and still won’t behave. Where have you been? Cheating, huh? Don’t think I don’t see right through you. Trying to run? Dream on!"

"If it weren’t for your damn womb, do you think I would’ve married you? You were a cheap deal for the dowry, and you can’t even give me a son! If I’d known, I would’ve just killed you back then!"

My mother sobbed uncontrollably, her entire body trembling.

"You say you won’t give us money, but still want meat to eat. Where am I supposed to find money for groceries? Eliana has school, and we have tuition to pay. If I don’t work, how will we survive?"

I had seen my mother in that pitiful state far too many times.

She was nothing like the glowing, carefree girl in those faded yellowed photographs.

Once upon a time, my father had been drawn in by her beauty and grace, but he never nourished that rose with even an ounce of love.

That rose slowly withered, burning away her entire life for this home, only to be repaid with scorn and cruelty.

For the first time, I felt I had truly grown up. I rushed forward and shielded my mother.

I told them I would take responsibility for our living expenses and my tuition.

I thought my father would finally relent and spare her.

But I was wrong.

He turned all his fury on me instead, cursing me for not being a boy, accusing my mother of having a worthless womb.

He barked that girls didn’t need education, told me to drop out of school, and go on a blind date.

The bride price was eighteen thousand dollars. The match? A fifty-year-old disabled man.

My mother, burning with every ounce of love she had left, stood in front of me and begged me to run.

To never come back. But I refused to leave.

Drunk and raging, my father grabbed a kitchen knife.

And in that critical moment, Maverick appeared.

Thanks to his fighting experience, Maverick easily knocked my father to the ground.

But my mother couldn’t be saved.

She said she no longer had any dreams, that this was all life would ever be for her.

She told me: When you marry, keep your eyes open. Live for yourself.

Right after she spoke, my father, seizing the moment when we weren’t paying attention, drove the kitchen knife into her head.

That image became the nightmare I would never wake from.

As my mother lay dying, Maverick held my hand and swore. “As long as I’m alive, Eliana will be free. I’ll help her chase her dreams. She’ll never be trapped by blood.”

Only after hearing that, my mother closed her eyes forever.

She passed peacefully. I think, for her, it was a kind of release.

Later, my father was sent to prison by the Thomas family’s lawyer, and I was finally free.

That day, Maverick stood waiting beneath a tree and said he would pay for my entire education.

Naturally, we ended up together.

Because of his promise, I had agreed to all of the Thomas family’s unreasonable demands.

But now, even though his vow still echoed in my ears, that young man was long gone.

At five in the morning, Maverick sent a message.

[Tonight is the family dinner. If you still refuse to come back and see Isaac, then forget about ever seeing him again.]

[Eliana, I get that you’re angry. I get that you’re jealous. But try to understand me. I’m a man. I can’t revolve my entire life around a family.]

I wiped the dried tears from my face and replied coldly, [Okay.]

But before that, I wanted to retrieve every single design draft I had drawn for his company, free of charge.

At nine sharp, I arrived downstairs at the company.

Just as I stepped through the doors, I overheard the staff whispering.

“That draft, did Secretary Lainey really draw it? That’s insane! I thought she ran out of ideas ages ago, but she just keeps producing more.”

“She’s juggling two roles at once. No wonder the president keeps her close.”

“If I had talent like hers, I’d probably be lounging in the private suite, too. We’re just here to warm the chairs and ride the wave.”

“But seriously, he’s treating her like royalty. I heard he’s giving her half the company’s shares! That’s going from employee to boss overnight!”

My heart sank to the bottom.

I knew Lainey's background; she had studied finance and management, fields entirely unrelated to design.

Just as I reached the office door, I saw the design draft I had finished two days ago displayed openly on the table.

The collaborators were full of praise, showering compliments on the drawing.

Lainey accepted every word with a delighted smile, as if the work were her own.

A wave of fury surged through me, and I pushed the door open.

"Lainey's draft? Maverick, care to explain this?"

After personally escorting the collaborators out, he turned back with a dark expression, voice rising in anger.

"What are you doing? Do you have any idea how important this project is to the company? What kind of chaos are you trying to cause? Would you only be satisfied if the entire deal collapsed?"

"You're a housewife, what use is a signature to you? As long as the design benefits the company, does it really matter who gets the credit?"

With reddened eyes, I looked at the man before me clearly, perhaps for the first time.

"You knew design was my dream. I never objected to you using my drafts. But giving all the credit to Lainey, what was that supposed to mean?"

"I spent three days and nights working on that piece. And you erased me with a single sentence. What exactly am I to you?"

Lainey quickly stepped forward, looking pitiful as she grabbed my arm.

"Sister Eliana, I’m sorry. I used your draft, and I apologize. We’re family. Don’t be mad... If the employees see this, they’ll laugh at us..."

I flung her hand off without hesitation, my voice like ice.

"You’re just a secretary. Who gave you the right to speak here?"

Her eyes welled with tears, trembling pitifully, like she was the one wronged.