I was about to turn and leave when Lily grabbed my wrist, holding on tight.

Her eyes rimmed red, her voice pitching into a tearful whimper：

“I'm so sorry, Isabel. I didn't mean to intrude on you two, I really didn't.”

“Chester is just so amazing, and you're never around. I only wanted to look after him for you.”

“We never crossed any lines. When I was feeling low, he just used his hands to help me relax, that's all.”

Her words made my stomach turn. I wrenched my hand free.

But she threw herself backward, dramatic as ever, and crumpled to the floor.

Chester's face went ice-cold. He pointed at me and tore into me：

“Isabel, enough! Do you have to blow everything out of proportion?”

“Lily already begged you to stop, and you still won't let it go. Do you have to destroy everything before you're satisfied?”

“If you hadn't insisted on playing career woman, would we even be here right now?”

His words nailed me to the floor. I never imagined Chester would say something like that.

When I was eighteen, my father was caught having an affair with a man. My mother and I walked in on it.

He felt no shame. He locked us both in a pitch-black basement.

“Keeping you locked up works just fine.”

“Neither of you can earn a dime. You'd die out there without me anyway.”

Ten days and ten nights.

My mother died in that basement. I shattered completely.

It was Chester who pulled me out of that hell.

“Izzy, I understand what you've been through. For the rest of my life, I won't let anyone hurt you again.”

What happened to my mother was the reason I never trusted anyone again, the reason I threw myself into building a career of my own.

The Chester from back then had supported every choice I made, no questions asked.

And now he was calling it an act.

His face blurred behind my tears until I could barely make out his shape.

It was the first time I had cried in years.

Something like panic flickered in Chester's eyes. He moved toward me on instinct, reaching out.

That was when Lily let out a shrill scream：

“Chester! My leg hurts so bad, I think I broke something!”

His gaze snapped to her instantly. He scooped her up and rushed out toward the hospital,

leaving me alone in the hotel room.

Mom, this is what happens when you put your life in someone else's hands.

I wiped my face dry and started packing.

Then my phone lit up with a string of texts.

【Isabel, with a man as wonderful as Chester, how could you stand being so far away?】

【He's so attentive with me. Always right by my side, never leaving for a second.】

【Really, thank you for training him to be so sweet and gentle. Too bad I'm the one who gets to keep him now.】

She attached a photo of Chester slumped over the edge of a hospital bed, asleep from exhaustion.

The image hit me somewhere deep, and a memory surfaced. Right after my mother died, when I lay in a hospital bed with nothing left inside me,

Chester had looked exactly like that. I remembered the steady beep of the monitors,

how I believed it would always be this way. It seemed Chester had never changed at all.

The only thing that changed was who he loved.

### Chapter 4

While packing, I realized the jade pendant was gone. The one my mother had given Chester before she died.

My chest seized. I dialed his number immediately.

“Chester, where's the jade pendant my mother gave you? We're done. Give it back.”

His voice was flat, careless：“I gave it to Lily.”

Every drop of warmth drained from my body：

“Are you out of your mind? That was my mother's heirloom! What gave you the right to hand it off to someone else?”

He sounded bored, dismissive：

“It's just a piece of jade. I had no use for it. It was sitting around collecting dust.”

“She liked it, so I gave it to her. I'll buy you a nicer one if it's that big a deal.”

I bit down on my lip so hard the taste of blood seeped across my tongue：

“That was the only thing my mother left me! What right did you have to take it and use it to impress another woman?”

The memory of my mother's face rose up, and the tears came before I could stop them.

That pendant was all I had left of her. Everything.

“It's just a piece of jade. Why are you making such a fuss?”

He must have heard how badly I was gasping, because something like alarm finally flickered through his voice：

“Come to the hospital. I'll make her give it back.”

I didn't hesitate. I grabbed a cab and went straight there.

Lily was sitting up in the hospital bed, the jade pendant dangling loosely between her fingers as she turned it over and over.

When she saw me, a thin smirk curled across her lips.

“This kind of cheap junk? You could throw it on the ground and nobody would bother picking it up. And you treat it like a treasure.”

Chester told her to watch her mouth, his tone barely a reprimand, and told her to hand the pendant back.

Lily pouted, dragging out every second as she slowly raised her hand.

The moment I leaned in to take it, she pressed her lips to my ear：

“You worthless bitch. Why didn't you just die with your mother?”

The words were still hanging in the air when she opened her fingers.

The pendant dropped. It hit the floor and shattered.

A high-pitched ringing flooded my skull, and every ounce of blood in my body rushed to my head.

I lost it completely. I swung with everything I had and slapped her across the face.

The crack echoed through the room.

But Chester shoved me hard. My lower back slammed into the corner of the bedside table and pain ripped through me.

“Isabel! It was just a jade pendant and you hit her?!”

“A living, breathing person, and she's worth less to you than a piece of broken jade?”

He scooped Lily into his arms and ran toward the ER.

He left behind one sentence, cold enough to kill：

“No wonder you and your mother got beaten. You're both lunatics.”

The words detonated inside my head. After that, I couldn't hear anything at all.

I sat on the floor for a long time before I could make myself stand.

I didn't look for a doctor. I gripped the hallway railing

and dragged myself to the hospital entrance, the pain in my lower back twisting with every step.

I opened my phone and blocked Chester on everything. Every platform, every number, without a second's pause.

A text from my boss popped up at the same moment.

【Isabel, your flight is booked.】

I raised my hand and flagged down a cab.

The driver loaded my suitcase into the trunk.

“Where to, ma'am?”

“The airport.”