Never again would she let someone else stand in front of her and take the hit. Because she'd been hurt.

The girl trained like she was trying to destroy herself, pushing her body well past its limits.

So I dragged her in front of Brad myself.

At first, he didn't want to take her on as a student.

"She's reckless, aggressive, impossible to teach. No instructor could handle her."

I massaged his shoulders, brewed his tea, sweet-talked him into compliance.

Coaxed him into letting Margot stay.

But after a while, I noticed I didn't need to put in a good word for Margot anymore.

Brad started extending her training sessions on his own.

Her technique grew sharper, more refined with each passing week.

When no one else was around, he even taught her lethal moves he'd never shared with anyone.

In the end, the people who'd burned down her family's studio were left broken and bleeding.

Sullivan Martial Arts Studio reopened.

Overnight, it became a sensation.

The three of us threw a small celebration.

Over drinks, she said the person she was most grateful to was me.

But I never imagined her way of showing gratitude was climbing into my fiancé's bed.

I wrenched the door open.

Margot, mid-session with Brad, looked up at me in surprise.

I crossed the room in three strides.

Shoved her hard.

"This is how you thank me?!"

Margot stumbled back a step.

Her eyes reddened. She lowered her head and said nothing.

"You're disgusting!"

"Desi!"

"Get out of my way!"

I tried to push past Brad's arm.

A hand clamped around my wrist.

He threw me to the ground.

"She's pregnant! What the hell are you doing?!"

I hit the floor clutching my stomach.

Stared up at him in disbelief.

Something flickered across his face, as though he'd just remembered I was pregnant too.

A flash of regret passed through Brad's eyes.

"There's nothing I can do about this."

"Nothing you can do..."

"The night of the celebration, we'd both had too much to drink."

Brad exhaled. "Margot saved my life once. You know I've made plenty of enemies over the years."

"She saved your life!"

My voice shook. "What about my father?

"Didn't my father save your life too?

"He didn't just find you on the street and raise you as his own son. He died for you!

"Because of all those enemies you made! My dad took a knife for you. Bled out from his heart!"

"And I've been repaying that!"

Brad's voice turned cold.

"Letting you be my kept woman. Isn't that repayment enough?

"Without that debt, did you really think you'd qualify to be my mistress?"

My body swayed.

I barely stayed on my feet.

Right...

Brad was Jacob Vance's son.

My family was nobody. A small household with nothing to our name.

We'd gotten lucky once, finding a lost little boy on the street.

Let him be my father's son for eighteen years.

But even with all those years of raising him,

it didn't change the fact that I wasn't good enough for him.

Was that really how it was?

I gripped the edge of the table.

Pulled myself up on shaking legs.

Brad reached out instinctively to steady me.

I shoved his hand away.

Then he saw what I slowly pulled from my pocket. A voice recorder.

"Without that debt, did you really think you'd qualify to be my mistress?"

"The night of the celebration, we'd both had too much to drink."

His own voice played back from the device.

I pressed pause.

His breath caught. "Desi..."

"You said I'm your kept woman, right?"

I smiled at him. "Then I should at least be getting paid."

My gaze drifted to Margot's earrings, worth half a million dollars at minimum.

"You say you're repaying a debt of gratitude. But your idea of repaying it is watching the daughter of the man who saved you wear clothes off the clearance rack, two for thirty bucks?

"Brad, I had no idea you'd already gone back to your real family."

I smiled, mocking and sharp, and leaned toward him.

"Your father. Jacob Vance himself.

"What's the matter? That afraid of me finding out you've moved up in the world?"

"Desi, I actually—"

"Since you've already called me your kept woman."

I cut him off and held up the voice recorder. "A million dollars a month. You can manage that, right?"

"Desi…"

"I know you can afford it."

I stared at him, ice cold. "Young Master Vance."

Brad closed his eyes for a long moment.

A sigh escaped him. "Fine."

I wasn't worthy of the man Brad Vance had become.

I accepted that.

But since I couldn't have his love,

I'd take his money.

What he owed me was worth far more than a million a month.

He moved me into a villa.

The first month's payment hit my account, and he came home too.

"Desi, I was going to tell you. I just… hadn't found the right time."

"It's fine. Now we both know."

"Desi, I was just worried you'd misunderstand—"

"Don't worry, Young Master Vance."

I flashed him a smile. "Relax. I'll never cause trouble for your family."

I brushed past him, shoulder checking his on the way out.

He turned to look at me.

The rims of his eyes were faintly red.

Brad came home often.

I just never received him.

Sometimes he tried to hold me. I always stepped away, never letting him so much as touch a finger.

Our interactions were limited to his wire transfers and the occasional hollow pleasantry.

Until the day Claudia found the villa.

She wasn't there to confront Brad about keeping a woman on the side.

She was there to demand why I hadn't gotten rid of the baby.

"Didn't I make myself clear? The Vance family will never acknowledge some mistress's child!"

I said nothing. Just smiled, cold and thin.

"What, you think if you push this baby out, you can force my son to make you his wife?"

Claudia's laugh dripped with contempt. "Let me spell it out for you. Without my approval and his father's, no one will ever recognize this as his child!"

"Of course it's not his child."

I raised my voice. "This baby is inside my body. It will only ever be mine."

Claudia froze.

"I truly cannot understand how every single one of you talks about this baby being yours or his, but not one of you has considered that this baby is mine.

"I'm the only one carrying this child. What gives any of you the right to decide whether it lives or dies?"

Brad had already stepped out of the bedroom.

I turned to look at him, my smile razor-edged.

"You can call your lawyers right now. We'll sign an agreement. This child has nothing to do with the Vance family.

"Because this child…

"belongs only to its mother."

"You—!"

Claudia's jaw clenched.

Brad stepped forward and caught his mother's hand before it could swing at me.

"Mom. Drop it."

"What is that supposed to mean? You're protecting this homewrecker?!"

Brad exhaled slowly. "Mom, she knows her own mind. Once she's decided something, she doesn't turn back. She made this decision before she ever got pregnant."

Brad was heartless in many ways.

But he read people well.

Claudia ground her teeth. "You think running your mouth changes anything? I'm telling you, until his father and I say otherwise, you will always be the other woman."

"The other woman?"

I laughed. "Let me tell you what 'the other woman' really means, Aunt Claudia.

"Your daughter-in-law, Margot Sullivan, knew full well your son was my fiancé and still got pregnant with his child. She married him before I ever had the chance.

"That's the real other woman!

"A woman who shields the mistress has no right to call the victim one!"

"You—!"

Claudia shoved me hard.

But she didn't seem to realize we were standing at the top of the staircase.

I didn't see it coming.

My body tilted sideways.

And I fell.

"Desi!"

Brad's voice.

I didn't remember how long I tumbled.

When I finally stopped, the pain in my abdomen was blinding.

Claudia stared down at me, eyes wide.

Then she turned to look at her son.

Brad's hand was still frozen in midair, outstretched, as if to catch me.

Claudia's eyes seemed to ask:

Why didn't you catch her?

The son of a martial arts dynasty would have had the reflexes to catch his own wife. There was no question about that.

His hand had reached out.

And stopped halfway.

Had he realized, in that split second, that he shouldn't catch me?

Before I blacked out, I saw Claudia clutching fistfuls of her own hair, dialing 911.

When I woke up, the voice recorder was gone.

Along with my baby.

Brad was sitting at my bedside.

"I'm sorry, but that recording... it can't get out.

"People would get the wrong idea about Margot."

And then I understood exactly why he had pulled his hand back.

I closed my eyes. "Get out."

"Desi, we can still have children. We'll—"

"Get. Out."

He left.

And Margot walked in.

Her belly was already beginning to show.

She smiled at me. "Sweetie, he lied to you. You two were never going to have children."

I called for a nurse to throw her out.

The room was empty.

Inch by inch, I dragged myself across the bed and reached for my phone.

I opened the surveillance app.

Every second of my fall down those stairs was there, ready to replay.

Brad had no idea that on the very first day I moved in, I'd installed a hidden camera.

I dialed a number and spoke:

"I have some dirt on Brad Vance. Interested?"