Sebastian's hand clamped down on the back of my neck, his grip bruising. Every trace of love had vanished from his eyes.

"Revenge, of course." His voice was ice. "You like being ridden, don't you? Then I'll make sure you spend the rest of your life as a living widow."

"Joy." He leaned in close, his breath hot against my ear. "I want your remaining years to hurt a hundred—no, a thousand times more than what I'm feeling right now."

The next day, he boarded a flight to the Maldives with Narelle.

Our honeymoon. Our destination.

Sebastian had always hated being photographed. But for her, he hired a professional travel photographer. Hundreds of couple shots—him gazing at her on white sand beaches, her draped against him at sunset—all uploaded to her social media for the world to see.

By then, my scandal had spread across Capital City like wildfire.

Desperate slut. Insatiable whore. The comments were endless. Meanwhile, Sebastian became the noble husband who'd been betrayed yet still took responsibility. And Narelle? She was celebrated as the brave woman who'd endured public scorn for true love.

Their fans flooded my phone with death threats. Funeral wreaths arrived at my door. Someone photoshopped my face onto escort advertisements, images so vile I couldn't look at them twice.

While I drowned, Sebastian took Narelle to every place I'd ever dreamed of visiting with him. Every single one.

And still—still—I couldn't let go.

How could I? In this entire world, after my mother, he was the only person who had ever truly loved me. The only one who'd been good to me.

I was eighteen when my father brought Narelle and her mother home.

One month later, at my birthday dinner, my mother pressed a blessing charm into my palm. Her hands were warm. Her smile was soft.

Then she walked to the rooftop and stepped off the edge.

Her diary told me everything. Pages and pages of deliberate humiliation. Narelle and her mother's calculated cruelty, their whispered campaigns to break her.

I brought the evidence to my father.

Narelle cried. Her mother cried harder.

I was thrown out that same night.

That winter was brutal. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones and never quite leaves.

I was hours away from sleeping on the streets when Sebastian found me. He'd searched the entire city.

He pulled me into his arms so tightly I couldn't breathe, his voice caught between fury and anguish.

"Why didn't you come to me?"

"Joy." He tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Remember this. Even if the whole world abandons you, I want you. I will always want you."

After that, Sebastian poured everything he had into taking care of me.

He brought me to his elite prep school, a world of trust-fund heirs and designer uniforms where I stuck out like a stain on silk. Everyone waited for me to fail. To crumble. To prove I didn't belong.

At the opening ceremony, Sebastian took the stage as the top student representative. He was supposed to give an academic speech.

Instead, he looked directly into the crowd and said:

"Joy Harding is my life. Touch her, and you touch me."

The whispers stopped after that.

He cooked for me every single day—balanced meals, proper nutrition, determined to put weight on my too-thin frame. Whenever the luxury houses released their seasonal collections, he had everything sent to the house before I could even browse the catalogs.

Once, after a trip to Disneyland, I mentioned offhandedly how magical it would be to live in a castle like the fairies did.

He bought land. Built me an estate. A secret sanctuary, just for me.

Everyone in Capital City's elite circles knew how Sebastian Gilbert treated me. It wasn't a secret—it was legend.

He made me bright again. Confident. Even a little spoiled, in ways I'd never imagined possible after everything I'd lost.

On the nights when the grief crept back—when I woke gasping from nightmares of my mother's fall, terrified that Sebastian would leave me too—he would hold me through every sob, every irrational accusation, and repeat the same words with unwavering patience:

"Never worry, Joy. Unless I'm dead, I will never stop loving you."

How was I supposed to let go of that man?

So when he returned from the Maldives with Narelle, I swallowed my pride. I begged.

I dug out my medical records from the hospital—proof that I'd been drugged, proof that I was innocent—and brought them to him.

He wouldn't even look at them.

"Fabricated evidence," he said, his lip curling. "Is there anything you won't do?"

I was out of options. All I could do was dig out the photographs documenting our past—the love letters where we'd poured out our hearts, the gifts and keepsakes that held meaning only for the two of us.

But every item I pulled out, Sebastian burned.

Eventually, I grew desperate enough to put on lingerie and try to seduce him—anything to make the man who was supposed to be my husband stay home for just one night.

Sebastian did pause. For the first time in ages, he moved toward me.

But just as his lips were about to meet mine, he gripped my chin and smiled—a cruel, mocking twist of his mouth.

"Joy, you really are this pathetic, aren't you?"

"Too bad I have standards. I don't touch dirty things."

The next day, he brought Narelle to a charity auction. My intimate photos—the ones I'd sent only to him—had been printed out and placed on the auction block.

When I was dragged into the venue, the first thing I saw was my own image splashed across the massive screen.

Sebastian watched the color drain from my face, his smile wide and vicious.

"Like it, wife? Happy first anniversary."

Laughter rippled through the crowd. Dozens of leering gazes crawled over my skin.

Narelle draped herself against Sebastian's chest, her delicate frame pressed into his arms as she giggled at me.

"With my sister's notorious reputation, Sebastian, this gift really does suit her perfectly!"

"Though, ever since you and I got together, you haven't touched her once, have you? Someone with her... appetites... no wonder she's throwing herself at you."

"I'm not a petty woman. She's still technically your wife, after all. Maybe you should satisfy her sometime?" She pouted, tracing a finger down his chest. "You wear me out every night—I can barely keep up with how insatiable you are..."

At her words, Sebastian's gaze landed on me. The desire I'd once prayed to see had curdled into pure disgust.

"Touch her? I'd rather not catch something."

He turned and nuzzled Narelle's nose.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I only want someone pure like you. Once the auction money comes through, I'll buy you that bag you wanted, hmm?"

Watching them wrapped around each other, I closed my eyes. Tears spilled down my cheeks, and despair—black and absolute—finally pulled me under.

My voice came out slow. Steady. Final.

"Sebastian. Let's get a divorce."

He glanced at me sideways. Then he laughed.

"Joy, what makes you think you have the right to ask me for a divorce?"

He rose, looming over me to drink in my anguish. His thumb brushed across my cheek, wiping away a tear with mock tenderness.

"Did you forget what I told you? I'm going to make you suffer for the rest of your life. And this?" He gestured around us. "This is just the beginning."

"As long as I don't sign, you'll never be free of this marriage."

To punish my disobedience, Sebastian moved Narelle into our home.

The living room. The kitchen. The bathroom. The storage closet.

Anywhere I'd been, I'd find them the next morning—used tissues and condom wrappers scattered across the floor.

I stopped sleeping. Entire nights passed with my eyes fixed on the ceiling. I saw doctors. I swallowed antidepressants, following their instructions to the letter.

Then one day, Narelle barged into my room, tablet in hand.

"Joy, after all these years, you're still this useless?"

"Watching you live like a dog every day... even I'm starting to feel sorry for you."

"Fine. I'll be generous and let you die with some clarity." Her smile sharpened. "That night—when you and Hubert were drugged? That was me."

She turned the tablet toward me.

On the screen, surveillance footage played in crisp detail: Narelle, tipping white powder into my glass.

My first instinct was to snatch the tablet and rush to show Sebastian the evidence.

But when he saw the surveillance footage, his eyes turned cold as ice.

"Narelle was right. To cover up your filthy affair, you really would frame her for it."

The AI-generated watermark at the end of the video destroyed me completely.

Narelle threw herself into Sebastian's arms, sobbing. He stroked her hair, comforting her, while his lips curled into a sneer aimed at me.

"Like mother, like daughter. Your mother must have been the same—couldn't keep her legs closed, cheated on your father, then killed herself out of guilt when she was about to be caught."

"First you tried to pin your mother's sins on Narelle's mother. Now you're pulling the same trick on Narelle herself." His voice dripped with contempt. "Did you really think I'd keep falling for your manipulations?"

I stared at him, unable to process what I was hearing.

The deepest, most guarded wound in my soul—and for Narelle's sake, he'd turned it into a blade without a moment's hesitation.

My hand flew up to slap him, but Sebastian caught my wrist and hurled me to the floor like garbage.

"Without my indulgence, Joy, do you really think you have the right to bare your claws at me?"

Narelle rushed over, pretending to help me up. But as she leaned close, her whisper was pure venom.

"You're just as stupid as your dead mother. Yes, I did it—but did you really think I'd hand you the evidence on a silver platter?"

"Your mother couldn't beat mine. And you'll never beat me."

Tears streamed down my face, numb and endless. Somewhere in the middle of crying, I started to laugh.

I lunged for the scissors on the nearby table and drove them toward Narelle.

Sebastian kicked them from my hand. His expression twisted with horror and disgust.

"Have you gone completely insane?"

He swept Narelle into his arms and summoned every top medical specialist in the city to treat her scratch. Then he moved her into my hidden estate.

My condition deteriorated rapidly.

I swallowed antidepressants by the handful. My hair began falling out in clumps. My memory fractured, pieces slipping away like water through cracks.

To survive, I forced myself to stop thinking about Sebastian. I locked myself in my room and buried myself in restoring ancient manuscripts, one crumbling page at a time.

I'd discovered this work by accident after the wedding—a way to escape the pain. Back then, I never imagined it would become my lifeline, the very thing that would help me finally leave Sebastian.

I stopped following news about Sebastian and Narelle.

But as Capital City's power couple, their stories found me anyway.

Today, Sebastian bought Narelle a private island. Tomorrow, they'd appear at some ribbon-cutting ceremony, her arm threaded through his.

Narelle had seamlessly stepped into the role of Mrs. Gilbert. Meanwhile, I had been erased from existence—forgotten, as if I'd never been real at all.

At least I'd grown numb enough that the days somehow kept passing.

Six months slipped by. Then one night, Sebastian came home.

He was drunk—completely wrecked. The moment he walked through the door, his mouth crashed into mine.

I kicked. I clawed. I fought. But he was a man unhinged, deaf to everything, and he took what he wanted.

The next morning, I woke to a bucket of ice water.

Sebastian stood at the bedside, revulsion pouring off him.

"You're disgusting."

"Crawling into my bed while I was drunk—is that how you used to seduce men?"

He called in a professional cleaning crew to sanitize the entire master bedroom. Halfway through, he decided it wasn't enough and had the whole room gutted and rebuilt.

I watched in silence. I didn't bother explaining anymore.

Sebastian would never believe me anyway.