I broke down completely. "She was your brother's woman! You slept with her. How could you do that to George?"

I pointed straight at Joan. "Didn't you swear you'd stay faithful to George for the rest of your life? Sleeping with your own brother-in-law is what you call faithfulness?"

Slap!

A searing sting exploded across my face.

Ryan's hand still hung in the air.

"Joan and my brother were never married. Who gave you the right to say something so vile?"

I stared in disbelief at the husband I'd once been so intimate with. He hadn't hit me because I'd insulted him. He'd hit me because I'd insulted Joan.

Joanie. That was what he called her. With me, it was always "Catherine," except in the heat of passion.

So all those nights, all the tenderness I thought was love, I'd been nothing more than Joan's stand-in.

I tilted my head back, forcing the tears not to fall, refusing to let myself look any more pathetic than I already did.

Joan rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Ryan, her voice soft and reproachful. "Honestly, you don't know the first thing about being gentle with a woman. Catherine is still carrying your child. If something happens to her, how will you explain that to Grandma?"

She made it sound like she was defending me. In reality, she was flaunting how much Ryan favored her.

Ryan shifted uncomfortably. "I got carried away just now, but you were the one who started cursing at Joan first..."

"Ryan. We're done."

"I'll have the baby delivered to the Floyd family after it's born."

He suddenly grew agitated. "What's that supposed to mean? You'd abandon our own child?"

"So it can be a constant reminder that I was tricked? That this baby is the product of someone's lie?"

I didn't remember how I made it back to my room.

When violent pounding erupted against the door, everything that had happened over the past few days still felt like a nightmare I hadn't woken from.

"Catherine Cooley, someone has reported you for stealing data from the Design Institute. You need to come with us for an investigation."

My hands were wrenched behind my back and cuffed. I struggled against the security officers. "Who reported me? It was Ryan, wasn't it?"

The man's expression shifted to something like smug confirmation. "Looks like Engineer Floyd wasn't wrong about you after all. Let's go."

In the dead of night, I was tied to a post in the central courtyard of Ryan's workplace, subjected to interrogation by everyone present.

"If Engineer Floyd hadn't put in a good word for you, you'd already be at the police station."

Hostile faces swarmed in front of me, one after another. My skull buzzed so loudly I could barely think.

"Look at you. God knows whose bastard that is in your belly, and yet you had the nerve to try marrying Engineer Floyd."

"Engineer Floyd is a son of the Floyd family of Southport. You think someone like you could ever be worthy of him?"

"Having a woman like you harassing him, Engineer Floyd must have the worst luck in eight lifetimes."

Winter was closing in. The night wind slashed across my skin like a blade.

My lower abdomen tightened, little by little. Tears spilled as I begged. "I've never seen any data. I'm being framed."

"I need to see Ryan Floyd. The baby I'm carrying is his."

"Ryan Floyd tricked me into marriage. He used forged marriage certificates to make me think I was his wife."

"Since you all know the Floyd family, then you should know that if anything happens to a Floyd heir on your watch, every last one of you will pay for it."

A palm cracked across my face. The man grabbed my collar and cursed under his breath.

"I'm already sick of that Floyd kid riding his family's coattails to the top. And now you, you little tramp, think you can threaten me too?"

He patted my swollen belly and sneered. "If what's in there is really a Floyd, I'll eat my own shoe."

The line drew instant laughter from the crowd.

People surged forward from below, hands grabbing at me from every direction. Some were furious that I'd dared set my sights on Ryan. Others, like the man himself, were simply taking out their jealousy and resentment of Ryan on me.

They were wary enough of the baby in my belly not to truly hurt me, but pulling my hair and pinching my arms were fair game.

Through the blur of shifting figures, I spotted Ryan.

He stood outside the crowd, his lips moving silently.

I read what he meant. He was saying: Still determined to leave the Floyd family?

He was trying to force me to submit. To force me to admit I was wrong.

I struggled, shoving past the people in front of me, and screamed in his direction:

"Ryan Floyd, you took your brother's wife for yourself. You have no shame."

"And her, crawling into her brother-in-law's bed. Joan Short is just as disgusting."

"You two are a match made in hell."

Ryan closed the distance in a few sharp strides, his eyes boring into mine. "Catherine, you brought this on yourself."

Then he raised his voice for everyone to hear: "That data is critical to the entire experiment. Comrade Cooley would do well to come clean."

The moment those words left his mouth, everyone present understood exactly what he meant. They came at me without hesitation, emboldened.

By the time I collapsed on the ground, too exhausted to fight, I reached a hand toward him.

"Ryan, let me go. If this keeps up, something will happen to the baby."

He didn't even glance at me. He let them drag me into a pitch-black holding cell.

"Consider yourself lucky tonight. If we didn't have to welcome the chief engineer from headquarters tomorrow, you think we'd let you off this easy?"

The subordinate shut the door and turned to the man with a fawning grin.

"Don't worry, Director Fox. As long as she's in our hands, she's ours to deal with. She might survive today, but can she survive tomorrow?"

My dead heart ignited in an instant. He was coming.

He would never stand by and watch someone bully me.

Beyond the wall, outside the building, the commotion was deafening. Everyone was preparing for the chief engineer's welcome reception.

"That chief engineer is even more important than Engineer Floyd."

"Not only does his family have serious clout, but his own talent is one of a kind."

"I heard he went to study in Western Europe at seventeen. By twenty-three, when he came back, he already had his doctorate. Took him only four years after that to become chief engineer at the National Institute."

"But the most surprising thing is why he's still unmarried."

"Back then, the rumors at Capital University were everywhere. They say even heroes fall for a beautiful woman, and once our chief engineer met his, he never got over her."

"Just two years ago, his old man practically dragged him to his own wedding, and he announced right there in front of everyone that he'd never marry."

"Of course, everyone knows the real reason. All that talk about never marrying is just because the woman he loves already married someone else."

I threw myself against the door and screamed at the two people passing by.

"You're talking about Cedric Mason, aren't you? I need to see him!"

"I'm the woman you're talking about. The one he refused to marry anyone but."

"If he finds out something happened to me, your entire institute, Ryan Floyd included, will pay for it."

The two of them scoffed, completely unfazed.

"Cedric-what? That man's so secretive, nobody even knows his name."

"And you're saying he'd fall for you? Something both Floyd brothers couldn't be bothered with? What, is the man blind? Wouldn't marry anyone but you?"

"And you're threatening that Engineer Floyd will pay? Do you even know what their relationship is?"

"By seniority, that chief engineer is basically Engineer Floyd's great-uncle on his mother's side. They're family."

I scrambled to describe Cedric's features, desperate to make them believe me.

But no one had ever seen Cedric Mason. Everything I said was dismissed as the ravings of a woman trying to talk her way out of trouble.

A familiar voice cut through the air. Joan Short.

"Make Ryan pay? Is that what you said?"

"Oh, Catherine. Ryan was kind enough not to hand you over to the police directly, and this is how you repay him?"

"You were always throwing yourself at him. That day, he said he didn't know you because he didn't want to give you any false hope. But who could have guessed you'd actually set out to destroy him? Stealing that data... It's truly chilling."

The two of them immediately turned to Joan, pressing for confirmation. "Is what you said true?"

"That woman's really that vicious?"

Joan rubbed the corner of her eye and nodded. After her footsteps faded into the distance, the two cursed under their breath.

"Goddamn it, we need to teach that bitch a lesson, or she'll really think we're pushovers."

"Engineer Floyd's too decent to stoop to her level, but that bitch repays kindness with spite. He might be able to swallow that, but I sure as hell can't."

...

The sky had barely begun to lighten when the door let out a sharp creak.

Then countless hands descended on me. Fistfuls of hair were ripped from my scalp, and the sound of fabric tearing filled the air in relentless waves.

Fingernails dug into flesh, searing pain blooming across every inch of my body, while filthy curses swirled through the room.

"Pregnant and still dressed like a slut. You'd crawl right into a man's pants if you could, wouldn't you?"

I didn't know how long it lasted before the mob finally spent their rage.

On their way out, a few more curses were spat, and a fist swung down on me for good measure.

But no one noticed that punch had landed squarely on my swollen belly.

A tearing pain ripped through my lower abdomen, and something warm and wet slid down between my legs.

I dragged myself toward the bolted door, but just as my fingers were about to touch it, everything went black.

When the pain jolted me awake again, I could no longer tell what was real and what was a dream.

The door was smashed open with brute force, and a figure came rushing toward me against the light.

His voice was ragged, shattered with fury.

"Ryan Floyd. I want your family to answer for this."