I propped myself up and sat on the edge of the bed, watching his expression. I couldn't help the faint smile that tugged at my lips.

"What else would it be? Your love?"

Mick's face went dark. His chest heaved, but my words had left him with nothing to say.

Hester had been waiting in the living room. When neither of us emerged, she raised her voice toward the bedroom.

"Mick, weren't you going to take me shopping?"

She paused, then added, "Bring Ebony along. Throw her a bone and maybe she'll sign the papers without a fuss."

I wanted to snap back, but then it hit me: my sister's surgery was still short the final payment, and today was the deadline.

So I kept my mouth shut.

Before we left, I placed the signed divorce agreement on the most visible spot in Mick's study.

One signature. That was all it took to erase this marriage for good.

In the car, Mick and Hester sat together in the back seat, pressed close, whispering and laughing.

I sat in the passenger seat. The scenery blurred past the window, but my mind drifted somewhere far away.

The truth was, I had loved Mick once.

Back then, I'd been a different person. Hot-tempered. The kind of woman who wouldn't tolerate a single grain of sand in her eye.

The first time Mick told me there was someone else, I lost it.

I smashed everything in the living room I could get my hands on. Porcelain shattered against the walls. My screams rattled the windows. The whole apartment trembled with the force of it.

He just stood there, watching me with that detached calm, his voice cold enough to freeze the air between us.

"Ebony, know your place."

"Either we divorce right now and you walk out with nothing, or you accept things the way they are and pretend this never happened."

I cursed him out and slammed the door behind me.

I thought he'd panic. Come looking for me. Bend.

A full week passed. Not a single call. Not one text.

He went on with his life. Eating, drinking, doing whatever he pleased, as if I had never existed at all.

When I had nowhere left to turn, I called a friend from the program.

She listened, then let out a quiet sigh.

"Ebony, you're still young. Having a backbone is a good thing, but you can't go head-to-head with him like this."

"Men are all the same. They'll let the other woman throw tantrums and act cute, but the second their wife shows any temper, all they feel is annoyed. They'll call you difficult."

"Remember what we learned. Play the role. Be gentle. Be understanding. Be agreeable. And never, ever let pride get in the way of the money."

I locked myself in a hotel room for three days. Didn't eat. Didn't drink. Cried until I passed out.

On the third day, something inside me broke clean through.

I went back. I lowered my head. I apologized to Mick for everything.

Only then did he relent, granting me what passed for forgiveness, his voice flat and dismissive.

"Good girl. Don't make a scene again."

From that day on, the old Ebony died. The fierce, sharp-tongued woman who refused to swallow a single insult was gone.

The one who survived was someone else entirely. Someone who only cared about money, never lost her temper, and always knew her place.

At the department store, Hester picked out a pair of the latest red-soled stilettos, dropped them on the floor, and tilted her chin up at me.

"Ebony. Come put these on for me."

Mick frowned slightly and murmured, "There's a sales associate who can help you with that."

Hester immediately looped her arm through his and shook her head with a pout.

"No. I want Ebony to do it. Look at those soft, pretty hands of hers, so well-maintained. I want her."

I stood where I was and didn't move.

Hester's expression hardened. She reached into her bag, pulled out a thick stack of cash, and hurled it straight at my face in front of everyone.

Bills fluttered to the ground, scattering across the floor.

Hester looked at me with a mocking half-smile.

"Oh, my bad. I forgot the etiquette for people in your line of work."

"You want money, don't you? I've got plenty. That should be enough to cover a shoe change, right?"

I lowered my gaze to the bills on the floor. Judging by the stack, it would be enough to cover Bella Manning's surgery fees.

My fingers dug into my sleeves until my knuckles ached. But slowly, I bent down and picked up the bills, one by one.

When I'd gathered them all, I walked over to Hester and sank to my knees on the cold tile floor.

Her lips curled into an undisguised smirk of triumph. She lifted her foot deliberately, pushing it so close it nearly grazed my face.

"Hurry up. Stop dragging your feet."

"Or was that not enough money for you?"

Footsteps around us stopped. Passersby gathered, whispering among themselves.

"Look at her. Selling her dignity for cash."

"She must be desperate. Nobody would put up with that otherwise. Pathetic."

I gently gripped the heel of her shoe, carefully slipping it off her foot. Then I picked up the new pair of heels beside her and eased them on, one strap at a time.

But the moment I finished, she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"These don't feel right. Try those."

I said nothing. I picked up another pair and repeated the same motions.

One pair. Two pairs. Three.

Each time, she found something new to complain about. The heel was too high. The fit was off. The color clashed with her skin. Every objection was a little sharper, a little more deliberate.

The snickering around me grew louder. My knees had gone numb against the hard floor, pain radiating up through my legs, before she finally pursed her lips in satisfaction. She leaned down, bringing her mouth close to my ear, and whispered in a voice only I could hear, each word slow and precise:

"Ebony. For the rest of your life, this is all you'll ever be good for. Changing my shoes."

I raised my eyes. For the first time, I looked directly into hers.

"Maybe so. But the man you're clinging to with everything you've got? He's someone I got bored of a long time ago."

"That's going to sit like a thorn in your heart for the rest of your life."

Hester's expression darkened instantly, as if I'd driven a nail straight into a nerve. She let out a cold scoff and turned, hooking her arm through Mick's.

"Let's go, Mick. I'm not wasting another second on her."

She threw one last glance over her shoulder.

"We're not giving you a ride. Find your own way back."

Mick frowned, as though he wanted to say something, but Hester was already pulling him toward the exit. In the end, all he left me was the back of his head.

The onlookers, seeing the show was over, drifted away one by one until I was the only one left standing there.

I rose slowly, rubbing my knees where feeling was just beginning to return, and headed for the hospital.

The money was finally enough.

As long as Bella would be okay, every ounce of humiliation I'd swallowed today was worth it.

I practically sprinted through the hospital entrance to the billing counter. When the clerk printed out the payment receipt and placed it in my hands, the weight I'd been carrying in my chest finally lifted.

Bella was propped up against her pillows, still pale but with far more color in her cheeks than before. She held a storybook in her small hands, reading quietly. When she heard footsteps, she looked up. The moment she saw it was me, her eyes lit up and a gentle smile spread across her face.

"Ebony!"

My eyes burned. Tears spilled before I could stop them.

The little girl who had once lain in the ICU, tubes snaking from every part of her body, lifeless and still, was finally getting better.

My thoughts drifted back, years and years ago.

I was still at Manning Orphanage then. Mama Bridget Manning had been so good to me.

She was like a real mother. She braided my hair. She snuck me candy when no one was looking.

She told me that as long as she was alive, I would never go hungry.

No one could have predicted what happened the next day. Mama Bridget was hit by a car.

In those final, desperate seconds, she used every ounce of strength to shield her own daughter in her arms. The impact killed her on the spot, her blood painting the asphalt.

Before she died, she held my hand and repeated the same words over and over:

"Ebony, please take care of Bella for me. Promise me you'll look after her..."

I sobbed so hard I could barely breathe, but I nodded. I nodded with everything I had.

Bella was rushed into the ICU with critical injuries. She stayed there for two full years.

During those two years, her medical bills became a mountain crushing the air from my lungs. I worked every job I could find, skipped meals, pinched every penny. But the little I scraped together was a drop in the ocean against the cost of her treatment.

So, with nowhere left to turn, I spent every last cent of my savings to enroll in the Gold-Digger Training Program.

I knew it wasn't an honorable path. But I had no other choice. If it meant raising enough money to wake Bella up and fulfill Mama Bridget's dying wish, I was willing to pay any price.

After the program ended, I deliberately sought out Mick Delgado. Step by step, I inserted myself into his world, molding myself into the kind of woman he wanted, all so I could get money from him.

Over the years, the money I got from Mick allowed me to take Bella to specialists everywhere. I watched her improve little by little. First she couldn't move at all. Then she could sit up. Then she could speak.

Every small change gave me the strength to stay by Mick's side one more day.

"Ebony, what are you thinking about?"

Bella's voice pulled me back from my thoughts.

I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes and smiled, ruffling her hair.

"I'm thinking about where I should take my Bella once she's out of the hospital."

Her eyes lit up instantly. She opened her mouth to speak, but the door to the room slammed open.

I looked up. Standing in the doorway were Mick and Hester.

I'll admit, seeing Mick there caught me completely off guard.

I had once mentioned to him that I had an important family member who really wanted to meet him. He'd just frowned, his tone cold and impatient:

"You think I have time for that?"

Those words were seared into my memory. So why was he here now?

Before I could process it, Hester was already clinging to Mick's arm, striding into the room. She swept her gaze over me and Bella, and a cruel smile curled at the corner of her lips.

"See, Mick? I wasn't lying." She jabbed a finger toward Bella on the hospital bed, her voice climbing to a shrill pitch. "Look at this! Ebony's been cheating on you! Her daughter's already this big! I always said she was sneaking off to the hospital for no reason, acting all secretive. Turns out she was visiting this little bastard."

Bella flinched at the sound of her voice and grabbed the hem of my shirt, her eyes wide with terror.

In that moment, every last thread of my restraint snapped.

Hester could humiliate me. She could drag me through the mud. I could take it.

But she had no right to use words that vile against a child who had just clawed her way back from the edge of death and still hadn't fully recovered.

Rage whited out my vision. I shot to my feet, and before Hester could react, my palm connected with her face.

The slap cracked through the hospital room like a gunshot.

Hester's head snapped to the side. She clutched her cheek, and a shrill, piercing wail tore out of her:

"You bitch! How dare you hit me?!"

I stood there, chest heaving, my eyes locked on hers like ice.

"Apologize to Bella."