### Chapter 3

"Tell her to get out already!" Alice shrieked, her eyes bloodshot as she thrashed against him. She was naked, clinging to my equally bare husband, right in front of me.

The impact of that image defied words.

I dug my nails into my palms until the pain pushed back the wave of nausea. I had no doubt that one more second and I'd vomit all over them and that revolting pink waterbed.

Fortunately, Alice's frantic urging meant Dustin didn't so much as glance at the documents.

His pen slashed across every signature line, fast and careless, like he was swatting away a fly. Then he lifted his head and fixed me with a look that said get out. Now.

I didn't linger. I grabbed the papers, turned on my heel, and slammed the door behind me.

The bang echoed down the hallway like a declaration—three years of marriage, shattered beyond repair.

I made it to the top of the stairs before my legs gave out. I slid to the floor, curled against the wall, and crumpled into myself. A bitter laugh escaped, tangled with tears I couldn't stop and blood that hadn't yet dried.

A long time passed before I wiped the mess of blood and tears from my face and forced myself upright.

"Cecily."

I turned. Dustin had followed me out. He'd thrown on loungewear, but it did nothing to hide the angry red marks across his chest—hickeys and scratch lines, vivid as accusations.

I thought he might say something. Ask about the documents. Ask whether the gash on my face needed tending.

"Don't come in unannounced again. It upsets Alice."

That was all. A cold warning. A dismissal.

"Don't worry." My voice came out so calm it startled even me. "I won't be around to upset your mistress anymore. I'm grabbing a few things and leaving, Mr. Delgado."

The word mistress landed like a slap. His expression curdled.

But I was already walking toward the guest room.

Dustin had moved all my belongings in there long ago—locked everything away so the sight of my things wouldn't upset Alice.

His gifts filled half the room. Plush teddy bears. Limited-edition Chanel bags flown in from overseas. A museum of devotion from a man who no longer existed.

Back then, he'd chased me like a man possessed. He knew I loved Chanel, so he had people ship the latest collections from abroad. He knew I loved teddy bears, so he'd bring one home from every business trip. I'd kept every single piece, imagining the day I'd have a child and could tell her the story of how her mom and dad fell in love.

I shoved it all into a suitcase. Fast. Without a shred of sentimentality.

A man's silhouette appeared in the doorway. "You're taking all of that?"

My hands didn't stop. "No. I'm throwing it away."

He paused, as if he'd misheard. "Throwing it away? All of it? These are gifts I gave you. You always treasured them. You said you'd keep them forever."

I didn't look up. I kept stuffing things into the suitcase. "People get tired of old things. That's human nature. Doesn't matter if it's a person or a possession—once it's old, you don't need it anymore."

Something strange crossed his face, a flicker of displeasure he couldn't quite mask. He wasn't used to this version of me. The Cecily who used to gaze up at him adoringly, who cherished every smile, every gift—how could she possibly throw his presents away?

He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the housekeeper appeared in the doorway.

"Sir, the missus isn't feeling well. You should go check on her right away."

Dustin's expression shifted instantly to alarm. He tossed out a parting line without looking back: "Fine, throw them out. I'll buy you new ones. Finish packing and leave."

He was gone before the words finished hanging in the air. Hurried footsteps pounded up the staircase.

I smiled bitterly. He didn't need to tell me twice. I didn't want to spend another second in this house.

I crammed the last of it into the suitcase, grabbed only a small bag of essentials, and stepped out of the guest room. The moment I did, hushed laughter drifted from around the staircase landing—two of the household staff, voices low but not low enough.

"The missus really hit the jackpot, didn't she? He spoils her rotten. Cooks all three meals himself, carries the plates right to her. Honestly, his cooking's better than any restaurant."

My feet stopped moving.

"Right?" another voice chimed in. "Compared to Miss Harding, don't you think she's the one who acts like the real Mrs. Delgado? If you ask me, it's only a matter of time before the Harding girl gets tossed out for good."

"Shh, keep it down…"

"Oh, relax. She can't hear us."

I stood there, perfectly still.

Dustin used to refuse to set foot in a kitchen. He'd said a man's hands were meant for making money, not holding a spatula.

He was impossibly picky about food—he'd take a few bites of restaurant meals and push the plate away. So I cooked every meal myself, rotating through recipes to keep him interested. Some nights I'd spend three or four hours in the kitchen just to perfect a single dish he loved.

Yet somehow, in the year I hadn't known about, he'd taught himself to cook. For Alice.

All that tenderness I thought belonged to me had been given to someone else long ago.

No. Maybe it had never been mine to begin with.

The gossip continued, but I walked past as if I'd heard nothing, heading straight for the front door.

A slender, pale hand blocked my path.

Alice.

She wore an obscenely short lace nightgown, the hem barely grazing the tops of her thighs. The smell clung to her—that unmistakable, nauseating musk of what had just happened upstairs—and it flooded my nostrils.

I was about to tell her to move when she produced something from behind her hand.

A pregnancy test.

Two unmistakable red lines filled my vision, and the vein at my temple began to throb.

"I'm pregnant." Alice's smile spread wide, dripping with triumph and venom, like a snake flicking its tongue to show off a fresh kill. "Dustin was thrilled when he found out."

Her lips kept moving. "You saw it all just now, didn't you? To celebrate our baby, he was absolutely insatiable with me. That waterbed? He bought it just for me. Said it makes things more… comfortable."

Her eyes locked onto mine, hungry for the breakdown. Waiting for the tears. Waiting for me to fall apart and flee the way I always had before.

But I was eerily calm. I refused to give her what she wanted.

My lack of reaction infuriated her.

Frustration radiated off her like heat from a furnace, so intense her smug smile began to crack at the edges. She leaned closer, voice dropping to something more vicious.

"Oh," she murmured, soft and poisonous, like an old friend sharing a secret. "I know what will break you."

She brought her lips to my ear and spoke slowly, savoring every word:

"For instance… that baby you lost six months ago. Did you really think it was an accident?"

Every muscle in my body locked.

My blood turned to ice water.

"What did you just say?"

### Chapter 4

Something snapped inside my head. I lunged forward and seized Alice's arm, gripping so hard my knuckles went white. "What do you mean it wasn't an accident? Explain yourself!"

In that instant, I understood. This woman wasn't insane. She hadn't lost her memory. Every single bit of it was deliberate.

"Please, Cecily, stop! Don't do this to me!"

Alice's voice transformed in a heartbeat. Terrified. Fragile. A trembling little doe cornered by a predator. Then she grabbed my wrist, angling her body as though I were the one shoving her, and threw herself headfirst into the wall.

Before I could even react, Dustin came charging out of nowhere and slammed into me. I hit the floor hard, the impact rattling through every organ in my body.

"Alice, are you okay?" His voice shook. His hands flew over her head, her face, her body, searching frantically for injuries.

"Oh God, she's lost her mind..." Alice curled into his arms, whimpering weakly. The posture, the expression, every micro-movement polished to perfection, as if she'd rehearsed it a thousand times.

"That vile woman attacked me," she sobbed, her voice choked with tears yet every syllable bitten off with surgical precision. "She grabbed my head and slammed it into the wall. She kept screaming that she's your wife. My head hurts so much..."

Tears streamed down her cheeks. So innocent. So pitiful.

Dustin turned to look at me. His gaze cut like a blade dragged across bare skin. I opened my mouth, but my throat sealed shut. Not a single word came out.

"I didn't," I finally managed, my voice cracking. "I didn't slam her. She did it to herself. She's lying!"

The fury in Dustin's eyes only deepened.

"So now you're calling her a liar? Calling my wife a liar?"

"Wife?" I couldn't stop myself from repeating the word. My expression must have been grotesque. "Dustin, who exactly is your wife?"

He shielded Alice behind him. Only her eyes were visible past his shoulder, fixed on me, glittering with undisguised triumph.

"Shut your mouth!" The rage in his dark pupils had become something uncontainable. "You've gone too far, Cecily. Alice is fragile enough as it is. How could you be this cruel to her?"

"She slammed herself into that wall!"

The words tore out of me in a ragged scream, my voice splitting apart.

Then I remembered what Alice had said moments ago. My head snapped up, and I couldn't stop myself from hurling the question at the bastard standing in front of me.

"My baby. The one I lost. Was that really an accident?!"

"Enough!" Dustin sucked in a breath and grabbed me by the collar, hauling me close. His voice dropped to a snarl only the two of us could hear.

"Whatever Alice told you, she's mentally unstable. You can't take the words of a deranged person seriously."

"That baby." His gaze cooled degree by degree until there was nothing left but ice. "You have no one to blame but yourself. You were pregnant and still went running around in the middle of the night. That's what caused the miscarriage. Who else is there to blame?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Did he really not know why I'd gone out that night?

It was this woman, this fraud playing her little madness charade, who had insulted one of his biggest clients to his face, called the man a backwater hick, and sent him storming out on the spot.

To salvage a deal worth hundreds of millions a year, I'd dragged myself out into the pouring rain in the dead of night to beg forgiveness.

I knelt outside that hotel entrance for three solid hours. My knees were raw and bleeding by the time the man finally relented, saying he'd give Delgado Group one more chance, for my sake alone.

And in Dustin's mouth, that became me "running around." Whatever warmth was left inside me turned to ash.

"Lately, you've really disappointed me." He looked down at me the way someone looks at a disobedient pet, his eyes brimming with nothing but impatience. "Someone take her to the basement. She can stay there until she's reflected on what she did wrong."

A violent tremor ripped through my body. Did he not know I was afraid of the dark?

I clutched the hem of his jacket, begging. "No! Dustin, don't you remember? I'm afraid of the dark."

After we married, once he found out about my fear, Dustin always left a light on for me no matter how late I came home. He never let me go near dark, cramped places like the basement.

Now he was going to lock me in there. For her.

Dustin pried my fingers off one by one, staring down at me from his full height. His voice held no trace of warmth. "Of course I remember."

"But if I don't do this, how will you ever learn your lesson? How will you stop tormenting Alice?"

No matter how I struggled, I couldn't earn a single look of mercy from him.

All he saw was that insignificant red mark on Alice's forehead.

He couldn't see the blood on my face. The swollen handprint. He could only see Alice.

A wretched laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

I gasped for air like a fish dragged onto dry land, my body limp, boneless, as the bodyguards hauled me into the basement and tossed me inside.

The heavy door groaned shut. In the last sliver of light, I saw Alice nestled in Dustin's arms, peering over his shoulder at me, her lips curving into a smile as sweet as it was venomous.

I closed my eyes in despair.

Darkness swallowed me whole. I spiraled into endless panic, endless terror, until consciousness slipped away entirely and everything went black.

### Chapter 5

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the hotel. I had no idea when or how I'd been brought here.

Sunlight sliced through the window. I stared at the ceiling for a long time before the memories pieced themselves together. The basement. The darkness. Passing out. They'd tossed me in there like a broken piece of furniture they no longer had use for.

Dustin's messages sat waiting on my phone.

"Letting it slide this time. Alice's condition is unstable. You'd better not provoke her again, or I'll make sure you learn your lesson."

"I'm taking her abroad for treatment. I won't be able to go to your prenatal appointments."

I'd barely finished reading when my phone buzzed again—the notification tone I'd set for priority alerts. Alice had updated her social media.

In the photo, a man's familiar back filled the frame. A woman rested her head on his shoulder, the two of them nestled together against a backdrop of glaciers and penguins in Antarctica.

The caption was only a few words: "With you, to the ends of the earth."

I stared at that photo for a very, very long time.

When we got married, I'd made a list of all the places I wanted to visit with Dustin. Every time I brought it up, he'd say the same thing: "Sure, Cecily. Once I close this deal, we'll go."

"Cecily, just let me get through this busy stretch, and we'll go."

"Once the project launches, I promise I'll take you."

"Once..."

So I waited. And waited. I waited past our wedding anniversary. I waited through a pregnancy and a miscarriage. I waited as time slipped through my fingers like water and love dissolved like smoke, and still, not once did we take that trip for two.

The first place on my list had been Antarctica. To see the penguins.

He'd gone to Antarctica after all. With Alice Dotson.

How absurd.

I closed out of Alice's page and tossed my phone onto the bed. A notification popped up on the screen: Your scheduled termination procedure is today at 3:00 PM.

I rushed to the hospital. The nurse glanced around when she saw me alone, professional concern settling across her face. "Where's your family? You may need someone to look after you post-op."

"My husband is dead."

I said it calmly. She blinked, then her expression softened into sympathy.

She helped me change into a surgical gown, her hands gentle as she guided me onto the gurney.

The ceiling tiles slid past overhead, one by one, as I was wheeled down the corridor. Harsh white light carried me into the operating room.

The surgical lamp blazed down, so bright it made my eyes ache. I closed them. Cold instruments probed inside me. A tiny life, scraped away from my body. Tears blurred my vision once more.

The next time I surfaced, it was the sound of voices outside my room that pulled me back.

"To help Mrs. Delgado carry the baby to term, Mr. Delgado actually flew in the best specialists from all over the world to our hospital. I heard he even got certified as a nutritionist, just to make sure the Delgado heir is born healthy."

A second woman's voice dropped to a whisper. "But I heard this 'Mrs. Delgado' is actually his sister-in-law? So what about his real wife? That poor woman..."

"Shh! Do you want to get fired? That topic is off-limits at this hospital. Keep your mouth shut!"

Footsteps retreated. The corridor fell silent.

I lay on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling. Motionless.

My child had never once had his father present for a single prenatal checkup. Not one, right up until the termination.

Her child was given the best of everything the world had to offer.

I slowly turned my head toward the television mounted on the wall. An entertainment segment was playing. A private jet sat on a runway, and Dustin was helping Alice down the stairs, a procession of bodyguards, attendants, and medical staff trailing behind them.

"Sources say Delgado Group CEO Dustin Delgado has spared no expense in chartering a private jet for a global trip to pamper his wife during her pregnancy. The couple's devotion has left the public green with envy..."

I remembered an urgent meeting once that required a fourteen-hour flight. I'd mentioned it offhandedly: "It'd be nice if we could take the private jet. It'd be so much more comfortable."

He'd looked at me with open disapproval. "Cecily, if you can't handle a little discomfort, how are you going to set an example for the employees at Delgado Group? As CEO, I have to lead by example."

Now I understood. He wasn't principled. He simply didn't think I was worth making an exception for.

Over the next few days, Alice posted more from their travels.

Notre-Dame Cathedral. She leaned into Dustin's arms, Gothic spires rising behind them.

The Pampas grasslands. He grilled steak for her with his own hands. She photographed his busy silhouette and his smoke-flushed face.

The Great Rift Valley in East Africa. He crouched on the ground and caught her vomit in his bare hands. The photo was blurry, as if taken candidly, but the caption dripped with pride: "Morning sickness hit. He panicked and just caught it with his hands."

Every landscape I'd fantasized about a thousand times, every destination I'd never reached—Alice Dotson had claimed them all.

I was more certain than ever. Alice knew exactly what she was doing. She'd been faking her illness the entire time. All of it, to steal Dustin from me.

Finally, the sixth day arrived. Tomorrow evening was the time my father and I had agreed upon.

The sun was sinking. I stood by the window, slid the wedding band off my ring finger, and dropped it into the trash can with a sharp clink.

Out of nowhere, a large hand with pronounced knuckles reached past me and fished it out bare-handed.

"Cecily, you threw away our wedding ring?" Dustin's fingers were smeared with filth from the trash, but he gripped the ring tight, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Why?"

His little vacation with her was over, then.

"No reason." My voice was flat. "You stopped wearing yours a long time ago."

I glanced at his ring finger. Our wedding band was long gone. In its place sat a custom-made matching ring—the one he'd spent a fortune designing as a set with Alice's.

"I've told you over and over, Alice and I are just putting on an act." His voice rose, edged with the kind of anger that comes from being caught. "Do you have to be this unreasonable?"

Unreasonable. In the past, those words would have gutted me. I would have been devastated, drowning in hurt.

But now, even feeling hurt was just another form of self-destruction.

"You're right. I'm being unreasonable." My tone was as flat as a weather report. "Happy now?"

He froze, as if he couldn't believe those words had come out of my mouth. Then irritation creased his brow, and he changed the subject with blunt force. "I don't have time for this. The family banquet is tomorrow. Be there early."

I paused. "You still need me there?" The Delgado family banquet—that symbol of status and belonging.

"You are carrying my child, after all. Come quietly, and don't stir up trouble with Alice."

The way he said it, like he was granting me a favor. As if I really were the other woman, permitted to attend only because I happened to be carrying Dustin Delgado's baby, and even then, I had to sneak in through the back door.

It didn't matter. This would be the last time anyway.

Dustin fixed me with a hard stare. Something flickered in the depths of his eyes—a thread of unease he couldn't quite name.

I nodded.

"Alright. I'll be there on time."

He exhaled, the tension leaving his shoulders so subtly it was almost imperceptible.