### Chapter 1

I was on my way to try on wedding dresses when my fiancé called. "The wedding's off. Vivian's pregnant and her fiancé dumped her."

"A child can't grow up without a father. I'm going to marry Vivian first. I'll make it up to you in a couple of years."

"She and I are like brother and sister. Don't overthink this."

The air locked in my chest. My mind went blank. The line was already dead.

But I'd already seen it. The chat between Stewart and his assistant, left open on the study computer.

"Vivian came back from abroad for me. If I betrayed her to marry that woman, imagine how devastated she'd be."

His assistant had replied right away: "Aren't you worried Miss Hughes will be disappointed enough to leave you?"

Stewart's voice message dripped with contempt:

"Delgado Corp is about to go public. I'll be worth billions. You really think she'd walk away from that?"

So rather than betray Vivian, he'd betray the woman who'd waited six years.

Six years of devotion, and none of it could compete with one backward glance from his childhood sweetheart.

Fine. Then I'd give them exactly what they wanted.

I didn't hesitate. I called my father and asked him to pull every last dollar out of Delgado Corp.

1.

My father's voice sharpened. "Aren't you two getting married in a couple of days? Did that bastard hurt you?"

At this stage, right before the IPO, losing their largest investor would be catastrophic for Stewart.

The moment I opened my mouth, my voice cracked:

"There is no wedding. He's marrying someone else."

"Don't you worry. Daddy will handle this." Even through the phone, his fury was deafening.

After I hung up, my mind drifted back six years.

Delgado Corp had been on the verge of bankruptcy. Stewart's childhood sweetheart, Vivian Porter, had left him.

I was the one who secretly begged my father to prop the company up from behind the scenes and set it back on track.

And I was the one who walked Stewart out of the wreckage of that heartbreak, step by step.

Six years together. Then, on my birthday, he got down on one knee and promised to make me the happiest woman alive.

Then Vivian came back.

And everything changed.

My phone shattered the silence of the study.

"Leonora Hughes, get here now! Stewart's in a fight!"

In the background, I could hear Stewart roaring.

"Apologize to my fiancée, or I'll make sure you regret it!"

The word hit like a fist to the sternum.

He'd just told me the wedding was postponed. And already he was calling someone else his fiancée.

I rushed to the club and found Stewart cradling a delicate, sobbing woman in his arms.

One of Stewart's friends pulled me aside, his face tight with worry.

"Some guys said Vivian was dressed like a hooker. Stewart heard and lost it."

"He's wasted. You need to talk him down."

A client had once harassed me, told me to sleep with him to close the deal.

Stewart hadn't been angry. He'd blamed me for being difficult, said I'd cost him business.

Now here he was, so drunk he could barely stand, yet raging like a wild animal because someone had said one unkind word about Vivian Porter.

Mid-argument, one of the men swung a bottle at Stewart's head.

My body moved before my brain caught up. I threw myself in front of him.

Crack.

The bottle shattered against my forehead. A dull, spreading pain.

Something warm and wet crept down from my hairline.

"You crazy bitch! You jumped in front of me! I didn't touch you!" The man's face went white. He dropped the bottle and bolted.

Glass crunched under his shoes as he fled.

Blood ran down my cheeks, warm and sticky. The concern I'd been praying for never came. Instead, Stewart's voice exploded in my ear:

"What the hell is wrong with you, Leonora? Didn't you see what they were doing to Vivian?"

"You just let the guy walk out? Was that on purpose?!"

Every word froze the blood in my veins.

Some pathetic part of me had wanted to see if he would lose his mind for me the way he did for Vivian.

But there was no tenderness in his eyes. No protectiveness. Only rage.

Why was I so desperate?

Stewart had already decided I was there to cause trouble.

"What are you even doing here? Came to laugh at Vivian?"

"Pack up that pitiful pride of yours. Let me make this clear: as long as I'm around, nobody touches her."

Tears of humiliation burned behind my eyes.

"I wasn't—"

Vivian cut me off with a sob. "Stewart, this is all my fault for coming to you for help! Leonora has every right to hate me. I should just go. You two can have your wedding."

Stewart melted instantly. He wiped her tears with a gentleness I hadn't seen in years:

"Don't you dare. She's the petty one, not you. You've done nothing wrong."

One of his friends, trying to break the tension, held out a glass of wine toward me.

"A toast to you, Mrs. Delgado."

Stewart snapped at him before the glass reached my hand:

"Don't you know she's allergic to alcohol?"

So he remembered. After all this time, he actually remembered.

Then Vivian let out a teary little laugh.

"Silly. He was toasting Leonora, not me."

Stewart's face cleared. He gave a satisfied nod. "Oh, her. She can drink. Especially when she's entertaining clients."

The words burned through me until there was nothing left.

I'd told him I was allergic the very first day I joined Delgado Corp.

And every time there was a business dinner, I was the first one he sent to pour drinks.

I'd broken out in hives. I'd ended up in the hospital with a perforated stomach lining. He'd called me dramatic, said I was faking sick over a few glasses of wine.

It wasn't that he couldn't remember. He'd simply never cared. Not about me. Seeing him with Vivian made that unbearably clear.

I swallowed the bitterness, picked up the glass, and drained it in one go.

"Stewart Delgado, I wish you both a lifetime of happiness."

### Chapter 2

Stewart's brow furrowed instantly, his voice sharp with impatience.

"All I did was get a marriage certificate with Vivian. What's with the passive-aggressive attitude?"

"I know you're upset, so I'll give you a sum of money as compensation. That should be enough, right?"

I had already cried every tear I had for this man.

Wasting any more heartbreak on him wasn't worth it.

I held his gaze, steady and unblinking, and asked my final question.

"Stewart, in these six years, did you ever love me?"

His frown only deepened.

"You know Vivian's pregnant, and you insist on saying things like that in front of her? Are you trying to upset her?!"

"Just don't make a scene. After two years, I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Isn't that enough?"

The rest of his life making it up to me.

I had waited over two thousand days and nights for him to promise me forever.

Instead, I watched him give forever to someone else.

If what he felt for Vivian was only "like a sister," why would such a simple question threaten to break her heart?

There was no "rest of his life" left for me, Stewart. I couldn't afford to gamble anymore.

I turned to leave, but he suddenly remembered something and called me back.

"Contact all your friends and family right away. Tell them the wedding is off. Say you changed your mind at the last minute and decided you didn't want to marry me."

I nodded, calm.

"Fine."

I went to the hospital to get my wound bandaged, then headed straight back to Delgado Corp to wrap up my work.

Back at the office, I posted on social media that the wedding was canceled.

The well-meaning advice came almost immediately:

"Girl, are you crazy? He's about to be the CEO of a publicly traded company! You stuck it out this long, and now you're throwing it away right before the payoff? Why?"

"A catch like that, and women are lining up to throw themselves at him. And here you are, handing him over on a silver platter!"

I didn't reply.

Soon enough, he wouldn't be any of those things.

I was sorting through files when a friend request from Vivian popped up on my phone.

The moment I accepted, a photo of a marriage certificate came through.

"Someone really does love me to death! After that little scene today, he took me straight to get our certificate just to make me feel better!"

In the photo, the two of them were beaming, faces pressed together. It burned behind my eyes like staring into the sun.

I turned off my phone.

Six years with Stewart. To protect his pride, I hid who I was. I lived with him in a run-down studio apartment, survived on dry bread.

I even went through five abortions in those six years.

All because he said he wanted to wait for the right moment to give me and our children a stable, happy home.

In the end, he kept that promise for someone else.

I finished copying my files, then got up to make coffee in the break room.

I stopped in the doorway.

A few coworkers were huddled at the counter, whispering.

"Did you hear? The bride isn't Leonora. It's his childhood sweetheart."

"Apparently this Vivian girl is the one he's been hung up on for years. I saw her in the office once. Way prettier than Leonora. No wonder he could never let go."

"Ha! Leonora spent all those years chasing him, and she ended up with nothing. That's hilarious."

Every word sliced into me like a blade.

I pretended I hadn't heard a thing and walked straight back to my office.

Then I began placing my belongings into a box, one by one.

These same employees used to call me "sis" to my face.

Now that they knew I wasn't the bride, I'd already been downgraded to the desperate ex who couldn't take a hint.

The door slammed open without warning.

Stewart stormed in, swept my box off the desk with one arm, and sent everything crashing to the floor. His face was white-hot with rage.

"What is wrong with you? I told you to say YOU were the one who called it off!"

"Now everyone out there is calling Vivian a homewrecker. Did you spread that on purpose?"

"Post a correction right now, and then apologize to Vivian! She's so upset she's threatening to terminate the pregnancy!"

Listening to him hurl accusations at me, I almost laughed.

### Chapter 3

Mid-rant, Stewart's gaze snagged on the gauze wrapped around my head.

The alcohol had worn off by now, and a flicker of guilt crossed his face. "Your head..."

Before he could finish, Vivian burst through the door, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe:

"Stewart, maybe I should just go get rid of the baby right now! Better that than having everyone call it a bastard!"

Stewart panicked. He pulled her into his arms, his voice going impossibly soft:

"Don't talk like that. You're not the other woman, and our baby is not a bastard!"

"We have a marriage certificate. You are my lawful wife."

"Anyone who says otherwise, I'll destroy them."

But Vivian only cried harder, on the verge of passing out:

"But everyone knows Leonora is your fiancée. I should just stop being an eyesore and leave right now!"

Stewart held her tighter, not bothering to hide his devotion:

"I already told her I'd settle things with her in a couple of years. What more does she want?"

"Stop crying. Every tear you shed feels like a knife in my chest."

Vivian struggled in his arms:

"But everyone thinks I'm the other woman. I can never show my face again. What's the point of staying by your side?"

The moment he heard that, Stewart pulled out his phone and called his assistant, barking orders that the wedding was back on.

Not only that, he wanted the whole thing upgraded to a multimillion-dollar affair.

"That way, the entire world will know that you, Vivian Porter, are my wife."

Vivian finally quieted, burying her face in his chest as her sobs turned into a coy smile. "Stewart, you're so good to me. How could I ever bear to leave you after two years?"

"Then don't. I'll take care of you and our child for the rest of your lives."

Once Vivian was properly soothed, Stewart finally lifted his head and looked at me with a sidelong glare:

"Why are you still standing there? Did you post the clarification? If you did, then hurry up and apologize to Vivian!"

Watching their little love show, I felt like I was the other woman in this story. The laughable third wheel.

But I hadn't done anything wrong. Why should I apologize to her?

"Stewart, what if I say no?"

He stared at me with that look, as though he had me all figured out, and let out a single contemptuous scoff.

"You're clinging on and refusing to leave because you want money. Just say it."

He pulled out a checkbook, scrawled a few strokes with a flourish, and slapped it on the desk.

"You were with me for years, so I'll be generous. A hundred thousand should cover it. Now go stand in front of the entire company and clarify that Vivian is not the other woman."

Employees had crowded around the office doorway, craning their necks for the show.

Feeling every last one of those contemptuous stares boring into me, I laughed. For real this time.

So that was all I was worth. A hundred thousand dollars.

"What's so funny? Think it's not enough? Every meal you ate, every thing you used these past years came out of my pocket."

"You should be grateful I'm offering you a hundred grand at all."

Listening to him say it with such righteous conviction, I felt nothing but a bone-deep bleakness.

I must have been blind to have loved a man like this for six whole years.

I reached across the desk and picked up the check. Slowly.

A knowing smirk tugged at the corner of Stewart's mouth.

Then, right in front of him, I tore it to shreds.

"Keep the money. Your happy little family of three is going to need it."

And that day was coming sooner than he thought.

Stewart's face twisted with humiliated rage.

"Leonora, I told you the wedding is just postponed! It's not like I said I'd never marry you!"

He still believed that no matter how far he pushed, I'd be standing in the same spot, waiting.

But betrayal was the one thing I would never forgive.

"Save it. You'd better enjoy your wedding with her while you can. It might just be the last party you ever throw."

The words left my mouth laced with ice.

"Leonora, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

He noticed me bending down to gather my things from the floor, and he froze mid-step:

"You're quitting?"

"There's no reason for me to stay."

I packed my belongings into a box without once looking up at him.

"Fine! Then get the hell out of my sight! Once you leave Delgado Corp, let's see which company in this city would dare hire you!"