I hadn't expected it—the first thing I heard was a woman's laugh, light and flirty.

"I baked these cookies myself—stick a candle in and that's your birthday party!"

Then his voice, lazy, half-smiling: "I'm busy right now."

"Anything else, call my assistant."

Before I could get a word out, the line went dead.

Panic flooded my chest. My fingers were shaking, already moving to redial.

The screen barely had time to light up before the night-shift instructor seized the back of my neck and wrenched me away from it.

Her face was cold. She glanced at my lock screen and sneered.

"Missing your man in the middle of the night?"

"Just as shameless as Ms. Henson said."

"You don't even know your place, do you? Chasing after him, clinging like a leech. He's unlucky he ever met you."

At the same time, Oliver posted a set of photos on his social media back home.

Burnt cookies on fine porcelain, so charred they could have been anything, warm candlelight pooling over two clasped hands.

The live photo carried the faint sound of a woman laughing, sweet and pleased.

"You promised! You said this was the most heartfelt gift..."

I shook my head hard, dragging myself back to the present.

When I looked up, my gaze ran straight into Oliver's.

He saw me looking and glanced away. His fingers curled once, unconsciously.

He didn't manage a single complete sentence.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, turned, and went back to my room.

I'd barely closed my eyes for a few minutes when someone started slamming on the bedroom door.

Davina ignored Oliver's low attempts to stop her, her voice sharp and accusing.

"You've got this completely wrong! I have a boyfriend—why would I ever do something like that?"

"And you're my student. How dare you be so out of line, making these vile accusations about your own boyfriend?"

Outside the door she kept apologizing to Oliver—telling him she'd failed as a teacher, that she shouldn't have let me turn out so unhinged.

I had no intention of engaging.

But her voice kept rising, louder and louder, as though she were the one who'd been wronged beyond all bearing.

If I hadn't heard those sounds with my own ears earlier,

I might actually have believed I'd misunderstood everything.

I still remembered exactly how Oliver had used me as a cover to help Davina deceive her boyfriend.

The call on the other end had barely been answered before the room behind me filled with ragged breath and stifled moans.

"Thrilling, isn't it?"

She probably hadn't expected me to open the door.

Oliver's shirt was soaked through at the chest. His arm was still around her waist, not yet pulled back.

"You... why did you open the door?"

Davina instinctively looked at Oliver, reaching to hold on tighter, but he shoved her away fast.

I looked at the two of them and raised an eyebrow.

"Showing up at someone's door in the middle of the night to cry. Swearing you're innocent with one breath and crawling into a man's arms with the next."

"Weren't you the one with all the rules? What happened—those only apply to other people? You don't follow a single one yourself, and somehow that's not a joke?"

Oliver's brow was knotted tight, his voice raw with a fatigue he couldn't mask.

"Maddie, I don't know how things got to this point."

"But it's a misunderstanding. You believe me, don't you?"

He glanced toward Butler Whitmore, signaling him to take Davina back first.

I turned to go back to my room, and he caught my arm.

His voice was low, threaded with impatience. "You haven't answered me."

I pried his fingers off. "The answer doesn't matter anymore."

"My sincerity doesn't come around twice for the same person."

The color drained from Oliver's face. His hand locked around the door handle, knuckles white.

"I won't let you talk like that."

A scream came from downstairs.

"Sir, Ms. Henson's twisted her ankle."

Oliver looked at me, one hand already loosening his tie, voice thick and low.

"I wasn't going to deal with her, but…"

His eyes darkened, as if he were waiting for something from me.

"That's your business."

I turned around and shut the door.

Noise filtered through from the other side, and I could just make out Davina's teary, wounded voice.

"It's fine, really—I can walk. Don't worry about me."

"This whole thing is my fault…"

Oliver let out a long breath.

He hesitated, then went downstairs after her.

Almost instantly, a text came through.

"She only showed up tonight because you can't follow the rules."

"I can't just leave her out there."

"Don't overthink this. If you need to throw a tantrum, go ahead."

The front door slammed shut.

I stared out into the black night.

I closed my eyes, and somewhere in the dark I could almost hear the crickets again.

That night had been so still it felt like something was wrong.

I'd just come out of dance class when I found Oliver slumped against the dumpsters, soaked in blood, a photograph of a woman crushed in his fist so tight his knuckles had gone white.

He was hunched over, gasping like each breath might be his last.

I saved him.

I only learned later that it had been the anniversary of the woman in the photograph—his mother. She'd given the Vance family one son in all her years of marriage, and that alone was enough to condemn her: she'd failed to carry on the line, broken the rules. Then his father's mistress started coming for her, again and again.

His mother had a breakdown and took her own life.

Oliver always said the Vance family's rules killed her.

He used to watch me through the studio glass while I danced, just standing there, lost.

All that dazed panic in his eyes would go quiet the moment I nodded at him, then flicker back to something like hope.

Soon after, the family took him back.

And then strange accidents started happening to me, one after another.

When I asked why, his face went hard, but all he said was not to overthink it.

After that, I barely saw him.

The only way I knew what was going on in his life was through the tabloids.

One of Oliver's brothers once dropped a stack of those headlines right in front of me. Cold and blunt about it.

He and I were never going to end up anywhere.

Later I confronted Oliver with the articles.

He waved it off. "None of that means anything. Stop listening to people."

But I kept receiving photos of him in bed with different women.

At first I refused to believe it. Then a recording arrived.

"She's pure, sure. But once you've had her, the thrill wears off pretty fast."

"You know she was set to be the next great dance master, right? All that shine, all that talent—and now she just sits in the palm of my hand."

I fought with him over that recording. I told him we were done.

Oliver thought I was making a scene.

His brow knotted, and his tone went ice-cold.

"All this over a recording you don't even know is real?"

"Is our marriage a joke to you? Or do you just not understand rules—what you're meant to hear and what you're not?"

He sent me overseas and let strangers look down on me, nitpick me, discipline me however they pleased.

I watched those same people drop the cruelty from their faces in an instant and fawn all over him the moment he walked in.

And I watched how he looked at the marks on my body with that flat, unmoved expression.

"These people are here to help you. Don't be so guarded."

Davina called it "emotional desensitization"—showed me flirtatious messages between her and Oliver, compromising photos, one after another.

She made me practice the correct responses for every kind of humiliating scenario.

The rift between Oliver and me kept growing.

I asked for a breakup more than once.

Oliver never answered. Every time, he just slammed the door and left. And every time, the only thing that followed was another trip overseas for more etiquette training.

By then, I could barely tell where my own mind ended and the fog began.

I broke.

Davina stood off to the side, sneering. "This unhinged mess—and she thinks she deserves a Vance heir?"

They broke two of my ribs.

I woke up in a psychiatric hospital.

Dr. Kim told Oliver I'd been hurting myself.

He looked at me with open disappointment. "Why can't you just give in to them for once?"

"Do it for me. Can you do that much?"

"Just be good, and I promise—this is the last time I'll send you abroad."

Tears clung to my lashes, trembling, ready to fall.

I stared at him. My mouth opened, closed, opened again. In the end, nothing came out.

I let him pull me into his arms.

And only then did I realize.

There was no warmth in Oliver Vance's embrace.

By the end of the month, the elite-family qualification assessment arrived. I ignored it.

Oliver's expression darkened. He seized my wrist.

"Still throwing a fit over someone who doesn't matter?"

I said nothing.

My gaze drifted to the marks on his neck. I smiled.

Whatever softness had been left in his eyes froze over completely.

He went quiet for a long time, and when he finally spoke, the restlessness was spilling through every word.

"We're one step away—marry me and you'll be safe. How do you not understand that?"

"What have I done wrong? What is it about me that you can't stand?"

I kept my eyes down, chewing a piece of meat I couldn't break down no matter how long I tried. I turned my head and spat it out.

"Some damage doesn't heal just because you survive the exam."

His throat worked. His face went white.

"That was an accident."

"You were hurt badly. You weren't yourself—standing in front of that mirror practicing like a lunatic, passing out from the pain and starting again the second you came to."

"I didn't have another choice."

My head snapped up. I pressed the emotion down, pressed it again, but my voice still shook.

"Those two broken ribs cost me my qualification for the international competition. Permanently."

"That was the dream I would have given my life for."

"And you killed it with your own hands!"

Oliver opened his mouth to say something else.

I cut him off.

Enough. None of it mattered anymore.

I told him I'd go abroad the day after tomorrow.

Not for some ridiculous exam.

To leave. For good.

Oliver had handpicked the date. Bought his way onto the trending charts in advance. Hammered me into shape until I passed for the obedient, polished heiress his status required.

When reporters pressed him with questions,

he stood there holding flowers, that practiced smile never slipping, his tone warm and sincere.

"Thank you all for your attention. I love my fiancée very much. Ours is a love that goes both ways. We work hard for each other."

At that same moment, at the airport, boarding a flight to the U.S.

I lifted a hand and tipped my sunglasses down. The corner of my mouth curved.

I still couldn't stand watching him put on a show.

So I handed the tabloid press a parting gift.

Fifteen minutes into the exam, the silent testing hall erupted.

A staffer, face drained of color, fought through the swarm of reporters and whispered something in Oliver's ear.

He shoved everyone aside and charged into the exam hall.

But the instant he reached the doorway, one glance inside locked him in place.

The hall was empty.

An unidentified man was pinned to the floor by bodyguards.

He looked desperate, clutching a digital voice recorder, his voice cracking with panic as he repeated himself over and over: "I'm only here to deliver something for Miss Swanson, I swear..."

Oliver's eyes narrowed to slits. He stared the man down, then slammed the play button.

And when he heard what was inside—

Oliver Vance, the man who never broke composure, shattered.