Like a judge on high, handing down a sentence without a shred of mercy.

“Vera, if you won't leave, you'd better get along with Rachel.”

“I don't want fires in my own backyard. You and her—you're both very important women to me.”

Hah.

I let out a cold laugh and threw the memory back in the trash where it belonged.

Rachel's expression was hard to hold together, especially after she saw the words on my desk: “Divorce Lawyer.”

Her face got even uglier.

“What are you doing here?”

Clark looked at her quietly for a moment, then spoke.

“I want a divorce.”

“And I'm transferring every asset under my name to Vera. All of it. For free.”

“Have you lost your mind?!”

Rachel screamed, disbelief cracking her voice wide open.

She grabbed Clark by the collar and demanded again.

“Clark, have you ever once thought about me?”

“I've been with you since I was eighteen!”

Clark answered quietly.

“So was she.”

I felt nothing. Not a flicker. What surfaced in my mind instead

was what came after: the night I talked to Clark until dawn, the night I got on my knees and begged.

I'd recited every one of our seven years together. Told him I didn't care about any of it, everything that had happened, if he would just come back to me.

He'd been moved. Deeply, visibly moved. He swore he'd cut off all contact with Rachel.

The next day, I caught them in bed again.

I lost it.

I cursed him out, screamed at him—why was he so disgusting.

He just leaned against the headboard of our bed, Rachel lying in his arms with that taunting look on her face.

Lit a cigarette. Spoke like it meant nothing.

“You're calling me cheap? You were in my bed at eighteen.”

That moment, the pain cut all the way through.

I'd thought my teenage recklessness was giving myself for love.

Now I knew. In his eyes, I was no different from a whore.

I lowered my voice and coughed twice before speaking.

“If you two want to fight, take it outside.”

“I'm about to get off work.”

Rachel glanced up at me. Just once.

Her whole body went rigid, as if she'd seen something impossible, and she jabbed a finger at me and screamed.

“Vera?!”

“No—no, the eyes just look a little like hers. You can't be her.”

“There's no way she'd still be anywhere near Clark Sanchez!”

I met Clark's gaze with flat, empty eyes.

That part, Rachel had right.

I was never going back to him.

The day Clark cheated on me for the second time I caught him

was the same day he'd promised me our second wedding.

The day before the ceremony, he'd had every newspaper in Harbor City run the story.

He was going to marry me again, to thank me for my years by his side.

Our second wedding was held on the rooftop of Century Tower, the most glamorous venue in Harbor City.

Helicopters circled overhead in celebration.

Below, a sea of cameras waited to capture the moment he proposed to me again.

I wore the couture gown he'd designed for me himself, stitched by his own hand, every bead and seam.

I stood there in front of the entire city's envious gaze, waiting for him to appear.

But Clark never came.

The auspicious hour passed. One hour late.

Clark still never came.

The envy in the eyes around me curdled slowly into bewilderment.

And the last thing those eyes held, as they watched me standing there alone, was naked, undisguised ridicule.

“Ha, what do you think Harbor City's richest man is up to? Why wouldn't he show?”

“Let me tell you a little something. He's got a gorgeous young thing at home. His wife isn't exactly getting any younger—how's she supposed to compete with that?”

“Ha! All I want to know is, if he never shows up, what's his poor wife going to do standing up there all by herself?”

The more lavish the wedding had been, the more envied—the more wretched I was now, and the louder they laughed.

I stood there white-faced, fingers crushing the fabric of my skirt, while the voices around me sharpened into something vicious, each one crueler than the last, until I'd become the most despicable woman in Harbor City.

My parents called too, screaming at me. Told me I'd dragged their name through the dirt, told me to end this now.

I fled home through the laughter.

When I pushed open the door, he was fresh from the act, Rachel Summers draped in his arms. His voice was flat.

“Oh. I forgot we were getting married today. I'll make it up to you next time.”

Later it was Rachel who came to twist the knife, to make sure I knew.

“Sis, all I did was slip out of my clothes. He wouldn't even put on the groom's suit—how is that my fault?”

“Could you……take off your mask for a moment?”

Clark's voice, slightly hesitant, cut through the memory.

I looked up at him. My gaze was flat. I didn't move.

Rachel threw herself between us, sobbing.

“Clark, Vera is gone!”

“She doesn't want you anymore! Why won't you even look at me?!”

“You think dropping me year after year to chase her is going to make her forgive the nightmare of you not showing up?! Dream on!”

The words landed somewhere deep. Clark went still, and something dark and grieved passed across his face.

A long time passed before he stood.

He raised his hand and slapped Rachel across the face.

He didn't spare a glance at her sprawled on the floor, clutching her cheek in disbelief.

He turned to me and said evenly:

“Let's continue where we left off. I'd like to retain you to draft an asset transfer agreement for a woman named Vera Fernandez.”

I spoke, not hiding my irritation.

“An asset transfer agreement requires the recipient to be present. Without her, the document is void.”

“By your own account, you can't even find the recipient. How am I supposed to draft this?”

“Mr. Sanchez, I think you should go.”

Rachel scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around Clark's leg.

“Clark, if hitting me makes you feel better, then hit me! Just don't give her everything!”

“I'm carrying your child! Our baby needs money too!”

“She doesn't need it! For all you know, she's left you and married someone better!”

That last line struck something in me. Without thinking, my thumb traced the wedding band on my ring finger.

Rachel was right about that much. The thought of the man whose smile always carried that quiet warmth sent a small wave of comfort through my chest.

I had to admit it. After leaving Clark, I'd married well.

But Clark clearly couldn't stomach even the possibility.

He slammed the table, hard.

“Shut up! I'll set aside the child's share for you.”

“But Vera—she was mine for ten years. Everyone in Harbor City knows she was my woman. No one would dare want her!”

“I owe her. I need to give her a reason to come back to me.”

“The moment I hand her that asset transfer agreement and tell her I'm willing to sign over everything, she'll come back. I know she will!”

He said it with absolute certainty.

Never knowing that I was sitting right across from him, listening to every word.

Feeling nothing.

But what happened next, I didn't expect.

Rachel stood frozen, watching Clark with a dark, shifting expression for a long time.

Then she broke.

“Her, her, her! It's always her!”

“I keep telling you she's never coming back, and you spend every waking minute looking for her, seeing her in every woman's face!”

“Open your eyes and look! Is she Vera Fernandez?!”

Rachel lunged at me and ripped the mask off my face.