After her husband Christian Sanchez caught her in bed with another man, Marjorie Pruitt spent every waking moment dreaming of getting him back.

Just one week after the divorce, she burned through a billion dollars, sending crate after crate of gifts to Christian's villa, begging him to forgive her.

By the second week, she went further. She orchestrated an auction where she put herself on the block, gambling everything on the hope that Christian still had a shred of love left for her.

And she won the bet.

When Christian stormed in and snatched her away from the ruthless youngest son of the James family, Marjorie threw herself into his arms without caring who was watching, her voice trembling with emotion.

"Christian, I knew it. I knew you still loved me. Please believe me, everything before was a misunderstanding!"

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. "I believe you. But Marge, this whole thing hit me hard. Give me a little more time. Six months, and then we'll remarry. Okay?"

The joy of having him back consumed her entirely. She didn't care what he said. She agreed to everything.

After they got back together, she devoted herself to him even more than before.

She dissolved her own company. She moved into the new villa Christian had bought her on the hillside. Every day, she cooked, she cleaned, and then she sat on the sofa and watched the sun set through the windows, waiting for Christian to come home.

Her entire world shrank until it revolved around him alone.

Even though he only came home once a week. Even though her best friend warned her she was no different from a bird in a gilded cage. Marjorie kept playing the role of the devoted girlfriend.

She had already lost Christian once because of her own mistake. She refused to lose him again.

Until the day she decided, on a whim, to bring him lunch at his office. And overheard his conversation with one of his buddies.

"A Bridget Quinn at home, a Marjorie Pruitt on the side. The wife becomes the mistress, and the mistress becomes the wife. Christian, you really are something else."

On the other side of the door, Christian twirled a pen between his fingers, a lazy, amused smile playing across his face. He let the silence hang before finally speaking.

"Bridget's proud. She'd never agree to be with me unless I divorced first. And Marge loves me so desperately she'd never agree to a divorce either. So I came up with the little caught-in-bed scenario."

Inside the room, his friend Kieran Shepherd sucked in a sharp breath. "Weren't you afraid Marjorie would find out the truth and actually leave you?"

"She won't."

Christian's voice was absolute. "I handpicked that man. No parents, no money, nothing. After it was done, I paid him twenty-five million and shipped him overseas. He's never coming back."

"As for Marge... it's not that I don't love her. But watching her go from that proud woman she used to be to this meek, careful little thing she is now, there's a certain novelty to it. Whenever I get tired of Bridget, I'll remarry Marge."

The lunch box in Marjorie's hand slowly dropped to her side. Her heart felt like it was being crushed in a fist, squeezed and twisted until she couldn't breathe.

A month ago, she had been invited to a charity gala. Someone kept filling her glass. When she woke up, she was lying in bed next to a stranger.

She grabbed her clothes and tried to leave. The next second, the door swung open, and Christian stood there, his face a mask of agony.

Marjorie would never forget the way he looked at her that night.

Rage. Disbelief. Despair. Hatred. Each one a blade driven straight into her chest.

Christian asked for a divorce.

It didn't matter that the hospital exam proved nothing had happened that night. He was set on leaving her.

She had believed he was too heartbroken to stay. She never imagined that from the very beginning, he had directed the entire thing himself.

Marjorie walked out of the Sanchez Group building like a ghost, every memory she shared with Christian flooding back.

They had grown up together. Childhood sweethearts.

When she was sixteen and kidnapped, Christian fought to pull her from the hands of her captors. His right leg was shattered in the process, and he never cried once. The first thing he did when he woke up was hold her face and tell her not to be scared.

When she was eighteen and bombed her SATs, Christian stayed up the entire night consoling her. Then he voided his own college applications and repeated the year alongside her.

After her parents died in an accident, Christian laid every asset he owned at her feet and proposed.

He said he would protect her for the rest of his life.

But the man who loved her that much had changed his heart three years into their marriage.

Rain poured from the sky without warning, cold water striking her face, snapping her out of her grief in an instant.

Christian was the one who betrayed her first. And now he thought he could keep two women on a string. She would not give him the satisfaction.

She ran through the rain all the way to the black market and found the man everyone knew as Scarface. She wired him ten million on the spot.

"Find the man who attended the charity gala a month ago and took twenty-five million from Christian Sanchez. I don't care what it takes. Make him go public with the whole deal."

Christian had destroyed her reputation to stage an affair so he could cheat. Fine. She would return the favor and hand him a gift of his own: complete and utter ruin.

Scarface promised to have everything handled within a week, and Marjorie finally let herself breathe.

She went straight to the immigration office to file her paperwork, transferred every asset under her name overseas, and booked a flight to Switzerland departing in seven days.

Once all of that was in motion, Marjorie hired a private investigator and turned her attention to the woman named Bridget Quinn.

When she learned that Bridget hadn't even graduated college yet and had a thug ex-boyfriend, a cold smile crossed her face.

She may have debased herself begging Christian to stay during those desperate months, but that didn't mean she was someone who could be pushed around.

Bridget Quinn had the nerve to come for her. Fine. She'd show the little homewrecker exactly how badly that decision could end.

The next morning, Marjorie put on full makeup, stepped into her tallest stilettos, and with the photos the PI had sent clutched in her hand, tracked down Bridget's ex-boyfriend, Mason James.

"Bridget dumped you for another man with money. You really going to just swallow that?"

She slapped the photos down on the table as she spoke.

They fanned out across the surface, every single one showing Bridget and Christian in intimate poses.

Even though she'd already decided she was done loving Christian Sanchez, the sight of those photos still twisted something deep in her chest.

She knew now. The husband who had once loved her like she was his whole world had changed his heart long ago, right under her nose.

Mason had been lounging in a bamboo chair in the yard, half-asleep. When this strange woman barged in, irritation flickered across his face. But the moment his eyes landed on those photos, the irritation ignited into white-hot rage that shot straight to the top of his skull.

"That lying piece of—"

He didn't even finish lighting the cigarette between his fingers. He snatched up the photos and bolted toward Bridget's university.

Marjorie felt the gust of wind as he tore past her. She watched his retreating figure and let the corner of her mouth curve upward.

She'd done her homework before coming.

Bridget's parents favored sons over daughters and had cut off her living expenses the moment she graduated high school. To pay for college, Bridget had deliberately seduced Mason James, a street thug, and under the guise of being his girlfriend, let him cover four full years of tuition.

Once she was certain the money was secured, Bridget dropped Mason without a second thought, reinvented herself as a tough, self-made girl from a poor background, and set her sights on Christian Sanchez.

Any of this could have been uncovered with the slightest effort on Christian's part.

Marjorie didn't know whether Christian genuinely had no idea, or whether he simply craved the thrill of something new and didn't care enough to look.

But none of that mattered anymore.

She was leaving Christian Sanchez behind. A new place, a new life, a clean start.

Mason moved fast. He stormed into Northgate University like a man possessed and spread Bridget's private photos all over campus.

Bridget was furious and frantic, trying to stop him, but Mason slapped her across the face. More than once.

Marjorie lay on the sofa in the villa, watching the video her PI had sent, and felt nothing but satisfaction.

But before the laugh could leave her throat, a news notification popped up on her screen.

She tapped it on instinct. The wall of headlines hit her like ice water down her spine.

BREAKING: Leaked footage of Christian Sanchez's ex-wife cheating!

Pruitt Group CEO dissolves company — connected to affair scandal?

Marjorie Pruitt caught with younger man, entangled at private club all night!

Her hands shook as she tapped one of the headlines. The surveillance footage filled her screen: her, clothes disheveled, lying on a bed with a man she didn't recognize. That night.

For a moment, Marjorie forgot how to breathe.

The video was spreading at tens of thousands of shares per second. Her phone exploded with calls and messages. Friends, business partners, relatives. Everyone demanding to know what was going on.

She powered the phone off and clutched her head in both hands. The memory of that night surged back, vivid and suffocating, and something inside her cracked.

She was the victim. So who had leaked this footage?

The next second, the sound of a key turning in the front door lock cut through the silence.

Marjorie lifted her head, numb. Christian stood in the doorway, watching her with a smile that wasn't quite a smile.

"Marjorie, when you were busy hurting Bridget, did you ever stop to think about what would happen to you?"

Marjorie's entire body went rigid.

When it registered that Christian was the one who had leaked the videos, she lunged toward him, staring at his face in raw disbelief.

"Have you lost your mind? Christian, you cheated first! All I did was teach your mistress a lesson. What gives you the right to do this to me?"

She raised her hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist mid-swing.

"Marjorie, I think you've got it backwards. You slept with someone else first. Bridget and I only got together after that."

"I posted the video as a reminder: you were the one who made a mistake. You have no right to go after Bridget."

His grip was crushing. A red welt bloomed across her wrist almost instantly.

It hurt. But not as much as her heart.

She couldn't understand it. He had orchestrated this entire charade for another woman, deceived everyone around them. How had he managed to deceive himself in the process?

If she hadn't overheard that conversation between him and someone else, would she have spent the rest of her life in the dark, drowning in guilt that was never hers to carry?

Marjorie bit down on her lip so hard she nearly drew blood. The tears didn't fall.

Then she heard him continue:

"Bridget was slapped for no reason. Her reputation at school has been ruined. You're coming with me to Northgate University right now to give her a proper apology."

"Absolutely not. I—"

She tried to refuse, but he cut her off before she could finish.

"Then I'll take the video to your parents' grave and let them judge for themselves whether their precious daughter wronged her husband first."

"Oh, and if I remember right, your parents preferred peace and quiet when they were alive. Their ashes are buried deeper than most, aren't they? I might have to dig them up so they can get a good look at the footage."

Every word died in Marjorie's throat. She stared at Christian as if seeing him for the very first time.

Losing her parents was the wound that never closed. She still woke in the dead of night, clutching her pillow, sobbing from the sheer weight of missing them.

And every time, Christian had been the one to pull her into his arms and hold her until the crying stopped.

Now he was threatening to desecrate their ashes?

For another woman?

Marjorie stared at him, blank and still. Then she laughed. The sound was hollow, soaked in despair.

"Fine. I'll do it."

She spent the entire afternoon kneeling on the grounds of Northgate University, repeating the words "I'm sorry" to Bridget over and over again.

Her cheeks were already swollen high. Christian had held Bridget's hand and delivered each slap himself, one after another.

Bridget had been slapped five times. Christian demanded Marjorie repay it tenfold.

The first slap brought humiliation.

The second brought a pain that split her chest wide open.

By the third, all she could feel was confusion. How had the man who once loved her so deeply become this?

By the last slap, only hatred remained.

She hated Christian. She hated herself more for ever loving him.

When the ordeal was finally over, Marjorie dragged her exhausted body toward the exit. Someone grabbed her wrist.

She turned. Bridget stood behind her, triumph painted across every feature.

This was the first time Marjorie had faced Bridget directly. The sophomore held a smile between her teeth, eyes traveling up and down Marjorie's battered form.

"Did you really think those little tricks would drive me away from Christian? He was willing to divorce you for me. That alone proves I've already won."

"You. Lost."

Looking at the pride on Bridget's face, Marjorie saw a ghost of her former self.

She had once believed that having Christian's love meant having the whole world.

Reality had taught her otherwise. Christian's love wasn't even worth the trash it belonged in.

A man who could cheat would never be faithful to anyone.

But Marjorie couldn't be bothered to explain that to Bridget. She let out a quiet laugh and turned to leave, but Bridget leaned in close, her voice dropping to a whisper only the two of them could hear: "If you don't walk away from Christian on your own, I will keep framing you. Again and again, until you're dead."

The instant the words left her mouth, Bridget let out a piercing scream and toppled backward.

Marjorie stood perfectly still, watching Bridget's one-woman show, watching Christian sprint over with panic etched across his face. She was so tired she could barely feel anything at all.

So when Christian tenderly helped Bridget to her feet and turned toward Marjorie with his mouth already opening, she raised her hand and slapped herself across her own swollen cheek.

"I didn't push her. But you won't believe that. I've been punished. So may I leave now?"

The fury in Christian's chest guttered out the moment he met her eyes. They were empty. Completely, utterly empty.

His hand drifted to his chest without thinking. Something in there felt hollow.