The last candle flickered out.

"So," Lucas asked, his voice low and smooth. "What wish did you make?"

Under the warm glow of the chandelier, Lucas Delgado looked just as he always had—handsome, composed, his eyes holding a deceptive gentleness.

"Lucas."

I offered a faint smile, reached into the drawer, and pulled out the document I'd prepared days ago. I slid it across the table until it rested beside his wine glass.

"Let's get a divorce."

——

The smile froze on his face.

Silence stretched between us. After a few seconds, the tenderness in his eyes vanished, replaced by familiar, chilling contempt. He swept a glance over the papers.

"Alex," he sighed, sounding bored. "What kind of tantrum is this?"

He picked up the agreement, his demeanor shifting to cold arrogance.

"Back then, you were the one who screamed and cried, refusing to leave. You threatened suicide just to stay married to me. Now you're playing hard to get?"

"Lucas—"

Click.

His lighter cut me off.

The flame danced in his pitch-black eyes. I watched, unmoving, as he touched fire to the corner of the document.

"You think a piece of paper scares me?" He tossed the burning pages into the ashtray. "You think this little stunt will make me bow down?"

Smoke curled upward, carrying the scent of burning ink.

Lucas rounded the table. Before I could react, his hand clamped around my jaw, forcing my head up, his grip bruising.

"Or is it something else?" He leaned in, breath hot against my ear. "Has it been too long, Alex? Starved for attention?"

His tone was frivolous, insulting. His free hand slid over the curve of my waist.

A shiver ran through me—not pleasure. Revulsion.

His touch triggered a memory, sharp and agonizing. The mistress he kept in luxury. The day I'd finally snapped.

The day I learned exactly what I was worth to him.

I'd stood in the center of our living room, tears streaming, pointing at the girl on the sofa. She looked barely out of college—fresh, innocent, everything I no longer was.

"What did I do wrong?" I'd screamed. "You have to sneak around with her?"

I'd collapsed to my knees.

"I've been with you since I was sixteen, Lucas! I followed you when you had nothing. We lived in a basement! We built this empire together!" My voice cracked. "And now you're throwing me away for this?"

Desperate. Broken. Pleading for a shred of humanity.

Lucas's stare held nothing but ice.

"Did I beg you to follow me at sixteen?"

He stepped closer, looking down at me like something stuck to his shoe.

"Did I ask for your charity? No. You had no shame. You clung to me like a parasite." He scoffed. "What decent girl runs off with a man at sixteen? You were loose. Desperate."

"Disgusting."

The words scraped against my bones. I lunged at him, wanting to hurt him, wanting to die with him—but he caught my wrist and shoved me to the floor.

"Big sister."

Yara Chavez stood up, looking down from the safety of Lucas's side, a cruel smirk on her lips.

"If I were you," she drawled, "I'd find a quiet place and end it all."

Her laughter rang out, high and mocking. "To be despised by your own husband like this... how much of a failure are you?"

She hooked her arm through Lucas's, pouting up at him. "Honey, how did I not notice your bad taste before? Such an old hag... how did you ever stomach her?"

Lucas didn't defend me. Didn't even look away.

"Yeah," he murmured, eyes cold as they bored into mine. "How did I ever stomach her?"

Now, back in the dining room, the memory faded. The nausea didn't.

I felt Lucas's fingers slide under the hem of my dress, presumptuous, demanding. He was about to probe further, assuming I was still the same pathetic woman who'd accept his scraps.

Goosebumps erupted across my skin. My stomach churned, acid rising. I didn't even have time to turn away.

I retched. All over him.

Lucas froze.

He looked down at his ruined bespoke suit, face twisting from shock to pure fury. His hand recoiled like he'd been burned.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Seeing the disgust on his face, I felt no shame.

Only satisfaction.

For the first time in years, I threw my head back and laughed.

"Lucas."

My voice cut through the silence like a blade.

"You're absolutely right. What kind of decent girl runs off with a man at sixteen? What kind of person shamelessly elopes and leaves everything behind?"

I rose from the sofa and met his gaze. His face twisted with ugly irritation.

"Me," I said coldly. "That was me."

"So what?" he scoffed.

I grabbed the cake from the table. With one vicious swing, I smashed it directly into his face.

Cream splattered everywhere. Before he could explode, I cut him off. "I've already let you off easy."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he roared, clawing frosting from his eyes. "What more do you want?"

"What more?"

I snatched my phone and shoved the screen inches from his cream-smeared face. Yara Chavez's message glowed on the display.

"Your girlfriend says you bought her that necklace I've wanted for years," I said, my voice arctic. "Apparently, that was her price for 'allowing' you one hour to light a candle for me. Should I be grateful?"

His jaw clenched, but I wasn't done.

"Am I supposed to feel lucky you spent millions on her just to spare me sixty minutes? If you love this cake so much, Lucas, it's all yours."

I turned to leave, but his hand locked around my wrist. Frosting dripped down his face, making his fury almost comical—yet his grip was iron. Those eyes I'd adored for ten years now glared at me, cold and hard.

"Alex," he hissed. "Haven't you made enough of a scene? I promised to spend your birthday with you, and I'm here. I kept my word. Stop looking for reasons to be miserable."

He still thought this was a jealous tantrum. A desperate bid for his attention.

He was wrong.

The body never lies. And right now, my skin crawled where he touched me.

I stared at his hand on my arm. Nausea churned in my stomach. I wrenched free, grabbed a wet wipe, and scrubbed my wrist until the skin turned raw—desperate to erase the feel of him.

"Lucas." I dropped the soiled wipe. "I don't need this anymore."

I looked him dead in the eye.

"And I don't love you anymore."

He stared at my reddened wrist, stunned. The realization hit him like a slap. His bloodshot eyes searched my face before he let out a cold, hollow laugh.

"Fine." His voice turned to ice. "Don't you dare regret this, Alex."

He stormed out and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the walls.

I stood in the wreckage of the living room, frozen, until my phone buzzed.

Yara. She didn't miss a beat.

Big Sister, three million for one hour. Why don't you know how to cherish it?

A selfie followed—Yara preening, the diamond necklace glittering at her throat.

Honestly? You aren't worth three million. I wouldn't pay thirty. But what can I do? Lucas is just too sentimental. No matter how successful he gets, he won't forget the wife who suffered through poverty with him.

I could hear her mocking laughter through the screen. The arrogance Lucas had bred in her.

It was always the same. Whenever Yara attacked me, he defended her.

"Yara is young," he'd say. "She doesn't know any better. You're not a child, Alex. Why stoop to her level over petty things?"

He never hid his bias. From the day I discovered her, the scales had never tipped in my favor.

The worst was when he threatened divorce.

He'd looked me in the eye, his voice stripped of empathy. "Alex, I won't let Yara live without status. I won't let her be tormented by your jealousy until she breaks."

I stared at the divorce agreement. The icy legal clauses blurred before my eyes, and something inside me snapped.

A red haze clouded my vision. I lunged at Lucas, sinking my teeth into his arm like a rabid animal. I bit down until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. When my strength finally gave out, I collapsed.

I didn't stop there. I retreated to the bathroom, climbed into the tub, and opened my veins.

Crimson dyed the water, turning the room into a slaughterhouse.

That was what it took to make Lucas panic. That was what it took to scare him away from Yara's side and back to me.

"Alex."

He wept until he collapsed beside me, holding my bandaged form. "I never wanted you to die. I don't want your life, Alex."

"Alex..."

I had walked through the gates of hell and back. My body was so frail the doctor warned against any agitation. Yet Lucas felt the need to clarify his position right then and there.

"I can give you anything," he sobbed, trembling against me. "I can ensure you remain Mrs. Delgado. I can give you wealth, status, power. Anything..."

He looked up, eyes swollen, and delivered the final blow.

"...anything except love. I just can't love you anymore, Alex."

I watched him break down. I watched this powerful CEO reduced to a helpless child. And then I watched him sit by my hospital bed, waiting until he thought I was asleep to whisper comforting words to Yara over the phone.

In that moment, the tether snapped.

The Lucas I had tried to keep hostage with my life didn't matter anymore. The love I had tried to force was worthless.

So when I finally recovered enough to bring up the divorce again, I sent the agreement to him.

But Lucas didn't respond.

Yara did.

She invited me to a café—one of those trendy, chic spots designed for social media photos.

"Alex Henson," Yara began, gesturing around the room. "I heard that since you were little, you wanted a shop like this. Something leisurely and elegant. A place to just be with the person you love. Is that right?"

I looked at the woman across from me. Young, vibrant, her skin so dewy it looked like it would bruise if touched.

"I also heard about your family," she continued, voice dripping with faux sympathy. "You came from wealth, yet you refused to listen to their advice. You insisted on being with Lucas. Even when he had nothing, you followed him into the gutter."

Yara stirred her coffee, the spoon clinking against porcelain.

"When things were hardest, I heard your basement apartment leaked wind and water. Lucas told me that when it poured outside, it drizzled inside. The wind cut right through the walls. The bedding was always damp, impossible to warm. But even then, you thought you were happy."

Yes.

The year I eloped with Lucas.

We were so destitute we couldn't keep food on the table. We split a single steamed bun for dinner. Outside, the storm raged; inside, the roof leaked. We sat on the damp mattress, watching water drip into plastic buckets—drip, drip, drip—and joked that we had a natural sunroom with a water feature.

Back then, we were so poor that love was our only currency.

We clung to each other, desperate to give the other a better life. We treated every twenty-four hours like forty-eight, working ourselves to the bone.

During our busiest year, Lucas and I didn't sleep for five days straight. Not a single hour.

When we finally signed the deal that changed everything, Lucas held me, weeping. His eyes were red, his voice hoarse as he shouted my name to the empty office.

"Alex! We made it! We finally made it!"

"Alex Henson," Yara said, slicing through the memory. "The year you 'made it,' your body paid the price."

Her gaze dropped to my lower abdomen.

"You lost a child, didn't you? And from that day on, you lost the right to ever be a mother."

My hand tightened around my coffee cup, knuckles turning white.

It was the one trauma Lucas and I never spoke of. The tacit understanding we buried deep.

That night, amidst the celebration of our first major victory, Lucas's embrace had been gentle, as if he wanted to merge his soul with mine. I didn't even have time to return the hug before I felt the warmth spreading between my legs.

A massive hemorrhage.

The price of his empire was my blood.