Aiden ruffled her hair, doting. “Keep raising the bid like that and people will think I've gone bankrupt.”

He closed his hand around Tracey's wrist and lifted the paddle again.

“Ten million.”

Everyone in the room knew the piece belonged to Aiden.

So the price climbed, higher and higher.

“Thirty million.”

“Fifty million.”

“Seventy million.”

After enough rounds, Aiden lost his patience and simply named a number that buried them all.

The whole room fell silent in an instant.

In the end, Aiden took the silver necklace for ninety million dollars.

The director carried the lot to the private box himself.

He had just lifted his hands to draw out the silver necklace when Aiden cut him off.

Aiden turned to look at me, something playful in his eyes.

“You go get it. Put it on Tracey.”

I pulled on a pair of gloves and, in silence, fastened the silver clasp at the back of Tracey's neck.

Aiden watched, the corner of his mouth curving into something sickly.

“Our Tracey always did have an eye for these things. The necklace suits you.”

After the auction ended, fat drops of rain slammed against the car windows.

Aiden floored the gas, and the car tore down the road.

“The Delgados aren't short on pocket change. So why do you still look like some broke little nobody?”

I sat in the back seat, my face flat. “Because I don't want to taint what Dylan Delgado and I have with money.”

The next second, Aiden braked hard at the side of the road. “Get out.”

A thunderstorm. On the overpass.

In the rearview mirror, I met the raw violence in Aiden's eyes.

“Get out. Don't make me say it a third time.”

I stepped out quietly. No explanation. There was no point in one.

In the end I couldn't remember how long I'd walked in the rain.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital room.

Then Aiden's call came through, and I answered, weak.

“It's working hours right now. Where are you?”

“Out all night, and now your employer has to chase you down after the workday's already started. Looks to me like you don't want this job anymore.”

I was about to pull the IV needle from my hand when the doctor stopped me.

“What are you doing?! Stop treating your own body like it's nothing. Whatever it is, can't it wait until the drip's finished?”

I hung up fast, but Aiden had still caught the doctor's voice.

A second later, a message popped up on my phone.

“You have half an hour to appear in front of me, or I'll have you blacklisted across the whole industry.”

After the nurse pulled the needle, I rushed straight to Aiden's place without stopping for a breath and let myself in with the passcode he'd given me.

——It was Tracey's birthday.

I was standing in the entryway when I heard the sounds drifting out of the bedroom.

Tracey's voice came in broken pieces, begging. “Someone's come in.”

Aiden soothed her gently, his voice rough. “What's there to be afraid of.”

I sat rigid and upright on the living room couch, nausea churning up through my stomach.

By the time the two of them came downstairs, two hours had passed, and the marks of what they'd been doing were all over them.

When she saw me sitting on the couch, Tracey jumped.

“Angela, why are you still here?”

Aiden steadied her just in time, a hint of something improper in his smile.

“So cute. Like a startled little hamster.”

The girl's ears flushed scarlet in an instant.

When he turned back to me, Aiden had slipped back into his usual carelessness.

“You scared my fiancée. Apologize. Now.”

When I said nothing, a thread of threat crept into his tone.

“Isn't your job to keep my fiancée happy? Or is it that you don't want this job anymore?”

At that, I finally spoke, numbly going along with it.

“I'm sorry. Showing up so suddenly and frightening you was my fault.”

“To make it up to you, may I borrow your kitchen and make you a dessert?”

Tracey nodded.

I'd made the cake by hand every year before, so this time my hands moved fast.

Tracey took a bite, her eyes lighting up. “Aiden, this cake is so good. How have I never tasted anything like it out there?”

The girl rose onto her toes and lifted the spoon she'd just used to feed Aiden a bite.

I lowered my eyes, refusing to watch their sweetness any longer.

Aiden never liked things too sweet.

I'd grown so used to it that I'd swapped out the sugar for fresh-squeezed juice.

It made the cake bright and clean on the tongue, never cloying.

I'd failed at that recipe more times than I could count.

The burns on my hands had long since become routine.

Back then, his eyes would go red as he pressed a soft kiss to each wound and swore he'd never wrong me.

And now all I could do was watch Aiden finish off the cake Tracey had left behind and pronounce it, flatly, “Inedible.”

Night fell before I knew it, and Tracey said she wanted to see fireworks.

Aiden had a whole batch delivered and set up in the back garden at once.

When it came time to light them, he held out the lighter to me.

“I hear you've got PTSD around explosions now. I haven't seen it for myself yet, so let's start with a little desensitization tonight.”

Aiden dragged me toward the fireworks, sparks drifting past the fuse again and again.

My hand was shaking as I took the lighter.

But hotter than the flame was the look in Aiden's eyes.

Brimming with a madness that wanted us both to burn.

“Beg me, and I'll let you off.”

Aiden gripped my hand hard enough to crush the bones, his voice coaxing, sweet.

“Weren't you always the timid one? You know how this goes. The moment you bow your head, I'll go soft. I always do.”

At this point, there was no going back to what we'd been.

I clenched my teeth, and on sheer nerve, I lit the fuse.

The fuse burned down, and still I stood frozen where I was.

The second the fireworks went off—

it was Aiden who risked himself, yanking me by the collar and hauling me to safety.

I watched the man turn and walk away, his back resolute and desolate all at once.

The scrapes on my legs stung, but I lifted my head and watched the rest of the fireworks alone, all the way through.

Happiness was always fleeting.

It was time for me to look ahead, too.

In the small hours, I got a call from the hospital.

“Hello, is this Ms. Knight?”

“The patient is in critical condition. There isn't much time. You should come quickly to see her one last time.”

I was ready to leave for the hospital in my pajamas, only to find the front door bolted from the inside and stuck fast.

I turned around to find Aiden standing on the stairs, looking down at me.

“Where are you going this late?”

My eyes burned, wet, my voice cracking. “I have to get to the hospital to see Grandma Knight one last time.”

I didn't expect Aiden to scoff. “You'd make up garbage like that just to go see Dylan Delgado.”

He shoved the trending headlines in my face.

It turned out that on the night of the thunderstorm, Dylan had dropped his new flame in front of everyone, and the paparazzi had caught him driving me to the hospital.

The whole internet was guessing whether the playboy was finally turning over a new leaf, ready to settle down and come home to his family.

Aiden pulled the phone back, the contempt on his face deepening.

“Besides, I was just on a video call with Grandma. Her color was rosy, her spirits couldn't have been better.”

He paused, and a strange smile surfaced in his eyes.

“Grandma even asked how the two of us have been lately. Told me to take good care of you.”

My voice trembled. “What did you tell her?”

Aiden's lips curved abruptly, the smile cruel. “The truth, of course——”

“every last word of it.”

My head snapped up, my eyes ready to split.

But to see Grandma one last time.

I forced down the rage roaring inside me and bowed my head to him for the first time.

"Please. Just let me go."

Aiden's eyes were bloodshot, his jaw clenched.

"That man crooks a finger and you go crawling back like a dog to lick his boots. Are you really that worthless?"

"Fine. Eat one mango, and I'll let you leave."

He knew exactly how severe my allergy was. One bite could send me into shock.

But I didn't hesitate. I grabbed the mango and tore into it, devouring it whole, no time even to peel the skin.

"Enough!"

Aiden ripped the mango from my hands, his eyes shot through with red.

I could feel the hives rising on my face, my skin swelling red before anyone's eyes.

Aiden sagged against the railing, defeated, and unlocked the door.

Ignoring the burning under my skin, I rushed to the door, desperate to leave.

Then his voice came from behind me, low and venomous.

"If you walk out that door today, we're done. Nothing left between us. Ever."

I didn't pause for even a heartbeat. I lifted my foot and stepped through.

The moment I reached the street below the hospital, I saw a gurney being wheeled out across the way, a white sheet draped over it.

In the corner of my eye, I caught the gold bracelet on the body's wrist.

It was the gift I'd given Grandma for her eightieth birthday.

"Wait!"

I threw myself at the gurney and seized that wrist, refusing to let go.

The medical worker walking beside it recognized me and patted my shoulder. "My condolences."

In an instant, I felt like I'd been dropped into ice.

But I couldn't fall apart yet.

I held myself together long enough to finish the paperwork and have her cremated.

Only after every last arrangement for Grandma was done did I let myself sit on a park bench and cry the whole night through.

When the first faint light of dawn came.

I pulled out my SIM card.

And vanished from this city completely.

At that very moment, Aiden was struck by a sudden, lurching dread.

As if he'd just lost the one thing most precious to him.

Then came the message from his assistant. The truth, laid bare.

Aiden's hands trembled as he opened it.

When he saw the seventeen times I had tried to die for him.

His eyes nearly tore open.

At last, Aiden panicked.

He called my number again and again.

But all that answered him was a busy tone...