I turned and saw him, the rage in my chest flaring all over again：“Forced by circumstances? So marrying Iris was forced by circumstances too?”

“She's right outside that door. Do you have the guts to say any of this to her face?”

I locked my eyes on Murray's. His gaze wavered for a split second before he spoke again, his voice slipping into that coaxing tone：

“Alright, alright. How about this: after work today, I'll come home and spend time with you.”

“Stop being angry. You're not as pretty when you're upset.” He opened his arms to pull me into a hug.

I shoved him away. The disgust hit me like bile rising in my throat.

I couldn't understand it. The man I'd loved for ten years, how had he rotted from the inside out without me seeing it?

“What are you two doing?” Iris's voice cut in from the restroom doorway. Behind her, coworkers were already gathering, drawn by the noise.

Her eyes were red. She charged straight at me and cracked her palm across my face so hard it echoed off the tile.

She jabbed a finger at my nose and screamed：“You slut! You shameless homewrecker!”

My cheek burned white-hot, and the pain scorched through whatever restraint I had left. I swung back and slapped her just as hard.

The next second, Murray grabbed Iris and shielded her behind him, then shoved me to the ground.

Pain radiated from my tailbone up through my chest and lodged somewhere near my heart. I was already done with him, already past disappointment, but the moment he put his hands on me to push me down, it cut like a blade dragged slow across my ribs.

From behind Murray, Iris pointed at me and shrieked：“Eva Cox, you have no shame! You knew perfectly well Murray was married, and you still threw yourself at him!”

“You worthless tramp! You think you still deserve lead-creator credit on ‘Starlight’? In your dreams!”

The moment her voice dropped, the pile-on started.

“Wasn't being pathetic enough, so she upgraded to homewrecker?”

“What Eva did is honestly revolting.”

“Having someone like her as a colleague is an insult to the rest of us.”

Their words crashed into me one after another, and a raw, thrashing refusal to accept this swelled inside my chest.

I was the one who'd been tricked into a divorce. Iris Simmons was the other woman between Murray and me.

‘Starlight’ was my original work. Over two years of my life poured into it. Why should she get to kick me off my own project with a single sentence?

I bit down on the soft flesh inside my cheek. The pain gave me a sharp, brief moment of clarity.

I pressed my hands against the floor and staggered to my feet. Step by step, I walked up to Murray and pinned him with a stare that could have drawn blood：

“Murray Hughes. She just called me the other woman. Me. The woman who was married to you for ten years. I'm the homewrecker now?”

Murray met my gaze and his throat bobbed. Then he looked away, answering me with silence.

That silence. That refusal to acknowledge me. It was like someone had jammed a cactus into my chest, the spines so thick and so close together there was nowhere to flinch away from them and no way to pull them out.

I shifted my gaze to Iris, let out a cold, quiet laugh：

“You're the other woman, and you have the nerve to play the victim? Aren't you afraid of karma?”

Iris's fingers tightened around the hem of Murray's jacket, and the look she gave me was pure venom.

I was opening my mouth to press harder when a small, bright voice piped up from the doorway：

“Daddy! Mommy! What are you doing here? Karl almost couldn't find you!”

Karl, drenched in sweat, ran straight to Murray and Iris without sparing me a single glance. Me. His birth mother.

Iris looked at Karl, and the corner of her eye lifted. A flash of triumph crossed her face, gone as fast as it appeared.

She put on a wounded expression and said：“Sweetie, tell everyone. Who are your mommy and daddy?”

Karl's gaze finally landed on me. Somewhere deep in my chest, a fragile thread of hope pulled taut.

This was my son. My own flesh and blood. I'd been there since the day he was born, raising him every single day.

One night, a blizzard shut down the whole city. Murray was stranded out of town. Karl's fever wouldn't break, so I strapped him to my back and trudged through the snow to the hospital, sinking knee-deep with every other step.

The emergency room was packed, the line stretching down the hall. Karl had already gone limp in my arms, burning up and unconscious. I dropped to my knees in front of the people ahead of us and begged them, forehead to the floor, to let my child through.

Karl was delirious with fever, crying in my arms when he whispered：“Mommy, Karl loves Mommy the most in the whole world.”

“My mom is Iris, obviously.” He lifted his chin, looking at me with smug pride plastered across his face.

The tiny flicker of hope that had just risen inside me shattered in an instant, ground to dust, scattered to nothing.

My lips trembled. I couldn't get a single word out. Tears burned at the edges of my eyes, spinning there, but I refused to let them fall.

The jeering around me grew louder：

“I must've lost my mind for a second there, almost believing that lunatic!”

“She couldn't seduce someone else's husband, so now she's playing victim? How did we never see what trash she really is?”

“Bet she slept her way into that team leader position too, huh?”

By this point, their venom didn't touch me anymore.

Other people's knives were nothing compared to the blade that had grown from my own flesh and blood, twisting where it hurt most.

Iris walked toward me with a thin smile curling her lips, and without warning, her palm cracked across my face.

The taste of rust spread through my mouth.

Murray took one step toward me, then stopped dead. Karl's eyes flicked to my face, his pupils contracting, and he jerked his head away.

“That's to teach you a lesson. So you remember what you're allowed to touch and what you're not.” Iris looked down at me, eyebrows raised, savoring every second.

“Oh, and you're fired. Misconduct and insubordination. Get out.

I didn't even have the strength left to be angry.

I moved like a puppet on strings, packing my things with a blank face.

I clutched the box to my chest and walked toward the door, hollow, barely there.

On my way out, I collided with a solid chest. Everything in the box spilled across the floor. I murmured an apology.

I bent down to pick up the scattered belongings, but before my fingers touched anything, someone caught my wrist.

A voice, tight with concern, came from above me：

“Sis?”

“Eva?!”

I looked up and met a pair of phoenix eyes identical to my own. Every ounce of pain I'd been holding back found its way out at once, and my voice broke：

“Frank Cox……”

He patted my back gently, soothing me, then narrowed his eyes at Murray, who stood frozen across the room：“Manager Hughes. What happened here?”

“Explain.”