The night before we were supposed to register the marriage, there was a singles' party.

My fiancé had two drinks, then suddenly buried his face in his hands and broke down.

"I still can't forget her. What am I supposed to do?"

The girl he meant—I knew exactly who she was.

His ex-girlfriend. The one who'd stuck by him through three years of hardship when he was pretending to be poor.

The festive atmosphere in the room froze solid in an instant.

Everyone stared at me, squirming with secondhand embarrassment.

They expected me to do what I'd always done—grab him by the collar and smash a bottle over his head to snap him out of it.

But all I did was drain a bottle of wine.

Then I called the girl and told her to come pick him up.

My friends said I'd lost my mind.

I'd been crazy about this man for years, pining down to the marrow of my bones, and now that an old engagement was finally giving me my chance, I was throwing it away.

I didn't explain.

Instead, I found his mother, took the oversized check she owed me, and left without looking back.

What they didn't know was this:

My feelings for him had died the day his cover was blown—the day he destroyed my family's finances just to prove to that girl that his love was real.

The only reason I'd stayed was to hold up my end of the deal with his mother.

I was a decoy. A stand-in for the real bride his family had lined up through their alliance. A human shield, absorbing every round Victor Swanson fired in his war against the arranged marriage, against the expectations of marrying within his class.

Now their wedding date had arrived. My job was done.

——

When I walked back from making the call outside the private room, the sound of things shattering bled through the door, tangled with Victor's ragged, suffocated sobs.

I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat and pushed the door open.

A bottle came hurtling past. It exploded against the doorframe, and a shard sliced across my forehead before I could flinch.

Something warm slid down from my brow.

Those striking eyes of his held a haze of liquor, but beneath it—far more than drunkenness—was a fury he was using the alcohol as an excuse to unleash. Fury and frustration, unchecked and vicious.

Eight years ago, at his coming-of-age party, he'd gotten drunk and punched a classmate who was pressuring me to drink and making crude jokes at my expense.

Now the person on the receiving end of that hateful glare was me.

I was used to it by now.

We'd grown up together for twelve years. He'd always known he was supposed to marry me. But after he took that bet with his friends—lived as a nobody, fell in love with the tough, kindhearted Alice Frost—and his mother used their family's expectations to force them apart, everything changed.

He was convinced I'd poisoned his mother's mind. That I was the reason he couldn't be with the woman he loved. His contempt for me turned savage.

Ruining my family wasn't enough to satisfy him. At every single step of the wedding preparations—dress fittings, guest lists—he found ways to humiliate me. Small things, like refusing to look at me. Big things, like showing up with a different woman on his arm and getting handsy with her right in front of everyone.

In the beginning, I screamed at him. Demanded to know why we couldn't just call off the engagement like civilized people and let me keep a shred of dignity. But eventually, I turned into something pathetic—a lovesick fool who'd do anything, no matter how degrading, just to beg for a sliver of his time.

The last straw was when I stood in a downpour to deliver condoms to him and whatever woman he'd brought around just to disgust me—all because I'd been trying to get him to show up for a wedding menu tasting.

Everyone assumed I was just hopelessly, helplessly in love with him.

The truth was different. The time before that, at the engagement ring fitting, he'd decided to humiliate me by turning my family's bankruptcy into a punchline—telling the whole room like it was a funny story, just to watch my face crumble. I snapped. I contacted the tabloids and leaked the story about how he'd hidden his identity and played with someone's feelings.

The fallout hit his family hard. Public backlash. Stock prices in free fall.

Christine, who'd been turning a blind eye to everything until then, called me with a warning: pull something like that again, and I could forget about the fifty million dollars we'd agreed on.

That was the moment I finally saw myself clearly.

I wasn't some important character holding a childhood-sweetheart script.

I was an NPC. The kind they could use as a punching bag, threaten, and discard the second I touched their bottom line.

Sentiment was the cheapest currency between us.

They all sucked in a breath.

Terrified I'd do what I always used to do—make a scene over a tiny scratch, blow it out of proportion, all just to make him glance my way.

In the end, I'd been nothing but a clown. He'd sneered that I was no princess anymore, just a spoiled brat faking her wounds, making a scene nobody wanted to clean up.

But all I did was calmly wipe the blood away with a napkin, crack open a bottle of liquor, and press a soaked tissue against the cut.

A sharp sting burrowed from the wound into my bones, then deeper, into my heart.

It felt like rotten flesh being stripped away. A relief.

Everything was finally coming to an end.

"The woman you can't forget. I called her for you. It's your last night. Make it count."

The mocking expression on his face, the one braced for me to lose my mind or beg, froze solid.

No one around us dared breathe.

Victor shot to his feet, ready to demand what kind of stunt I was pulling now.

The next second, the door swung open and Alice Frost rushed in, tears streaming down her face, faint streaks of blood on her arm.

"Don't flatter yourself. I'm not here because I can't get over you. I came to make one thing clear: you're getting married, so stop dragging me into your life. I'm done being a pawn in your rich-people games!"

His expression softened instantly.

His gaze fell to her injured arm, full of anguish.

"What happened to you?!"

She yanked her arm back, fuming.

"None of your business!"

"If I don't look after you, who the hell will? I told you, I'll take care of you for the rest of my life. We're going to the hospital. Now."

He scooped her up and strode toward the door.

When he passed me, his steps faltered for a single beat.

"Don't think playing hard to get and acting generous is going to earn you one shred of guilt or affection from me."

"You brought this on yourself. This is what happens when you cling to something that was never yours."

He walked out without a backward glance.

Yes.

I brought it on myself. I fell for someone I never should have.

But he was hardly innocent.

When I'd asked to break off the engagement, he was the one who chose. Between inheriting the family empire under Christine Swanson's terms or cutting ties with the Swansons entirely, he chose the inheritance. He chose the arranged marriage.

A man without the spine to protect the woman he loved, yet too greedy to give up the wealth and status, so he used someone else as a shield.

He was just as despicable.

The noise and the crowd drained away around me.

I took a cab to the Swanson estate.

Christine sat sipping her nightly bird's nest soup, the picture of elegance. On the table beside her lay a check and a voluntary property-transfer agreement.

"Sign, and I'll give you half now. Once Victor and the Pemberton girl successfully register their marriage tomorrow, you'll get the other half."

I said nothing. This woman, who had once held my hand and whispered all those warm, intimate words, coaxing me to be her daughter-in-law, now looked down at me from above.

"Don't blame me for not helping your family back then. A mother can only do so much once her son's grown. Consider this money my compensation, given behind Victor's back, for the sake of what we once shared. It's enough for you and your family to live comfortably."

With that, she pulled her cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders and glided upstairs.

The housekeeper showed me to the door.

The bitter wind cut straight to the bone.

She didn't need to explain. I'd always known she never intended to help us.

Back when our two families had been equals, our downfall was her opportunity to rise to the top. Compared to the gains of a marital alliance, swallowing the whole pie was far more tempting.

When I'd tried to call off the engagement, I mistook her pleas for sincerity.

That was how she used me. Under the guise of protecting me, standing up for me, she'd quietly turned Victor against me and targeted Alice, funneling all his rage in my direction.

She sat back and reaped every last benefit.

Too bad my entire family had been blind. By the time we saw her for what she was, it was far too late.

We no longer had the standing to confront her.

I drew a long breath.

My fingers tightened around the check.

At least money meant there was still hope.

I took a cab back to the apartment.

The moment I stepped through the door, I heard it. Arguing. Sobbing. And beneath it all, sounds no wife should ever have to hear.

The master bedroom door was wide open.

Two naked bodies tangled together on the sheets.

They heard my footsteps.

Victor grabbed the bedside lamp and hurled it at me.

"Get out! Who told you to come in here?"

Alice looked up through tear-streaked eyes, her gaze sharp with the bitter fury of a woman reclaiming what she believed was hers.

"You two haven't even registered the marriage yet. Tonight, he's mine." She sniffled, her voice climbing. "You've been treating me like a joke this whole time, watching from your little throne. I think I'm owed some interest, don't you?"

"After all, we've done much more than this before. If you want to learn how to make him happy, I don't mind you watching. I'm sure he already bragged to your whole circle about taking my virginity, right?"

"Either do it or get out! Let me go home!"

A flash of guilt and regret passed through Victor's eyes.

"I'm the bastard here! Don't degrade yourself like this! I'm the one who wronged you. I shouldn't have lied."

Then he turned on me, his gaze vicious, as if everything were my fault.

But pretending to be poor hadn't been my idea. And their first time together? I hadn't known a thing about it.

Once, I would have lost my mind trying to explain myself. I would have seized every chance to clear up every misunderstanding, every shred of hostility he held against me.

But now, I simply picked up the lamp and set it back on the nightstand.

I pulled the door shut behind me, careful and quiet.

"Enjoy yourselves."

Then I turned and walked to the guest room.

One more night. That was all I had left.

I didn't sleep well.

In my dreams, I kept seeing the Victor from when we were young. Back when everything between us had been so good. Back when he'd never once said a harsh word to me.

A sob crawled up my throat, and tears burned the inside of my nose.

My whole body ached, sharp and bone-deep, as if I'd plunged into ice water.

I woke with a gasp, eyes red and stinging.

The first thing I saw was Victor's face, twisted with disgust.

The chill on my skin was unmistakable now. My hair was soaking wet, water dripping from the ends. I looked at the bucket in his hand.

The cold hadn't only been in the dream.

"Marina! How can you be this despicable? I told you I'd register the marriage with you tomorrow. Tonight was just a goodbye between her and me. I initiated everything. I forced her. It was all me. So why did you leak that video of us?"

I stared at him, blank.

"What video?"

His brow furrowed. He let out a thin, mocking scoff.

"Still playing dumb? Who else would be low enough to plant a camera in the bedroom? I should've known. That's why you were so generous, inviting her over yourself. You were planning to ruin her reputation all along!"

"Pathetic. Disgusting. Studying how to seduce me, is that it? Let me tell you something. You could strip naked and lie right in front of me, and I wouldn't spare you a single glance. You're nothing but—"

Before he could finish, his phone rang.

His assistant's voice came through the speaker.

"Mr. Swanson, the video has been taken down. But we just traced the IP. It was sent from the family estate. It wasn't Miss Farley."

The line went dead.

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, then guilt, barely there before he buried it.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Alice came rushing in with a shriek and slapped me across the face.

"Is that what you want? To destroy me? I already gave you the man I love most in this world! I'm just an ordinary girl with nothing. What more do you want from me?"

She was hysterical. Her palms came down like a storm, slap after slap landing on my body, and there was nowhere to hide.

Victor frowned and reached for her arm.

"It wasn't—"

The next second, Alice slapped him too.

"Oh, so now you feel sorry for her? What about me? What about the three years you played me for a fool?"

Those three years. His rawest nerve. The one thing no one was allowed to mention.

His eyes softened with pain. He took her hand in his.

"It's all my fault. Leave it to me. I'll handle it."

He pulled her into his arms. On his way out, he cast one last glance in my direction.