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.

Priscilla had been crying her heart out at my bedside, her face a mess of tears.

"Margery, you took that knife for me. From now on, every storm in your life, I'll shield you from it."

I laughed at that, a hollow, bitter sound, then lifted my hand and slapped her across the face.

"This protection of yours means betraying my father and asking me to be the mistress between you and my fiancé?"

"Priscilla, I really do regret not letting that knife finish you off."

Priscilla's face went a shade paler, her eyes rimming red in an instant.

Clay shot up from his seat and shoved me hard.

He pulled her into his arms and said in a frozen voice,

"Margery. Apologize."

"I won't! The ones who should be apologizing are the two of you—a man and woman with no shame!"

Clay's expression sank completely. He sneered.

"Margery, you really are spoiled rotten by your father. That's fine. I'll teach you how to grow up."

"Now get out. Don't keep me from comforting my Priscilla."

I stumbled out of the office tower in a daze and tilted my head up at the company sign.

When my parents started the business, I'd just been born.

They named the company Avalon, hoping it would keep me safe and happy for the rest of my life.

Two short words, brimming with all the love they had for their daughter.

But now, Avalon was gone.

The new name that had replaced it was 'Southbound.'

Clay returning to Priscilla, racing toward the one he loved.

Five years of pouring out my heart, nothing more than Clay's calculated revenge.

Even the company my father had built with his own hands had become a prop for them to flaunt their love.

I dialed a string of numbers.

"Hello. I agree to marry you. This week, I'll fly to Harbor City and we'll have the wedding."

"I don't need any betrothal gift. I only need you to do me one favor."

Not wanting to go back to that empty house, I drove to the cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

But the moment I arrived, I found a crowd hurling paint and eggs all over my father's headstone.

They were livestreaming on their phones, faces blazing with righteous outrage.

"Folks, we found that dirty old creep's grave!"

"Lucky bastard, dying this early. But that doesn't mean he gets off easy. Justice comes late, but it always comes!"

Only then did I see that both my father and I had been dragged into the trending headlines.

There were photos of my father kindly giving Priscilla money to pay for her family's medical treatment.

And of me slapping Priscilla in the office.

At the time, Priscilla had wept with gratitude, swearing she'd repay my father. I remembered it clearly—my father said there was no need, that it was hard enough for a young person making her way in the world.

But now it had been twisted into my father using his wealth to tear apart a loving couple, coercing and threatening a young woman into giving herself to him.

Even the red, swollen rims of Priscilla's eyes had been recast as the look of someone too afraid to speak her anger, swallowing her grief.

They were praising Clay as a hero who'd endured humiliation for years and finally made his name, taking back the woman he loved.

Praising him for the clever new name he'd given the company.

And my father had become a piece of human filth, someone everyone wanted to beat down.

Messages kept flooding into my phone.

All from the elders who'd once been close to my father, and from friends in the same circle, wanting to confirm whether it was true.

But I couldn't spare a hand to answer, because that man was shouting in excitement.

"Folks, you wanna see this dirty old pervert wiped off the face of the earth?!"

"Send five hundred Sky-Piercing Arrows and us brothers will dig up his ashes right now and pour piss all over them!"

"Ten more thirties! A vicious old animal like this who preyed on women—can we let him rest in peace after death? He doesn't deserve it! Push harder, folks!"

Enough. That was really enough!

I couldn't listen to another word. Just as I was about to charge over, someone yanked me back hard.

Clay, with several bodyguards trailing behind him.

He looked at me, his brow knotted.

"Are you out of your mind? Those are men with their blood up. Who do you think you can stop? Going over there will only get you hurt for nothing!"