At my father's funeral, Clay Henson spoke without warning:

"The truth is, your father caught me and Priscilla Vance in bed together. That's what triggered his heart attack."

I stared, my eyes going wide, certain I'd misheard.

Priscilla. My father's girlfriend.

Clay read the disbelief on my face and let out a low, scornful laugh.

"You heard me right. We've been together since college. I only got close to your father because Priscilla's family needed money for medical bills."

"When he collapsed in the doorway, he struggled for forty minutes. But we were too caught up in each other to hear him. By the time we noticed, he was already gone."

He looked at my father's portrait without a shred of guilt, the corner of his mouth curved upward.

"Your father kept the woman I loved for five years. So I slept with his daughter for five years. Now we're even."

"I've made my fortune. Priscilla is free. And now I'm going to marry her."

My whole body went rigid, my palms cold as ice.

Just last week, Priscilla had been arm in arm with me, dragging me to pick out a wedding dress, telling me I'd be the most beautiful bride.

Clay reached out and took my hand, smiling.

"Don't be afraid. I'll still give you a wedding. In everyone's eyes, you'll still be Mrs. Henson."

"Priscilla says you two are as close as sisters. She doesn't want to hurt you. She just wants to register the marriage and set right what we lost."

"One week from now, at the courthouse registry office, you'll come and take our photos."

——

So it turned out that when the heart breaks past a certain point, you can't even breathe.

I clutched my chest and forced out the words, my voice thin with grief:

"Why are you telling me this?"

Clay lowered his eyes and laughed softly, hooking a finger beneath my chin.

"Probably just to see the look on your face right now."

"Back then, I dropped out of school and gave Priscilla every cent of my tuition. It still wasn't enough to pay for her mother's treatment. And your father swooped in while she was vulnerable and forced her to be with him."

"I was just as devastated then as you are now."

He glanced toward my father's portrait, contempt glittering in his eyes, the contempt of a man who'd won.

"Let him watch his daughter suffer like this. Call it my final revenge."

The words tore through my heart until it bled.

Years ago, I'd turned down the childhood betrothal my elders had arranged for me.

And of all people, I'd set my heart on Clay, who back then owned nothing but a small shooting club.

My father doted on me. He gave Clay the capital to start his business, opened doors for him, handed him connections.

He'd backed Clay's company every step of the way, building it into something powerful.

Clay used to say meeting me was the greatest luck of his life, that he and my father would be the two great trees standing behind me.

That he'd protect me, cherish me, for the rest of my life.

Now one of those trees had fallen, and he was the one who'd brought it down.

And he was telling me these five years had been nothing but revenge.

Clay lifted his hand and wiped the tears from my face.

"Why are you crying? I never said I didn't like you. But I failed to protect Priscilla all those years ago. You owe me the chance to set that right."

"Besides, you're far too sweet in bed. I'm always afraid I'll hurt you, so I have to go to her to really enjoy myself. Now someone's there to share the burden. Isn't that better for you?"

Looking at that face, so familiar and yet so strange, I felt a chill crawl up my spine.

Clay was about to say more when Priscilla suddenly appeared, shouting:

"Enough! Her father's mistakes have nothing to do with her! Can't you see she's trembling?!"

She grabbed my hand, her face full of guilt.

"Margery Sullivan, I never meant to keep this from you. I just didn't want to hurt you."

"I swear, registering the marriage is only to lay our regrets to rest. The moment it's done, I'll divorce him right away. Okay?"

But Clay seized her wrist, his tone domineering and unyielding.

"Not a chance. I've waited five years for you. This time, I'm never letting go."

Watching him declare his claim over another woman without the slightest restraint.

I laughed at myself, bitter to the core.

Priscilla used to be our family's part-time nanny. Like Clay, she was only four years older than me.

She was all fire, in both figure and temper, and she'd breathed life into a house that had been dead silent for years.

When I first found out she'd become my father's girlfriend, I pushed back hard.

But the day my cousin sneered that I was a motherless bastard, it was Priscilla who charged at him with a wine bottle in her hand, splitting her own forehead open in the process.

She told me my father was the gentlest, most decent man she'd ever met.

Age couldn't stand in the way of real love, she said. She truly cared for my father, and she truly ached for me.

So little by little, I let her in. I treated her like a confidante and poured out every secret I had.

And now she was saying it again. That all of this was my father's fault.

How absurd.

“Don't touch me. You're filthy.”

I wrenched my hand free, my voice shaking.

“Get out. Don't stain the path my father walks into his next life. The two of you will pay for this.”

When she saw me scrubbing my hand frantically against the hem of my dress, Priscilla's expression curdled.

Clay stepped in front of her, frowning.

“Priscilla already gave the wedding up to you. All she wants is to sign the paperwork. In everyone's eyes, you're still the future Mrs. Henson.”

“You're unstable right now. A little time to cool off will do you good. Priscilla will stay at my place for the next few days. But Margery, your father is dead. I'm the only one you have left to lean on. Don't be so willful.”

They left hand in hand.

In the portrait, my father's face was still so gentle, so kind.

And finally I broke, sobbing until I couldn't breathe.

“Dad, I'm such a fool, aren't I?”

“Played for so long by the man I loved and the friend I trusted, and I dragged you down with me.”

But I couldn't fall apart. Dad was gone. Someone still had to hold the company together.

Yet early the next morning, a text came in from my best friend.

“Margery, the sign outside your company building is gone. Are you changing the name?”

By the time I stormed into the chairman's office,

Priscilla was sitting on Clay's lap, wearing the mermaid wedding gown that was supposed to be mine.

Her neck and collarbone were marked with kisses.

Clay arched an eyebrow.

“What are you doing here?”

How rich.

They were sitting in my family's company, in the office that had once been my father's, asking me what I was doing there.

Priscilla shot to her feet, anxious, scrambling to explain.

“Margery, don't read too much into it. I can't have a wedding with Clay, and he said I'd look beautiful in it, so I just wanted to try it on……I'll go take it off and give it back to you right now.”

She made as if to head for the lounge, but Clay caught her by the waist and pulled her back.

“Give it back for what? It was tailored to your measurements in the first place. When we sign the paperwork in a few days, you'll wear this for the keepsake photos. Margery doesn't have your figure. She couldn't fill it out.”

“There are plenty of bridal shops out there. She can just grab one off the rack. If she really loves this one, we can alter the sizing and hand it down to her once you're finished with it. The wedding's at the end of the month anyway.”

This gown, Clay had flown overseas himself to have a designer make it.

Back then I'd worried he wouldn't know my measurements, so I'd gone out of my way to write them on a slip of paper for him.

But Clay had tossed it straight into the trash and kissed me hard, pretending to be offended.

“You think I don't know my own girl's measurements? Who do you take me for?”

“Your punishment is a kiss. Pay up.”

However sweet it had felt then was exactly how cold it cut now.

The "girl" he'd spoken of, it turned out, had always been someone else.

I drew in a deep breath and forced down the nausea as I asked：

“What gives you the right to have my company's sign taken down? And what makes you think you can sit there?”

Priscilla bit her lip and answered softly：

“Margery, Clay is now……the new chairman.”

I stood frozen, unable to make sense of her words.

Clay had his own company. How could he have become chairman of mine?

And when, exactly, had he gotten his hands on the shares...

"Margery, last month your family lost a core client. Then the downstream payments stopped coming in, revenue collapsed, and morale had already been crumbling for weeks."

"On top of that, your father died without warning, and the rumors were everywhere. People kept saying Avalon was finished, so a lot of shareholders started dumping their stock at rock-bottom prices. I'm the one who scooped it all up in time."

Reading the confusion on my face, Clay rose and smoothed his collar.

"I hold forty percent of the shares now. That's more than your father left you. The board is made up of smart people, and they know who can actually take this company somewhere better."

"I can bring back the core clients, recover the unpaid balances, and offer them even higher returns on top of it all."

He cupped my face in his hands, his eyes glinting with amusement.

"But what about you, Margery? What could you possibly give them? Your tears?"

"You're a delicate little flower raised in a greenhouse. Your father sheltered you too well. A good girl like you doesn't understand the first thing about running a company. How could you survive the bloodbath of the business world?"

"Be good. From now on you just stay home and enjoy the easy life, collect your dividends at the end of the year. As for the entertaining and the social functions out there, I've got Priscilla with me. She's far better suited to that kind of thing than you."

A tremor I couldn't stop ran through my whole body.

I might not understand business, but I wasn't a fool.

Yesterday Clay had let his contempt for my father slip, and he had always been a man with ambition.

Every single one of these moves bore his fingerprints.

Yet watching him paint himself so casually as some kind of savior, my heart still cramped with pain.

Senior year of college, my classmates and I went to play at a small shooting club nearby.

One of the guys, someone who had once confessed to me and gotten turned down, sneered.

"Well, look at the good little girl, daring to touch a gun. You even know how? Don't go wetting yourself. By the time you're begging to be with me, I'll think you're too dirty to bother with."

That was when Clay appeared.

He guided my hands and fired nine shots in a row. Nine bulls-eyes, dead center every time.

On the tenth shot, the muzzle suddenly swung around and pointed straight at the boy's head.

I was scared out of my mind, but I still knocked the barrel aside fast. The bullet grazed past his ear.

The boy went white with terror, a dark stain spreading across his pants, the stench rising off him.

Clay lowered his gaze and laughed softly.

"See that? Now it's trash like you, who only bullies the weak and cowers before the strong, who should be thanking someone else for being sweet and kind."

When I asked why he'd helped me, he winked and said, half teasing,

"Ever read a fairy tale? A sweet little princess always has a knight to protect her."

We got together after that, and he really did make me feel safe.

But reality isn't a fairy tale.

In the end, the sword in the knight's hand swung down on the princess.

I clenched my fists, letting my nails dig into my palms.

"Clay, I'd rather die than be your mistress."

Before he could say a word, Priscilla took my arm, smoothing things over.

"Silly Margery, stop being so stubborn. We're doing this to protect you."

"Everyone knows Clay's been sleeping with you for five years and that you can't have children anymore. What decent family would ever want you... You're better off with him. At least we won't mistreat you. I honestly don't mind you being the mistress."

Priscilla's family had always favored sons over daughters. Back then, her brother had shown up wanting to drag her off by force and sell her to some old man in the countryside as a wife.

When I went to pull her free, a knife went into my womb, and I lost the ability to bear children for good.

If Clay hadn't arrived with help when he did, I might not even have survived.