Because there was no money, our wedding had been a modest affair—just a few tables at a small banquet.

I'd long since cut ties with my family, so every guest there was a friend of Edmund's.

Audrey had come too.

She'd lifted her chin and spoken to me in a tone that was less request than command.

"You'd better take good care of our Edmund and little Felix from now on."

At the time, I'd told myself that a sister-in-law was still family. Even though her words left a sour taste in my mouth, I said nothing.

Now, looking back, the arrogance in her eyes was unmistakable. She'd looked at me the way a lady of the house looks at the hired help.

I stumbled home in a daze and found the front door slightly ajar.

Edmund sat on the couch. A man in a tailored suit stood beside him, his tone deferential.

"Mr. Mason, Miss Pruitt has been taken home safely."

"It's just... yesterday was your anniversary with Louisa, after all. Are you sure you don't want to give her something a little more... substantial? You bought Miss Pruitt a luxury condo for her birthday."

Edmund shook his head, indifferent.

"No need. Louisa's the type of woman who crawled out of some backwater nowhere. If she ever found out there was money, she'd get greedy—start bleeding me dry, funneling cash back to her family."

"The only reason I picked her in the first place was because she had experience with kids, no connections, no background. Easy to manage. And she wouldn't mistreat Felix."

"As long as Louisa stays in line and raises Felix to adulthood, I'll consider giving her some kind of settlement."

"As for Audrey—I made a promise to her sister that I'd take care of her. I can't let her suffer. Besides, spending money on Audrey keeps it in the family."

Edmund and I had met by accident.

That year, my father and stepmother had tracked me down, trying to drag me back to the countryside to marry me off. They wanted to use the dowry to build a house for my younger brother.

The groom they'd picked was a man pushing sixty.

I fought with everything I had. In my darkest moment of desperation, Edmund happened to pass by and saved me.

He'd put himself between me and them, staring coldly at my father and stepmother as they writhed on the ground.

"She's a person. Not a tool for satisfying your selfish desires."

His first wife had just passed away. He'd been drowning in grief, with no idea how to care for a two-year-old on his own.

So he started asking me for advice—me, with my background in early childhood education.

I'd been forced to raise my younger brother since I was a child. As a way of repaying Edmund's kindness, I often helped him look after Felix.

My stepmother's cruelty. My father's neglect.

They had carved something deep into me—a desperate hunger for love and a bone-deep belief that I didn't deserve it.

And Edmund was the first person who had ever shown me respect. The first person who had ever protected me.

Even knowing he was millions of dollars in debt, even knowing his heart still belonged to his dead wife, I said yes when he asked me to marry him.

I even quit the job I loved so I could take better care of Felix.

But I never imagined that five years of devotion and sacrifice would amount to this.

In his eyes, I was nothing more than a free nanny.

In his heart, I didn't even rank as high as his dead wife's sister.

I was just an outsider.

While I stood there, frozen, Edmund's startled voice cut through the silence.

"Louisa—when did you get back?"

He shot the man a look, signaling him to leave.

There was a thin thread of guilt woven into his voice.

"Louisa, that's a buddy of mine from the taxi company. We just finished a night shift together, came back for some tea."

I didn't say a word. The whole thing was almost laughable.

What kind of cab driver wore a designer suit fresh off a department store rack?

I moved toward the bedroom, but a bolt of pain shot through my knee. My leg buckled, and I nearly hit the floor.

Edmund caught me and guided me to the couch. He looked at my swollen, bruised knee with what was meant to pass for concern.

"How did it get this bad? Did that manager give you trouble again?"

He set a container of cheap takeout in front of me, his expression heavy with guilt.

"I'm sorry, Louisa. This is all my fault."

"You never let yourself splurge on this place. Think of it as my anniversary gift to you. Once I've paid off the debt, I'll make it up to you properly."

He wasn't wrong.

Over the years, every dollar I earned either went to Edmund to "pay off his debts" or got spent on Felix—new clothes, tutoring classes, nutritional supplements.

I never spent a cent on myself.

But that morning, after checking the security footage, I discovered something. All those times I dropped Felix off at his tutoring center, Edmund and Audrey would pick him up the moment I left. The three of them would go out for fancy dinners and shopping sprees.

There was even a time Edmund told me he was taking Felix back to visit his hometown. In reality, he'd taken Audrey on a vacation overseas.

For Audrey's birthday, Edmund could casually gift her a luxury penthouse worth millions.

And all I got was a twenty-dollar cup of cheap takeout.

Maybe that's all I was to him. Cheap and convenient.

A wave of exhaustion washed over me.

"Edmund, I think we should sep—"

Before I could finish, his phone rang.

He glanced at the screen and shot to his feet, his whole body tense.

"Louisa, just rub some ointment on it yourself. Something came up. I have to go."

Not long after, Audrey's social media updated with a new photo.

Edmund had his head bowed, his large hands gently massaging her stomach. The look on his face was one of tenderness I had never seen before.

"Hehe, I just ate too much for breakfast and got a little stomachache, and this man rushed all the way home in a panic to give me a massage."

She posted another picture—a certificate made of gold leaf and diamonds.

It read: To the most precious little darling in the world.

Nausea surged through me without warning. I ran to the bathroom and dry-heaved over the sink.

My phone rang. It was the school.

"Hello, is this Felix Mason's mother?"

"Today is the first parent-teacher conference for our first graders. Will you be able to attend?"

I froze. A parent-teacher conference?

Felix hadn't said a word about it.

Still, he was the child I'd raised with my own hands. So I went.

But when I arrived at the school and introduced myself, the homeroom teacher stared at me, confused.

"You're saying you're Felix's mother? Then who's that inside?"

I looked toward the classroom on instinct.

Audrey was sitting right next to Felix.

A few of the children overheard our conversation. They looked me up and down, taking in my clothes, and wrinkled their noses.

"Felix, didn't you say the pretty lady next to you was your mom? So who's this ugly old woman?"

"Which one's the real one? We don't play with liars!"

Felix looked at Audrey—her styled hair, her perfect makeup, the designer dress she wore.

Then he looked at me. My jeans, washed so many times they'd faded to near-white. My plain T-shirt.

His face turned bright red. He stomped over to me and shoved me hard.

"Who told you to come?!"

"You're just the nanny! You think you're good enough to show up at my parent-teacher conference? My mom is right there! Get out!"

"Or I'll make my dad fire you!"

Audrey watched from her seat, a smug smile curling at the corners of her lips, as if she'd expected this all along.

I lowered my head and looked at Felix in silence.

When he was two, he'd been so fragile. He cried in the middle of the night constantly, sometimes burning with fever. The doctor said it was probably because he'd lost his mother—he had no sense of security.

It broke my heart. I held him through the night, every night, rocking him to sleep.

When he got sick, I stayed up without rest, watching over him, making one nutritious meal after another, trying anything to get him to eat.

Felix had grown up in my arms. There was even a time when he clung to me, refusing to let go.

But this child I'd loved as my own, together with his father, had treated me like a fool.

Five years. I never once heard him call me Mom. Audrey got that title without lifting a finger.

And last night wasn't the first time she'd stayed over at my house.

Otherwise, Felix wouldn't have been so desperate to push me away.

Maybe the bond of blood really did triumph over the bond of raising a child.

It felt like there was a hole in my chest, cold wind howling straight through it.

I spoke softly.

"Relax. You don't need to kick me out. I quit."

With that, I turned and left without sparing a glance at the shift in Felix's expression.

When I reached the staircase landing, Audrey called out to me.

She walked up with a smile on her lips, then raised her hand and slapped me hard across the face.

"Who do you think you are, coming here to stake your claim? You actually think you're Mrs. Mason?"

"You heard what Felix said, didn't you? You're nothing but a free nanny Edmund hired because he didn't want me wearing myself out taking care of the kid. That marriage certificate was fake. I'm his legal wife now."

"Edmund and I have known each other for over a decade. Felix is my older sister's child. We share a blood bond that can never be broken, and he's naturally drawn to me."

"What we have is something you could never compete with. All you ever did was embarrass them."

Audrey stepped closer, her voice dropping to a low, satisfied murmur.

"Did you really think the baby you lost in that car accident was just bad luck?"

"Edmund planned the whole thing. Even your uterus, which the doctors could have saved, he told them to remove."

My eyes flew wide open, my voice rising before I could stop it.

"What did you just say?"

"I told him that if you ever had a child of your own, you'd mistreat Felix and fight over the family fortune. I said the threat had to be eliminated for good. And he went right along with it."

She ran her hand over her lower belly, smug satisfaction radiating from every pore.

"But I'm different. My sister left things behind when she died, and I'm one of them. My baby carries my sister's bloodline too."

"That's why Edmund was willing to get the certificate with me. When he found out I was pregnant, he was overjoyed. He said we're family. As for you and that dead little bastard of yours? You were always outsiders."

"I heard you've been working all kinds of side jobs these past few years just to make ends meet." She clicked her tongue. "Calling you 'free' is generous. A pathetic woman who throws herself at a man who doesn't want her. Talking to you makes me feel dirty. If I were you, I'd get lost before I got in the way of our family."

My fists clenched so tight my knuckles ached. My whole body trembled uncontrollably.

That car accident. That baby.

The wound that would never heal.

I could still see it so clearly: Edmund holding me in that hospital bed, his face twisted with grief, swearing it was all his fault. If he hadn't dragged me into his mess, I wouldn't have needed to go out for a night shift, and the accident never would have happened.

Five years together. I thought we were the closest two people could be.

But he'd only ever seen me as a free nanny. He'd built wall after wall around himself, guarding against me like I was a thief.

Rage flooded my chest until I could barely breathe. How dare he?

How dare he toy with my sincerity like that?

How dare the rich trample over other people's lives without a second thought?

I raised my hand high, but before it could land on Audrey's face, someone shoved me hard from behind.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

My knee was already injured. I lost my footing, and my body tumbled down the staircase.

A searing pain shot through my elbow. Something warm trickled down my forehead.

Blood smeared across my face.

Edmund stared down at me, eyes wide with shock.

"Louisa, are you okay? I didn't mean to—"

He started to rush down the stairs toward me, but Audrey clung to his arm, her voice trembling with practiced hurt.

"Edmund, Felix's class had a parent-teacher conference today, but the teacher couldn't reach Louisa no matter how many times she called."

"The other kids were calling him a motherless bastard. That's the only reason I went in her place. But she cursed me out, called me a meddling outsider, told me to get lost, and then tried to hit me."

"My sister is watching from heaven. If she could see me being treated this way, it would break her heart."

The words landed, and Edmund's face darkened instantly.

He stared at me, cold as stone.

"Audrey is Felix's biological aunt. She shares his blood. If she's an outsider, then what does that make you?"

"I don't even know what you're busy with all day. You can't even be bothered to show up to your own kid's parent-teacher conference. What kind of mother does that? Audrey steps in out of the goodness of her heart, and you have the nerve to hit her?"

I staggered to my feet, wiping the blood from my face.

A bitter laugh clawed its way out of my throat. Then another. And another.

"Edmund. Is this some kind of game to you?"

"If I'm not fit to be a mother, then what about you? A liar who manipulated someone's feelings? A monster with his own child's blood on his hands? You're even less fit to be a father!"

Edmund's expression shifted. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Edmund, Felix is still waiting for us." Audrey sidled up to him, her voice dripping honey. "Don't leave the poor boy alone. Let's go, okay?"

She pouted, shifting her weight. "I wore heels today. My feet are killing me."

Edmund nodded. He tossed one last remark over his shoulder at me.

"I have no idea what you're even talking about. Audrey has more sense than you ever will."

"Since you hate going to Felix's school events so much, don't bother anymore. Audrey will handle it from now on."

"I suppose that's how it is when there's no real bond. You just can't compare to actual family."

Then, as if pained by Audrey's sore feet, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her out without a backward glance.

The fire extinguisher case beside the stairwell caught my reflection.

Brittle, straw-colored hair. Hollowed cheeks from months of broken sleep and skipped meals. So thin it looked like a strong gust could knock me over. I'd stopped buying skincare products long ago to save money, and my skin had turned rough and dull.

But I had never complained. Not once.

And in the end, all I got was a lie and the label of outsider.

It was time to end this.

I took the money I'd saved from my part-time jobs and went to the hospital to get my wounds bandaged. Then I went back to the house and packed my things. There wasn't much. A few worn-out clothes.

I booked the next available flight and headed straight to the airport.

Edmund Mason, your little poverty act? I'm done playing along.