When he saw the red marks on my neck, he frowned instinctively, a flash of something like concern crossing his eyes.

"I didn't come pick you up from the hospital because something came up."

"Don't take those banquet hall jobs anymore. Haven't you embarrassed me enough?"

"I was just teaching you a lesson. After all these years, how have you still not shaken off that cheap, desperate look?"

So he had recognized me that night after all. He'd just pretended not to know me.

Because he was afraid I'd embarrass him.

He'd rattled off all those sentences, and not a single one asked if I was okay.

Even though I'd already let go of any expectations I had of him, the ache in my chest was impossible to ignore.

Maybe because he thought everything was settled between us, he felt even more free to say whatever he wanted.

I nodded, shifting aside without much care to let them in.

But the next second, my phone rang. It was the hospital.

"Your grandfather's treatment requires an additional payment. Please settle the balance as soon as possible."

Zoe saw her chance. She hooked her arm through Seth's and grabbed the crystal ball from the delivery box, hurling it to the floor.

"You should know by now that Seth and I are getting married. Did you really think a cheap little gift like this would help you cling to him any longer?"

"Your marriage to Seth was never anything more than a scheme to repay a debt."

"You'd better start familiarizing yourself with the wedding program. Seth and I will need you to emcee the ceremony."

"Do this one thing right, and I'll make sure your grandfather gets the help he needs."

Seth instinctively pulled his arm, a half-hearted resistance, but he said nothing. He let it happen.

Zoe tossed a thick stack of wedding planning brochures into my arms.

I opened them. Every page was dripping with luxury, every detail meticulously planned. My fingertips went cold.

I thought of my own wedding to Seth.

A handful of guests. Bare-bones. Barely a ceremony at all.

Not a single one of Seth's friends or family had shown up. It had been just the two of us in that church, exchanging vows in a ceremony so simple it barely qualified as one.

Back then, I'd been naive enough to believe he truly loved me, that he was genuinely too busy with work to do more.

Even though I'd handled every detail of the wedding on my own, I'd still felt happy.

But now, staring at these pages, the realization cut through me with perfect clarity.

Seth had always been capable of patience. He'd simply never spent any of it on me.

I took the brochures with steady hands, my voice scraping out rough and dry.

"Fine. I understand."

"I hope you keep your word."

Then I turned to Seth and added one last thing.

"Since that's how things are, let's get a divorce. Make room for your new bride."

Seth looked at me with a flicker of surprise, as if my calm compliance had caught him off guard. But he didn't dwell on it. In his mind, this had been the arrangement all along. There was nothing left to explain.

"That's a good girl. Just do your job as Mrs. Vance."

"Once I've had my fill, I'll come back to you. Naturally."

"Use this time to learn how things work in high society. Stop embarrassing me."

Whether it was deliberate or simply instinct, Seth brushed right past what I'd said about the divorce.

He was so certain I couldn't leave him. So certain I loved him too much. He took everything I gave him as though it were owed, and he enjoyed it without a second thought.

So he ignored everything I felt.

It had always been like this. I loved him too much, and he'd turned my devotion into something he was entitled to.

But none of that mattered anymore.

Because I was about to leave him.

Zoe shot me a triumphant look, one eyebrow arched, and followed Seth into the bedroom. Within moments, muffled sounds drifted through the door, unmistakable and intimate.

Seth's voice came again, low and breathless, and my feet froze to the floor as if nailed there.

"Sandra, you should know what brand I like."

"Be a good girl and go buy them."

"Your grandfather's medical bills still need me to pay for them, remember?"

His threatening voice still rang in my ears. I could only limp my way to the convenience store and buy a box of condoms.

I slid them through the bedroom door. The scene inside made my stomach lurch.

The next morning, when I woke up, the bedroom was already empty. Only the lingering scent of intimacy still hung in the master suite, refusing to fade.

The hospital sent a message. My grandfather had died. Resuscitation had failed.

I rushed to the hospital and immediately pulled the security footage.

In the video, Zoe Winfield looked nothing like the gentle woman she pretended to be. She was arrogant, vicious, ripping the oxygen tube from my grandfather's face.

Her voice dripped with contempt.

"Do you know what your granddaughter is doing right now?"

"Out there selling herself for a dollar a night to pay your medical bills. And you have the nerve to stay in a room this nice."

My grandfather had been tormented to death. Right there on camera.

My fists clenched so hard my nails broke the skin. Tears hit the floor one by one.

I had been too naive back then, too foolish to understand what it meant to love someone from a different world. I had thrown myself into loving him year after year, blind and reckless, until there was nothing left of me but wounds.

We were never from the same world. The moon had once shone on me too, but that light was never meant to last.

I swallowed the bitterness and copied the surveillance footage onto a drive.

I had done everything they asked. Everything. Why wouldn't they leave me alone?

The last shred of hope I held for Seth died in my chest. I picked up my phone and booked a flight out of the country.

I sat there for what felt like hours. I sold every luxury item Seth had ever given me. Designer bags, jewelry, watches. All of it barely covered the cost of a simple funeral for my grandfather.

Now I truly had no one left.

Finally, in silence, I signed the divorce papers and placed them on the table.

When it was done, I grabbed my suitcase and walked out of that place of heartbreak for the last time.

Meanwhile, Seth sat in the car on the way to pick up his bride, and an inexplicable wave of panic surged through him.

He couldn't place where the feeling came from. He only knew, with sudden and suffocating certainty, that something vital was slipping through his fingers.

His assistant sent a message: the investigation into what happened years ago was complete. They had also uncovered something else.

Three years later, the hidden second half of that recording finally surfaced.