My husband went bankrupt, so to buy him a decent anniversary gift,

I'd been working behind his back as a hotel reviewer.

Then the suite next door opened and out came my husband and his mistress, clothes half undone.

I lowered my head. Neither of them recognized me behind my mask.

“Babe, why are you leaving so fast? I haven't even had my fill yet.”

“The hag at home is dumb enough to work three jobs a day for me, fainting so many times I've lost count. Of course she's going to keep tabs on me.”

He handed over a diamond-studded black card. The girl took it and laughed：

“You've got her earning fifty bucks a day and she still follows you around like a lost puppy?”

I stood frozen, and then I heard him laugh too：

“I just wanted to see how low a woman could go.”

“I've had my fun. Might be time to come clean.”

1

I pushed open the hotel room door and slipped past them without a sound.

My chest felt like it had been ripped open, cold air flooding straight through me.

The pain folded me in half, tears pouring before I could stop them.

Three years. I'd gone from a woman who wanted for nothing to a stray dog, hands and feet covered in calluses and burst blisters from work, tanned so dark I looked like a different person entirely.

All of it for Jim Gilbert.

And reality had just slapped me across the face.

When I finished and stepped out, a housekeeper cleaning the room next door was complaining：“Condoms all over the floor. Jesus, is that a riding crop snapped clean in half?”

My eyes were swollen shut from crying. I stared at the window and thought about jumping.

But I wasn't the one who deserved to die.

Back at the run-down rental, I found a surprise waiting. That girl was there, chatting with Jim.

She sat in my spot, arm curled around his, her lips nearly brushing his cheek.

Jim flinched when he saw me, and shoved her away.

“Why are you back so soon? I thought you had three straight days of work.”

“Mia, let me introduce you. This is Valerie Summers, a distant cousin.”

I stood there and listened to him spin his story. I didn't feel like saying a single word.

I turned toward the bedroom and found it filled with Valerie's things.

Everything I owned had been dumped into the trash can in the corner.

Seeing every last thing I'd bought with my own sweat and blood ruined, rage burned through me and I stormed back out.

“Who did this?”

Valerie pressed a hand to her mouth in mock surprise：

“Oh, those were yours? I thought it was all junk.”

My hand flew up to slap her, but Jim caught my wrist from behind and locked it in place.

His eyes were dark and unreadable. Valerie's smug look drove into the softest part of my heart like a needle.

“We're done.”

Jim's face went cold：

“I'm the Gilbert heir. A few girls on the side comes with the territory.”

“Look at you. You don't know how to dress. Valerie's the one I can actually take somewhere.”

Headlights screaming toward me—a boy throwing himself in front of me—that image shattered, and every shard cut straight through my chest.

“You saved my life. I gave you three years. Jim Gilbert, we're even.”

I turned to leave, but he pulled me hard against him. My stomach turned, and no matter how I fought, I couldn't break free.

“Your father's bypass surgery is coming up, isn't it? Mia, for your own good, don't leave me.”

There it was. A naked threat.

I stayed.

Day after day I endured Valerie's torment. She smashed the bracelet my mother left me, the only thing I had of hers, into pieces. She used my toothbrush to scrub the toilet when I wasn't looking.

Three days later, a light bulb blew. Jim wasn't home. I dragged a chair over and changed it myself—the kind of thing my hands knew how to do without thinking anymore.

I didn't hear Valerie come up behind me. One light push on the chair.

“Ah——”

I hit the floor hard. My ankle buckled under me on the way down, and the pain locked my whole body in place.

Valerie heard the front door open. She rushed over, all concern, reaching down to help me up. I swung at her face. Missed.

Jim walked in right at that moment.

“Mia! What the hell are you doing!”

He pulled Valerie into his arms, checking her over.

He didn't glance at me once. Not once. I was crumpled on the floor, in too much pain to speak or move.

Tears soaked into my clothes, the fabric washed so many times it had gone white.

Three years. I'd hauled bricks on construction sites in the summer heat until I passed out. In winter I couldn't bring myself to buy a decent pair of boots, and my feet were covered in chilblains.

Every dirty, backbreaking job I could find, I grabbed. I never let Jim lift a finger at home—terrified this little prince who'd dropped out of the sky might have to rough it even once.

And him? He'd tossed a black card to his mistress without thinking twice, while faking poverty and letting me grind through three years of misery for nothing.

And now, right in front of me, the difference in how he treated us couldn't have been more obvious.

The second Jim's back was turned, Valerie stamped down hard on my injured ankle.

“Ah——”

I screamed. Before Jim could even turn toward me, Valerie let out a whine at the exact same moment.

“Jim, my face hurts so so much. What if it scars? What am I gonna do?”

That was all it took. His attention locked onto Valerie, eyes full of worry, and he scooped her up in his arms.

“Valerie, I'm taking you to the hospital.”

His voice went cold：

“You—stay right here. You don't move, you don't leave. Sit and think about what you did.”

So I lay there in pain all afternoon.

I couldn't get to a hospital on my own. The tears kept coming, hopeless and unending.

Then the hospital called.

“Ms. Fox, your father's surgery was unsuccessful. He doesn't have long. Please come to the hospital immediately if you want to see him one last time.”

Lightning through my skull. I grabbed the broom handle beside me and hauled myself upright.

I dragged myself to the door. The bodyguards stepped into my path.

“My father is dying! Please, let me go!”

“Sorry, ma'am. No order from CEO Gilbert, you're not going anywhere.”

I called Jim. Over and over, frantic, I don't know how many times before he finally picked up.

“Ah——Jim, slower——”

None of that mattered. I opened my mouth to scream his name, but he hung up.

Just as despair swallowed me whole, the hospital called again.

“I'm sorry, Ms. Fox. Your father has passed. Our condolences.”

The phone slipped from my hand. The room tilted and spun. I didn't know where I was anymore.

My mother died when I was three. My father was the only family I had left.

Now he was gone too. I didn't see the point of still being alive.

The old fruit knife on the coffee table caught my eye.

A flash of the blade. Blood everywhere.

I blacked out.

When I opened my eyes I was in a hospital bed. Jim sat beside me, haggard, but I felt nothing, as if my soul had been pulled clean out of my body.

He held my hand：

“I'm sorry, Mia. I'll give your father the most lavish funeral money can buy.”

After that, Jim started spending more time with me.

He washed my feet himself, ran ten blocks to buy me candied hawthorn sticks, showered me with over a hundred designer bags, and gave me a black card just like Valerie's.

Everything I'd never dared dream of, he handed to me now. I didn't want any of it.

After I was discharged, I went back to working. Day shifts and night shifts, back to back, so exhausted I'd fall asleep on the bus.

It wasn't that I liked suffering. It was that only when my body hurt badly enough could it drown out what was happening in my head.

Still working as a hotel reviewer. The last person I expected to walk into was Jim Gilbert—with Valerie right beside him.

Valerie's voice dripped with mock sweetness：

“What's this, sis? Did you follow us here?”

Jim frowned, his gaze dropping to the fresh calluses on my hands. Something darkened behind his eyes.

“I gave you my card. Why aren't you using it?”

“Oh, Jim—why would she touch your money? She'd never be able to walk away from you then, would she?”

Jim drew a deep breath：

“Mia, I'm never breaking up with you.”

He turned to leave.

Valerie slapped herself hard across the face, then clutched her cheek and burst into tears.

She dropped to her knees in front of me with a thud：

“I'm sorry, sis. I'll leave Jim right now. Please stop hitting me.”

Jim whipped around, instantly furious：

“Mia! What the hell did you do!”

He stared at me, fists clenched, barely holding himself back.

“Your father just died. I'm giving you a chance because of that. Apologize to Valerie, and I'll let it go.”

I snapped：

“In your dreams! Jim, I didn't even touch……”

“Jim, I'm so scared. Look at her face—she's terrifying, like she's going to eat me alive……”

Valerie kept pouring it on, and my refusal to apologize did exactly what she wanted. Jim's anger ignited.

He seized my wrist and dragged me into his hotel suite.

He got a rope from somewhere, tied me to a chair facing the master bed.

I tried to explain. He gagged me.

He sent a bodyguard to check, but the answer came back cold：

“Sorry, sir. Ms. Summers is not an employee of this hotel.”

Jim was livid：

“Mia, you lied to me?”

He ripped the love lock from his neck, his voice cracking with fury：

“Remember what the master said? The one who lies first—they never get to spend their life with the other. Never!”

I laughed. Cold, bitter.

You lied to me first, Jim.

The angrier he got, the worse it became：

“You wanted to watch, Mia? Then keep your eyes open. Learn how a woman is supposed to please a man.”

Tied to that chair, I went numb. Valerie's breathy moans filled the room while I invented a thousand ways to die.

Every single one of them was for Jim Gilbert.

“Tomorrow's my wedding with Valerie. You'll be the bridesmaid.”

“Hey! Did you hear me!”

My legs had gone dead. I stumbled upright, unable to tell where I was.

Back home, I ran a bath, desperate to wash the day off my skin.

The bathroom door slammed open. Valerie.

Her face still carried the flush of what she'd just done with him. She smiled and tossed a hair dryer into the tub.

“Ahhh——”

I screamed. Valerie laughed harder.

“Idiot. It's not even plugged in.”

I was shaking, barely conscious, but Valerie's face drained white in an instant.

Jim walked in, drawn by the noise, brow tight.

“Mia, why are you bleeding?”

I looked down. Red everywhere—blooming through the bathwater, swallowing everything in sight.

A miscarriage. The fright had killed it.

I doubled over the edge of the tub, hands clutching my lower belly, the pain bleaching my face and wrenching through me in waves.

Jim's expression froze for just a second.

“Mia, you don't need to put on an act to keep me.”

Right then, Valerie let out a shriek：

“Jim! I got electrocuted!”

The hands he'd reached out to pick me up pulled back. He turned and scooped Valerie into his arms instead.

“Wait there. I'll call an ambulance for you!”

He carried Valerie out without looking back.