He'd always kept a backup phone.

I opened it.

I scrolled down through the contacts.

His women weren't just me and Lucy Fox.

My hand shook as I dragged my finger down the screen.

Lowell Gilbert watched me from the side, unhurried, in no rush at all.

Three hundred and eighty-five of them.

And Lucy and I, it turned out, were the two who'd lasted longest with him.

So many girls.

Three days for some.

Five for others.

He swapped them out fast.

The ones who clung on and made a scene either ended up disgraced.

Or simply vanished from the city, no explanation.

When you added it all up,

there was only me, and Lucy Fox.

And all we'd earned for it was the title of fake wife.

“My phone's been sitting right out in the open, silly wife. How is it you only noticed today?”

He kissed a strand of my hair.

“Now you know everything.

“Be a good girl and play my kept bird. Everything else, don't ask.”

“Lowell Gilbert, you're nothing but a…… mmph!!”

He pinned me down the way he always did.

All night, biting his lip until it bled changed nothing.

When I woke the next morning,

my whole body ached.

Lowell had already knotted his tie.

He pressed a light kiss to my forehead.

“Behave, and you won't get any less than you have now.”

Furious, I hurled my clothes at his back as he walked away.

He gave a low laugh and didn't turn around.

That left me alone in the bed, seething.

I fired off updates to Lucy Fox, one after another.

【*He's a scumbag! You and I are basically the two he treated best, and the rest he played with for a few days and threw away!*

【*This man fakes devotion to every single one of them!*】

【*No. He only fakes it with everyone except that one girl. Us included.*】

Lucy's words froze me where I sat.

A moment later, she sent over a few screenshots.

【*I had someone pull a few strings yesterday and crack part of his data.*

【*This girl, he's hidden her very well.*】

I stared at the girl in the photos, unable to believe it.

She was beautiful, no question.

Lovely.

Lowell had refused to let a single beautiful moment of her slip past uncaptured.

From the girl in a clean white dress under the magnolia trees in college,

to the tears of joy on the day he married her.

There were even vlogs shot from Lowell's own point of view.

He'd never force his love on her.

Just the opposite.

He was gentle, careful, undone by a single one of her tears.

They'd raised a kitten together.

As adorable as the girl herself.

【*I checked. Lowell Gilbert's legal wife is this girl.*

【*You know how all of Lowell's passwords have those four digits, 0603?*

【*That's her birthday.*】

I went rigid where I sat.

I'd asked him once what 0603 meant.

He'd said it was just a number the password system generated at random.

That he only kept it because it was easy to remember.

If…… all his passwords had 0603 in them,

then,

the computer he kept in his study,

could I open that too?

As if something had taken hold of me,

I sat down at his desk.

I tried the digits.

It opened.

The wallpaper filled the screen.

The girl's smile, radiant.

The payment app was still open.

It was an account I'd never seen before.

Just one chat pinned to the top: 【*Wife*】.

And right now, the girl saved as Wife was typing messages.

【*For our eighth anniversary I want to go to the Bahamas, and I want my darling husband to plan the whole trip~*】

【*Guess what surprise I've got waiting for you tonight? Guess right and I'll let you have it!*】

【*Oh, and tonight I want the braised barbecue ribs you make, so don't forget to pick up the groceries, my big-shot CEO~*】

I scrolled up in disbelief. Every message the girl sent, Lowell answered almost instantly—and when he couldn't, he'd fire off a quick line about what he was doing and promise to reply soon, then report back the moment he was free to tell his wife exactly what had held him up.

Right now.

It seemed something was holding him up. He hadn't gotten to her message yet.

My hand hovered over the keyboard. I hesitated. Then I typed:

【He's lying to you. Run!】

Just as I was about to hit send, a hand shot out and clamped around my wrist.

Lowell's breathing was ragged, his eyes cold on mine. On his phone, a login alert was flashing across the screen.

I didn't hesitate. My finger went straight for send—and he wrenched my wrist and slammed it against the wall.

"This one, you don't touch."

I fought him. "You sit there playing the devoted husband for her. Doesn't it make you sick?"

He gripped my hand tighter.

"I did lie to her. But I've never wronged her.

"She's innocent. She couldn't survive news like this.

"I'm confident I can hide it for a lifetime, and keep her the happiest woman alive for a lifetime.

"And you, Naomi Joyce, if you dare drag this in front of her, if you make her cry.

"I won't think twice about taking back even the last bit of mercy I've shown you."

A dull pain spread through my wrist. It hurt enough to bring tears.

He looked at me for a few seconds. Only then did he let go, letting me slide down the wall to the floor. I clutched my wrist, shaking.

"I told you. Be a good girl, do as you're told, and you'll only gain."

"You call yourself a man who loves her, and this is how it looks? Keeping a pile of women she knows nothing about?"

His steps paused. He let out a cold laugh.

"As long as you don't run your mouth, she'll be happy her whole life.

"But the moment you dare break her heart, I can also show you exactly where all those girls who went missing ended up."

I clenched my fists.

Lowell had taken the computer away. Anything that might carry a trace of the girl, he'd had his men strip clean. She'd appeared out of nowhere, and just like that she'd vanished into nowhere again.

I gripped the flash drive in my hand. He didn't know yet—before he caught me, I'd already exported the important data.

I wanted to see for myself. What this was really about!

I pulled the girl's information up on my personal computer. When the search engine matched her face, one entry stopped my breath cold—

The only daughter of the richest family in the country... Kitty Sullivan.

Right now she was overseeing an infrastructure bid, with her father heading it up. Her husband would be part of it too.

I thought of the file I'd glimpsed on Lowell's computer, and my hands and feet went cold. I used to work in accounting.

Kitty Sullivan didn't know yet. Lowell was setting a trap for her. Once the project was completed, the Sullivan family could very likely fall into a massive tax-evasion snare. And Kitty Sullivan still trusted her husband, handing every money-related task over to him without a second thought.

The first thing I did was go to Lucy Fox.

"Right now, we're the only ones who can save Kitty Sullivan.

"She still has no idea what she's up against.

"We have to find her. We have to tell her the truth."

Lucy frowned. She didn't answer.

"Ms. Fox?"

"You go yourself. I'm not going."

I froze.

"Why?"

"Lowell came to see me.

"We... told each other everything."

I stared at her.

I'd assumed a woman like Lucy would have torn into Lowell, screaming.

But she hadn't.

"Naomi, being the other woman isn't so bad."

I thought I'd misheard. "Lucy, what are you saying?"

"You heard me. Lowell promised me. Nothing changes for me.

"Do you honestly think we'd live this well without him?"

I opened my mouth.

"But... but it costs another woman everything."

Lucy went quiet.

"Ms. Fox, I'm begging you!"

"I know."

She pulled her hand free. "Kitty Sullivan will lose. She might even end up behind bars, just like her parents.

"But you and I, we'll be the two women Lowell loves most."

I stared at her, unable to believe it.

I stayed frozen a long moment before my voice came out dry.

"But once he takes the top spot, he'll ruin even more girls..."

"Naomi."

Lucy sighed and looked at me.

"You only get one life, and it's yours to live. Just pretend you never knew Kitty Sullivan existed. Pretend you never knew me.

"You'll be much more comfortable that way."

I gripped my purse.

I didn't move.

She was right.

Lowell had been so patient with Lucy and me.

Once Kitty was gone, we'd be his everything.

We'd get far more than we had now.

Two for one.

A good deal, really.

"Now I understand what you want."

I passed no judgment.

I turned and left.

I passed the mailbox.

I hesitated.

Then I dropped the letter for Kitty Sullivan inside.

The next day someone messaged me.

【Can we meet?】

I knew it was Kitty Sullivan.

She was even more beautiful than her photos.

"This letter. You wrote it to me?"

She slid my report across the table.

"My husband keeps women on the side? Including you? Is it true?"

I nodded hard.

"It's not just the women. He and I are also—"

"You slut!"

A glass of ice water hit me full in the face.

The shock made me flinch.

"Ms. Sullivan?"

"I've been married to my husband for five years. In those five years he took a knife for me!

"How could he ever betray me?"

She grabbed my jaw.

"You think you can write me a fake letter, make me doubt him, get me to divorce him, and then you'd have your chance?"

I coughed hard, twice.

"He took that knife for you to earn your trust!

"So he could get deep into your finances and set a tax trap for you!"

Kitty Sullivan paused.

Her face went uglier.

"I don't believe you. You're just like those other sluts, all trying to come between me and him!"

Those others?

I went still.

"Women have come to me before!"

She let out a cold laugh. "What, did you think you were the first?

"My husband explained it to me long ago. It's all you sluts who won't let go, clawing to be some man's kept woman!

"Let me tell you, other men might fall for it. But Lowell? Never."

"Is that so?"

I smiled.

"And if I showed you the transfer records he sent me?"

Kitty Sullivan froze.

I took out my phone.

I pulled up the evidence I'd had ready all along.

Five years of it.