A week before the wedding, bed photos of my fiancé and his personal secretary trended for the ninety-ninth time.

I broke down and confronted him.

Conrad swore to me with bloodshot eyes—he'd been drugged, it wasn't his fault. It was the last time.

Then came the day of the wedding.

Conrad had his arms around Desiree in a wedding gown, kissing her deeply, and I lunged at her like a woman possessed, tearing at the fabric of her dress.

He shoved me away with one hand, pulled Desiree behind him, and spoke without a trace of urgency: "Tracey, I thought it over. She's young, she's fresh, she's been mine for three years—I want to marry her."

"She gets the wedding. You keep Mrs. Graves. Fair enough, right?"

——

Everything behind my face went blank.

Conrad pressed a careless kiss to my forehead and didn't give me a chance to speak.

"Babe, sorry—Desiree wore me out last night and I forgot to give you a heads-up. My bad, dragging you out here for nothing."

"Just treat this one as a dry run, yeah? Your parents aren't around anyway, so stand to the side, take notes. That way you won't mess anything up when it's our turn."

I looked at his hand clasped tight around Desiree's, and something old and bitter rose through me.

I was fifteen when my father was killed saving Conrad. Murdered for it.

My mother heard the news. She waited until I was asleep, swallowed a fistful of pills, and went after him.

I didn't even have time to grieve.

The relatives came like wolves, circling my parents' distillery, ready to tear it apart.

It was Conrad who stood in front of me with a knife, his eyes cold and vicious as they swept over every single one of them: "Anyone who takes one more step today, I'll take them down with me."

He came out of it with three broken ribs. Spent a full month in the ICU.

If his bodyguards hadn't arrived when they did, he would have died there.

That became his permanent get-out-of-jail-free card in my heart.

He'd held me tight and sworn: "Tracey, don't worry. Everything your parents left you, everything that's yours—no one's taking any of it. Including me."

From then on, no matter how large the Graves Group grew, it remained the distillery's shield.

The day I took over the distillery after graduation, Conrad and I registered our marriage.

He cried that day, cried like a little kid: "Tracey Simmons—we're real family now. Finally."

Everyone knew how good he was to me.

So when photos surfaced a month before the wedding—him pressed skin-to-skin against some nightclub dancer—

I assumed our competitors had fabricated them with AI to take him down.

Until the dancer herself strolled into Graves Group headquarters with a swollen belly, looked me dead in the face in front of senior management, and sneered: "Mrs. Graves, can't keep your man? Then get off the throne already."

"I'm carrying the Graves family's firstborn heir right here."

I laughed. Not out of sarcasm. Because she was stupid. "You waltz in here waving a pregnancy test and claim it's Conrad's child? Do you think this family runs an orphanage?"

The dancer's face cycled between red and white.

Then Conrad dropped to his knees at my feet, slapping himself across the face as he begged: "Tracey, I'm sorry. I was drunk, I mistook her for someone else. Hit me, curse me, I'll take all of it."

"But the baby she's carrying is my first child."

I stood frozen. I couldn't believe the Conrad who loved me had fallen for someone else.

He said nothing more. The next day he called a press conference and announced the baby's arrival.

Someone leaked that the woman was the other woman.

The backlash hit her so hard she lost the baby.

Conrad was certain I was behind it.

Cold flooded through me. "Conrad Graves, I am your wife. You married me properly and publicly. No matter how much I despise that woman, I would never stoop low enough to go after someone pregnant."

No matter how I explained, he refused to believe me.

After that, he started bringing women home out of spite.

To keep me quiet, he poured jewelry and property into my accounts like hush money.

Every time the thought of divorce surfaced, I'd think of that golden promise.

I told myself, quietly, that he'd come back.

Then came our third anniversary. Conrad sought me out, made peace, and promised me a grand wedding.

I thought I'd finally waited long enough.

But when I brought the wedding invitations to his office, I walked in on him pinning Secretary Fox beneath him on the desk.

He saw me and didn't even flinch.

I grabbed the ashtray off the desk and hurled it at his forehead, screaming, "Why do you keep lying to me?!"

He shrugged like it was nothing. "Tracey, I gave you the home you wanted. I'm young—I want to have my fun."

"Then what about the wedding?" I pressed, refusing to let go.

"The wedding's just to shut those old bastards up so they stop eyeing the chairman's seat."

"And if I don't hold that seat, I can't guarantee what'll happen to the distillery your parents left behind."

"So be a good girl, Tracey. Do as you're told."

I thought of the distillery my parents had died protecting.

I gave in.

I believed he was the only family I had left.

I never imagined that future would only last three years.

A shriek from Desiree yanked me back to the present. She was pointing at the pregnancy report in my hand. "Tracey, you're pregnant!"

She pressed her fingers to her lips, laughing behind them, and let the blade drop: "Tracey, Conrad had a vasectomy for me three years ago. So the father of that child..."

The crowd below erupted:

"Three years of marriage and no baby—I figured Mr. Graves couldn't perform, but turns out he'd rather go under the knife than let his little side piece suffer!"

"Then again, that wife of his always acted so proper. Now that someone else knocked her up, what—is she pulling the same trick that dancer did, using a baby to claw her way in?"

His silence and the guests' cutting laughter sliced through my chest like a blade.

No wonder every time Conrad and I were in bed together, he'd coax me into turning off the lights.

I thought it was just his preference in bed.

I never imagined the truth was that ugly.

The memory of skin against skin with "Conrad" flooded back, and my stomach lurched.

I scrubbed at my own skin in disgust, rubbing until the red streaks showed, and still I couldn't stop.

Tears pooled in my eyes. The joy I'd felt learning I was pregnant had turned to shame.

He promised me a home, and he was the one who destroyed it.

I swallowed the acid burning in my throat, pulled off my wedding ring, and tossed it into the trash.

The band circled the rim once before dropping in, its sharp ring cutting clean through the noise of the banquet hall.

Childhood sweethearts. Three years of marriage held together by one promise. And now it was just—over.

"Let's get a divorce." The words left me slowly.

Shock flashed through Conrad's eyes. No matter how badly I'd fought him before, I had never said those words.

He looked down at me. "I'm not a man who breaks his word. I said I'd give you a home, and I will."

"Don't ever say those two words to me again. Once this is over, I'm taking you to get rid of it."

I laughed, the kind of laugh that comes from being pushed past fury. "What—you won't let me go because you still need me back home servicing the two of you in bed?"

"Tracey Simmons! You're out of your mind!"

His breathing turned heavy.

He'd controlled everything his whole life. The fact that I'd slipped his grip was making his jaw clench.

"Don't forget who's been propping up that distillery all these years."

"Lose that distillery, and your parents can roll over in their graves."

I stared at the man in front of me, then slapped him hard across the face. "Conrad Graves, you don't deserve to be called human."

He didn't dodge. He worked his jaw once, slowly. "Tracey, every time you're lying under me like a good little girl, I think about that accident thirteen years ago. I never asked your father to save me. His bad luck, not mine."

"If that slap helps you blow off steam, I'll take it."

I glared at him through burning eyes, sick with how unfair it was for my parents.

They'd doted on him. Anything I had, they set aside the same for him—sometimes better.

Hatred flooded my skull. I swung at him again.

This time he stepped back.

I stumbled forward with the momentum, pitching sideways.

A drilling pain shot through my ankle.

He moved to help me up, but Desiree got there first, grabbing my arm.

Her long acrylic nails dug deep into my flesh. I bared my teeth against the pain and shoved her away on instinct.

She let herself fall backward, crying out in a thin, helpless voice.

Her eyes went red, and she sniffled, voice shaking. "Tracey, I know you don't like me. I can leave. I can disappear from your life. But why did you have to push me?"

Conrad frowned, shoved me aside, and pulled her into his arms like she was the one who'd been wronged. "Enough! Tracey Simmons—you hit me, you got it out of your system. Don't you dare take it out on someone who has nothing to do with this."

"If your father hadn't died, I never would've married you. For all you know, you'd be the other woman right now."

That line detonated the crowd:

"Holy shit—what a bombshell. I thought Mr. Graves and his wife were the real deal. Turns out it was all a lie."

"So Desiree Fox was his real woman this whole time? Back in the old days, Tracey Simmons wouldn't even rank as a concubine."

They tore me apart without a shred of restraint, and Conrad didn't so much as blink.

I sank to the floor, tears falling heavy and fast.

Something like guilt flickered through Conrad's eyes. He opened his mouth, but Desiree caught his arm before a word came out.

"Conrad, the ceremony's about to start. Can you get her out of here?"

He let the woman's coaxing pull his gaze away, and he gave himself entirely to the wedding.

I dragged myself up and staggered toward the door.

Behind me, Conrad called out, almost impatient.

"Get your stuff out of the villa. Desiree sees it tonight, she'll throw a fit—girl's a handful when she's jealous."

I stopped mid-step. My throat felt packed with cotton, and it took everything I had to force out a single word: "Fine."

Back at the house, I had just finished packing when Conrad walked in carrying Desiree.

The moment she spotted me, she buried her face against his chest and whined. "Conrad, why is she still here? How humiliating…"

He kissed her forehead and smiled, indulgent. "What are you worried about? You're my real wife now."

Desiree's cheeks flushed pink, and she ducked her head, voice dropping to a murmur. "Conrad, I just realized we don't have any condoms at home…"

He blinked, then transferred me money without a second thought.

Same note as every other time.

This wasn't the first time.

Before, when he and his little lover were going at it in the middle of the night, one phone call was all it took to send me out to buy them.

He'd even made me put one on him with my own hands.

But now I'd made up my mind to divorce him.

Why should I still do a damn thing for him?

I ignored the transfer, grabbed my suitcase, and left.

By the next morning, every one of the distillery's partners was demanding to pull their money.

I picked up the phone and called to find out why.