Inside the tattoo studio, Seth Jones let his fingertips trace the dip of Rita Searle's waist and move slowly up her spine. With a soft rustle, her dress slipped to her ankles.

He stood over her, taking in the blood-red rose inked across her chest.

They had been married for three years, and this was the anniversary gift he'd be giving her—999 roses tattooed into her skin.

A broken sob scraped up Rita's throat. "Seth, it hurts… Please, stop…"

Her tears splashed onto the back of his hand, but he only pressed the needle deeper, dragging it along until angry red welts marked her body.

"Victor wanted those damn roses so he could give them to another woman, and that led to Tara falling off that cliff and ending up in a vegetative state. I'm just giving him what he wanted. You should be grateful."

Lying on the cold tattoo table, Rita felt the chill spreading through her. Her eyes stung, weighed down by grief churning behind them.

"Isn't it enough? You bought out Searle Group, you hung Victor over a cliff, and left him for the vultures. What else do you want from us?"

Seth grabbed her by the throat and forced her chin up. "And isn't Tara innocent in all this? Rita, you and Victor destroyed her life. Don't you owe her for that?"

He shoved her hard, and her head slammed against the cold wall. The moment he lit his cigar, the tattoo needle drove straight into her shoulder.

In his icy eyes, Rita saw how ruined she looked.

The roses spread across her skin in dense clusters, old cuts crossing over fresh ones. She had no idea how many times she'd endured this, knowing that even saying it hurt would make Seth despise her more.

For a second, she thought she'd caught a tiny tremor in his expression.

What wishful thinking.

She managed a wry smile. Seth hated her. Why would he feel anything for her?

She felt the blade open her skin again, and the thought settled in with a kind of hopeless calm. Maybe dying would be easier.

"Seth, I just came from the hospital. I was with Tara. Gary said you were here."

Rita lifted her head with effort and turned toward the voice. Winnie Anderson stood there, and a sharp ache hit Rita's chest before she pushed it down.

Winnie had a graceful figure and a soft, gentle way about her, so it wasn't hard to see why she'd always been the one Seth loved.

If Winnie hadn't left the country to get married back then, Rita doubted she ever would have ended up as Seth's wife.

Seth took Winnie's hand, his voice softening without him meaning to. "Thanks for going. How's Tara?"

At that, sorrow flickered in Winnie's eyes. "The doctor said her chances of waking up are close to zero. After what she went through..."

She trailed off, her gaze drifting toward Rita despite herself.

Seth's face went tight, his knuckles paling as he clenched his fist.

Winnie pointed at the brutal scars across Rita's skin and said she'd help put ointment on them. Her touch looked gentle, but her sharp nails dug straight into wounds that hadn't even started to scab.

Pain shot through Rita, and she pulled back. She barely moved, but Winnie still toppled backward as if shoved.

Seth rushed to catch her, anger flaring across his face. "Rita, know your place!"

Then he turned to Winnie, and his voice softened to nothing but warmth. "Are you alright?"

Winnie buried her face in his chest and gave a small, wounded nod. "Maybe Rita just hates me."

"She doesn't even have the right to hate you," he muttered.

With that, Seth scooped Winnie into his arms and walked out without sparing Rita a single glance.

Rita froze where she was. She pressed a numb hand to her chest, a crushing tightness closing in around her heart.

The brightest, boldest rose in Novarisse had withered under three years of Seth's torment, leaving her with nothing but humiliation.

That year, someone sabotaged the Jones family, pushing them to the brink of bankruptcy. Rita spent three days and nights on her knees, begging her parents to save them.

After Winnie married someone else, it was Rita who stayed by Seth's side and pulled him out of the darkness.

She remembered the day he dropped to one knee, asked her to marry him, and pressed a reverent kiss to the back of her hand. In that moment, she truly believed she had finally found a place in his heart.

People later said she'd become the one Seth spoiled above all others.

She glanced once at a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet, and the next day boxes of them arrived as if they cost him nothing.

She fell in love with the Spirit of the Rose diamond at an auction, and he bought up every competing piece by placing the highest bid every time.

She became captivated by books about life on Avenue Orliennes, so he spent billions of dollars to secure her a private estate there.

Then, on their wedding day, an unforeseen incident involving Tara Jones shattered everything.

She'd been hopelessly in love with Rita's brother, Victor Searle.

To force her to give up on him, he made her strip in front of his girlfriend, forced her to take explicit photos, and even sent her to Highveil Cliff to pick the most expensive roses there.

That was how Tara slipped, fell off the cliff, and ended up in a vegetative state.

When Seth heard she'd broken 19 ribs and would never wake up again, his rage was unstoppable. That same night, he cut off Searle Group's funding.

He tied Victor between the cliff walls, whipped him 99 times, and left vultures to tear into him.

Rita's parents rushed out after hearing the news, but they were killed in a car crash on the way to beg for mercy.

By the time Rita was allowed to see Victor one last time, he was barely alive, his entire body soaked in blood. He could scarcely breathe, but he still forced out a weak smile.

"I owe Tara this life. I ruined her best years. I'm sorry. My mess dragged you into all of this. Stay with him for three years and call it paying off my debt.

"If he still hates you after that, take what I've set aside for you and go as far away as you can."

After Victor said those last words, Rita had no one left. In a single night, she became Seth's prisoner.

Every relative in the Searle family was dragged down with her. She was forced to kneel in the family chapel without food, treated like a toy he could humiliate whenever he wanted.

What cut even deeper was that six months ago, Winnie had returned to the country. She was Seth's true love, his first love, the one he'd never stopped holding onto in his heart.

One by one, all the regrets from their forced breakup were being erased right in front of Rita.

Whenever she thought about them waltzing under the moon or playing piano duets, her chest felt like it was splitting apart.

Now, there were only ten days left before the three years were up.

Rita ran her thumb over the diamond ring on her finger. The name that Seth had engraved inside was already fading out. Tears slipped down her cheek.

She'd finally be free in ten days.

Rita didn't get to rest even when the clock struck midnight. Seth had ordered her to kneel in the family chapel and confess.

For three years, night after night, she had been forced to recite scripture until 2:00 am. She stayed on the kneeler, her face pale and her whole body looking worn out and fragile.

Sometimes exhaustion pulled her eyes shut. But the moment she drifted off, the memories came rushing back.

Caught between the wreckage of love, family, and friendship, she had already been left in pieces. Guilt and helplessness kept her eyes burning as she dragged herself through one lonely night after another.

When the confession finally ended, Rita grabbed the wall for balance and pushed herself to her feet, shaking. It wasn't until a notification flashed on her phone that she remembered it was her birthday.

For three whole years, she had basically pushed the idea of birthdays out of her mind. It wasn't that she didn't want one. It was that Seth had told her she didn't deserve it.

Tara was still lying in that bed, and no one knew if she would live or die. How was Rita, the sister of Victor, who had caused all of this, supposed to feel right about celebrating anything?

Maybe it was the heartbreak of losing the person she loved, or maybe it was the misery of watching her family fall apart, but Rita wanted to show herself a little kindness in the last ten days she had left.

So, she opened the fridge, grabbed two slices of bread, spread some jam on them, and lit a candle she'd pulled from a dusty corner. That was the closest thing to a proper birthday wish she could give herself.

She chewed the dry, hard bread, but the jam that should've tasted sweet only left a rush of bitterness in her mouth.

When Rita suddenly felt something wet on her neck, she blinked and realized her tears had slipped down into her mouth. She sat curled up in the corner of the kitchen with a small, self-deprecating smile.

The candle flickered, and a drop of melted wax fell onto her wrist, sending a shiver through her. She didn't cry out. She just stared at the forget-me-not bracelet, her thoughts drifting.

It was the last birthday gift Seth had ever given her.

He'd held her hands, his eyes so soft they looked close to spilling over, and said, "A forget-me-not for you. So, you'll keep me in your thoughts. I'm the best gift you ever got, Rita."

But now, everything had changed.

Rita sat there until deep into the night, and just as she was about to leave, a low grunt slipped out of her. A rush of air hit her, and a strong hand shoved her back against the wall, pinning her in place.

Her eyes flew wide when she saw who it was.

Seth.

His whole body carried a cold, dark anger. "What makes you think you get to celebrate a birthday?"

His grip tightened as he spoke, like he meant to crush her shoulder. "Tara's still lying in a hospital bed, and you think you get to stand here like nothing happened?"

Rita's voice shook. "Then kill me. At least it'd be an ending for both of us."

"Don't even think about it!" Seth snapped, the raw hurt in her eyes only driving his rage.

His gaze darkened, fury simmering just under the surface. "Rita, Tara almost died because of one thing Victor said! She cares about her appearance more than anything, and now she's got shattered bones and hundreds of stitches on her face.

"She even had to get a full blood transfusion."

His voice cracked with a hard, unforgiving grief. "Even your entire family wouldn't be enough to make up for that."

Guilt kept gnawing at Rita, tightening in her throat like a blunt pressure until all she had left were ragged sobs.

A heavy, hopeless silence settled between them.

Then Winnie appeared beside Seth, rubbing her sleepy eyes, looking small and pitiful. She slipped her hand into his without thinking and leaned against his shoulder.

"Seth, I had a bad dream. Come help me go back to sleep."

When he saw the pale blue nightdress she was wearing, Seth froze. A quiet sadness settled in his eyes, the same pale blue. It was like he was seeing someone else in that dress.

Under his intense stare, Winnie flushed and tugged at the hem of her dress. "Thanks for the gift. I didn't expect you to remember that blue's my favorite."

Seth started to say something, but in the end, he only managed a small smile. "As long as you like it."

Left on the sidelines, Rita felt like she didn't belong, watching someone else's happiness from the shadows. A sharp twist hit her in the chest as the truth finally clicked.

Seth hadn't given her blue dresses because they suited her. He'd used them to show how much he loved Winnie, in his own secret way.

Rita had been a stand-in from the very beginning.

…

With only seven days left in the three years she was supposed to spend with Seth, Rita didn't see him again.

The butler, Gary Ford, looked at her with pity and said Winnie had come down with a bad cold while taking care of Tara. Seth had dropped everything at work to stay by her side.

The day Winnie recovered, a group of bodyguards suddenly grabbed Rita and tied her up.

"Ms. Anderson's already gotten to the bottom of everything. Every disaster that happened to the Joneses was because of you and Victor! He's waiting for you already!"

Rita went pale. She never imagined Winnie would go so far as to have Victor's ashes dug up.

On the day Victor died, Seth refused to let anyone else handle his body. In the end, it was Rita, small and fragile, who carried him on her back for almost 40 miles along the mountain road.

She stood there and watched as his brittle, wasted bones were burned down to nothing but a small handful of ash cupped in her palms.

No one dared risk Seth's anger by offering her a coffin, so in the middle of the night, she buried Victor herself in the rear garden. It was the only way she could give him any kind of peace.

The bodyguards had forced Rita to crawl on her knees. The pain snapped her out of the memory.

It was like someone had scattered gravel and glass shards over the smooth porcelain walkway just to make her suffer. Still, she pushed herself forward as fast as she could.

By the time she reached the rear garden, her knees were already swollen and torn open, leaving a long trail of blood behind her.

Rita's tears spilled down her cheeks the second she saw Victor's urn lying where it had been carelessly thrown. She lunged forward to grab it, forgetting the bodyguards still had her by the arms.

They yanked her back so hard her forehead slammed against the ground, leaving a bruise and making her look like a stray someone had just kicked.

Taking in how pathetic Rita looked, Winnie let out a low laugh and hooked a finger under her chin. Her nails raked across Rita's cheek, tearing the skin and leaving ugly lines.

Then she twisted a fist in Rita's hair and forced her to look up at her.

"Don't blame me for being ruthless. A brother's debt gets paid by his sister. Victor left Tara in a vegetative state, and you stole Seth. I'm just dealing with you for his sake."

Winnie smiled, cold and satisfied. "How about I feed his ashes to the dogs?"

Rita had a rag stuffed in her mouth, so all she could do was thrash and shake her head as hard as she could.

Maybe Winnie decided she was making too much noise. She shot the bodyguards a look.

A second later, they dumped a whole bucket of animal blood over Rita's head. The stench clung to her skin, leaving her looking even worse than a beggar on the street.

Winnie looked even more pleased, raising her brows. "You think you deserve to be Mrs. Jones?"

She let her gaze drag over Rita from head to toe, her slight frown showing just how disgusted she was. "Fighting me for Seth? With your IQ? Please. You're not even worth the trouble."

No one knew which word set Rita off, but something snapped. She fought like hell and managed to break free of the bodyguards. The moment she lunged for Winnie, a sharp crack split the air.

Rita hit the ground hard. Her palm skidded over an old wound and tore it open again. She pressed her hand against the fresh red mark burning across her cheek and looked up in disbelief.

Winnie was already curled in Seth's arms, trembling and crying like she'd just survived something awful. "Seth, thank God you got here. Rita almost killed me."

Seth's eyes went cold, anger gathering in them. He stared at Rita with a hatred that made her shrink even lower.

She struggled to push herself up off the ground, then dropped to her knees at his feet. "Seth, that's Victor. He was your best friend. He's gone now… Please, just let him rest."

Rita stayed on her knees like she couldn't feel a thing. Her skin was torn open, blood spilling onto the gray tiles and pooling into widening puddles.

"You promised you would never hurt me like this."

He was the one who'd held her close, who'd kissed her and whispered "forever" against her skin. He was the one who'd sat by her bed when she was sick and stayed awake all night.

Rita had been stupid to think her small, desperate love could thaw someone as frozen as Seth.

Maybe it was the grief in her eyes that made something like pity flicker across his face. But the moment he saw the redness at the corners of Winnie's eyes, whatever softness he'd left vanished without a trace.

"Seth, the psychic said Rita was bad luck and that anyone who got close to her was bound to get hurt. Even what happened to Tara was because of her."

The words hit Rita so hard she almost lost her balance. She stared at Seth, watching his eyes grow colder, until there was nothing left in her but pure despair.

She started to take off her clothes and begged, "Seth, if you give Victor's ashes back to me, I'll do anything you want."

Watching her give up on herself like that made Seth press his lips into a hard line. A sudden burst of anger shot through him for reasons he couldn't name, sharp enough to lock his jaw.

"Are you really that desperate?" he snapped.

Still, Rita reached for his belt.

Seth shoved her back, forcing the spike of anger down as he leaned into every word. "You're shameless!"

A second later, he flung Victor's ashes into the air. They scattered and disappeared.

Rita collapsed where she was, going limp like her soul had been ripped out, everything inside her going dark.

But then, under everyone's stunned stare, she slowly pushed herself upright and took Seth's hand.