Chapter 1

After six months overseas, I finally closed a multi-billion-dollar deal.

But when I returned to the home I shared with Julian, the smart lock kept repeating: Unauthorized access. Please stay away.

Only after the facial recognition failed ten times did it trigger the automatic alarm.

A security guard’s baton slammed into the back of my knee, and the pain dropped me straight to the ground.

Through gritted teeth, I told him I was the lady of the house.

He looked me up and down, then laughed.

“You can’t even get through the front door, and you expect me to believe you’re Mrs. Hale?

“Everyone knows Mr. Hale dotes on his wife. He picks her up and drops her off every day, sends home piles of jewelry and designer bags. And then there's you... looking like a total charity case. As if a penniless nobody like you could ever pull off that lie.”

It felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over me.

Then I saw my best friend, Rachel, stepping out of the passenger seat of a luxury car that had just pulled up.

Julian got out after her, carrying her soft leather heels in one hand and lifting her son from the back seat with the other.

The moment Rachel walked up, the front door slid open automatically, and the smart system announced:

“Door unlocked. Welcome home, Princess Rachel.”

Chapter 1

The security guard immediately bent over backward for Rachel Carter.

“Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale—there was a thief trying to break in just now. I’ve already taken care of her.”

Rachel flushed and turned as if to explain, but the second her eyes met mine, all the color drained from her face.

“Waverly? When did you get back?”

She forced a smile.

“Why didn’t you tell us…” She stopped herself and quickly changed tack. “I mean, I’ll have the housekeeper add another place setting.”

She spun around too fast, caught one foot on the other, and nearly fell.

Julian caught her by the arm at once, a slight frown creasing his brow.

“You’re always in such a rush. How many times have I told you to slow down?”

My heart gave a sharp, ugly twist.

We had spent ten years side by side, but the tenderness in his voice was something I had never once heard directed at me.

The security guard hurried to pull me to my feet, grinning apologetically.

“So you’re a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Hale. The system alarm went off, and I thought you were a burglar.

“Just a misunderstanding. My mistake.”

Julian gave a brief acknowledgment and took my suitcase from my hand.

I stared at him.

“You deleted my face profile?”

His answer came easily, as if there were nothing strange about it.

“The system hit its limit for facial access, so the least-used profiles had to be removed. Yours went first.

“We can scan you back in later.”

Once inside, I watched Rachel direct the housekeeper to bring out the food as naturally as if she owned the place.

“Where’s Mrs. Warren?” I asked Julian.

Back in the early days of our startup, I drank my way through so many client dinners that I ended up with stomach bleeding.

Julian had interviewed more than a hundred cooks before finally finding Mrs. Warren, who specialized in light, nourishing Mediterranean dishes.

But the unfamiliar housekeeper now carrying plates out of the kitchen served nothing but food drenched in chili and spice.

Julian set out a child’s bowl and utensils with practiced ease.

“Ricky’s a picky eater. He wouldn’t touch Mrs. Warren’s cooking.

“We can’t just think about ourselves. We have to consider what a child likes too.”

But aside from the cola-glazed chicken wings, the rest of the meal was heavy, bold, and aggressively seasoned—the exact kind of food Rachel loved.

My appetite vanished.

When I went upstairs and pushed open the master bedroom door, I stopped cold.

The entire room had been repainted a sugary rose pink, and the nightstand held a cloying floral-fruit diffuser.

I was allergic to artificial fragrance.

And I hated pink.

Julian brushed past me in long strides and scooped up the pink bedding from the bed.

“I didn’t know you were coming back today, so I haven’t had time to clear it out.

“Rachel insisted the master bedroom had the best light, so I let her stay here."

“And the walls?” I asked. “She wanted those repainted too?”

Julian frowned, already sounding impatient.

“Wasn’t it you who said that as long as she was happy, none of that mattered?”

I clenched my fingers tight.

I remembered when we first moved into this house last year.

One wall in the master bedroom had been left unfinished. Julian—a CEO who never had time for anything—had gone to the home improvement store himself, bought paint, and stayed up half the night finishing it in pale blue.

A therapist had once told him blue might help stabilize my moods, and he had remembered.

I had struggled with insomnia for years, and without fail, he used to bring home fresh lavender every week and leave it by my bedside.

Chapter 2

Now, with those walls painted that harsh, glaring pink, the room made my skin crawl.

“Do we still have any blue paint in the house?” I asked.

Julian’s expression darkened.

“Why would we keep something like that around? What if a kid got into it and got sick?

“Come on. Pink is bright and cheerful. Not like that blue before—dark, heavy, suffocating.”

He flicked a cool glance my way, and for no reason at all, a chill ran straight through me.

For a moment, I honestly couldn’t tell.

Was suffocating about the color—

or about me?

I stood in the doorway and watched him, completely unconcerned, take a lace nightgown off the hanger and head for the guest room next door.

I had barely breathed in any of the diffuser, and already my whole body was itching. I’d scratched my arms raw.

Holding my breath, I went to the dresser and pulled open the drawer.

It was full of Rachel’s makeup.

“Where’s my allergy medicine?”

Julian had just started toward me when Rachel let out a scream downstairs.

“What happened?”

He turned around instantly and rushed out.

I didn’t ask again. I found the emergency first-aid kit myself and swallowed a loratadine tablet.

When I sat down on the bed, my mind drifted.

Back in our first year building the company, I’d once forced myself to test a shipment of fragrance samples from a factory, even though my skin was already reacting.

Julian was the one who found me unconscious in the office. He called an ambulance to take me to hospital, and the next morning, when I opened the door, I found him asleep on the floor outside.

He told me he was afraid something might happen to me in the middle of the night with no one around. So he stayed by my door, keeping watch until morning.

At that moment, I thought to myself: this is the man I’m meant to marry.

But now...

I stood at the top of the stairs and watched Julian lift Rachel’s burned finger to his mouth.

The second she saw me, Rachel jerked her hand back.

“Waverly, are you settled in? Come downstairs and eat.”

I shook my head.

“You two go ahead.”

Not long after, Julian came upstairs carrying a plate of food and set it down on the table with a hard thud.

“You just got home, and this is the attitude you’re giving everyone?

“Rachel was so worried you were upset that she couldn’t even eat. She took Ricky back to her room without touching a bite.”

I rolled up my pant leg and showed him the deep bruise darkening the back of my knee.

“I came back to my own home and got beaten by security like I was some trespasser.

“The food is all spicy too. Spicy food wrecks my stomach.”

My voice came out rough and strained.

“I’m not giving anyone attitude. I’m just exhausted.”

Julian’s face softened a little.

“The guard is new. It makes sense that he didn’t recognize you.”

I said nothing.

Rachel had spent ten years as a stay-at-home mom, and after her divorce, every job she applied for fell through.

I brought her into my company myself and trained her by hand.

But one careless mistake—a missing zero in a bid price—had cost the company a fortune.

To make up the loss, I volunteered for the overseas assignment.

Before I left, I must have reminded Julian a hundred times to look after her.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that in the short six months I’d been gone, she would be the one publicly paraded around as the lady of the house.

The new security guard didn’t know who I was.

But he knew Rachel as "Mrs. Hale."

Julian crouched down to inspect my injury.

“It’s not broken. Later I’ll put some liniment on it.”

Then he stood and turned for the door.

“I’m going to get Rachel and Ricky to eat. I’ll order you takeout while I’m at it.”

Then I heard a familiar set of footsteps on the stairs.

I hurried out at once.

“Dad. Mom. You finished treatment?”

My mother gripped my hand tightly.

“Waverly, you’ve lost weight.”

“I’m fine. Dad, let me help you back to your room so you can rest.”

My father was coughing so hard he could barely straighten up, and he was still trying to reassure me.

“I’m... I’m okay. I can walk.”

Then he turned, one hand braced against the wall, and staggered down the stairs.

I froze.

“Wait, the room is the other way, isn’t it?”

My mother answered carefully, like she was afraid to say too much.

“Our legs aren’t what they used to be. Going up and down the stairs is hard, so Julian moved us downstairs.”

I followed them to the basement.

The room couldn’t have been more than forty square feet. There was a narrow twin bed inside, and not even a window.

My voice shook.

“How could he put you in a place like this?”

Chapter 3

My mother blurted out anxiously, “It’s all right. It’s fine down here.”

My throat tightened instantly.

“There are still several guest rooms upstairs. How can you and Dad be living here?”

I strode back upstairs, only to discover that my parents’ old room had been turned into a child’s room.

My father’s oxygen concentrator sat abandoned in the corner, gathering dust. The massage chair I’d bought for them was buried under a pile of Rachel’s old clothes.

My mother hurried after me, trying to calm me down.

“Waverly, don’t be upset.

“We’re old. It doesn’t matter where we stay. Once your father gets better, we’ll go back home. We won’t keep being a burden to you and your husband.”

I closed my eyes for a moment.

“Mom, come with me. I’m booking you and Dad a hotel.

“We’re not staying in this house.”

The next morning, Julian finally called.

“Today’s Ricky’s birthday. He likes a lively house, so come celebrate tonight.”

He hadn’t even noticed I never came home.

I looked over at my parents asleep in their hotel bed and answered softly, “Okay.”

With my phone still clenched in my hand, my thoughts drifted back to three years ago.

That was when my father had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. The doctors told us his chances of survival were a mere ten percent.

My mother and I were terrified, completely at a loss.

Julian had moved without hesitation. He sold the family home his parents left him and brought in one of the most respected specialists from overseas.

Round after round of cutting-edge treatment had kept my father alive.

That was why the three of us were still together now.

I took a deep breath and decided to give him one more chance.

But when I got back to the office, my private office already had Rachel’s name on the door.

When I asked Julian about it, he explained with casual indifference,

“Rachel needs space to help Ricky with homework. Your office is bigger, and it’s quiet.”

He pointed to the coffee table off to the side.

“Besides, you’re leaving on another business trip next month anyway. You can rough it out here for a couple of days.”

My fingers dug into my palm.

Years of desk work had left me with chronic neck problems and splitting headaches.

Julian had once gone out of his way to have the perfect desk made for my height, along with a custom ergonomic office chair with a built-in massage function.

And now he expected me to hunch over a coffee table to work.

Rachel walked over, eyes red as if she might cry.

“Waverly, don’t blame Julian.

“Why don’t we switch? You can take the big office.”

Then she paused and added in a small voice,

“Even if the coffee table is a little low, it’s not ideal for Ricky to do homework there either. Bad posture can mess up a growing kid’s back. But he can tough it out for a few days.”

Julian stood up immediately.

“No need to switch. We’re doing it my way.”

Then he turned to me, impatience already creeping into his voice.

“Waverly, when did you get so hard to please?”

I was just about to respond when his secretary—my former college junior—spoke first.

“Come on, Waverly. Don’t fight Rachel over this. If she hadn’t stepped aside back then, that office wouldn’t even be yours.”

I stared at her, stunned.

Before I could say a word, Julian’s old classmate—the sales director who had been with us since the company started—cleared his throat and jumped in.

“Waverly, back in college, Rachel and Julian were the dream team. They won first place in every startup competition.

“You were the lucky one. You got what Rachel left behind, and that’s how you ended up in the vice president seat. It’s only fair to give it back now.”

Rachel and Julian had once been the golden pair in the business school. Everyone assumed they would end up together.

But right after graduation, Rachel married a wealthy heir and became a full-time housewife.

Julian and I built the company side by side after that. We spent years working shoulder to shoulder, and somewhere along the way, we fell in love.

I dug my nails into my palm and looked at Julian.

“Do you think that too?”

He rubbed his brow, already irritated.

“What difference does it make where you sit? Stop making a scene. I have a meeting.”

It felt like my throat had been filled with lead. I couldn’t force out a single word.

Finally, I said, “Fine. She can have it all.”

Including you.

Chapter 4

I had barely stepped out of the office when my phone started vibrating in my pocket.

It was the hospital.

“Ms. Smith, your father suddenly began coughing up blood during treatment today. He’s already been moved to the operating room.”

My heart lurched.

Ignoring the pounding rain, I ran straight into the street and flagged down a cab.

The roads were slick, traffic was jammed, and by the time I reached the hospital, nearly an hour had passed.

My mother was crying so hard outside the operating room she could barely stand.

“Waverly, the doctor says we can’t wait any longer. Your dad needs a lung transplant right away if he’s going to survive...”

My hands shook as I called the doctor in charge of organ allocation.

The doctor sounded confused.

“Mr. Hale reassigned that donor lung to a relative of Ms. Carter last week. Didn’t you know that?”

Every drop of blood in my body seemed to freeze.

Julian had given away my father’s donor lung.

I had spent nearly seventy thousand dollars and waited a full year for that match.

I called him, needing to hear him explain it himself.

He was quiet for a brief moment.

“Rachel’s great-uncle has emphysema, and he’s old. He needed the lung first.

“Your father’s condition was stable anyway. It wasn’t urgent.”

I tipped my head back and shut my eyes as cold tears slid down the side of my face.

In the background, I could hear Rachel crying softly.

Julian’s tone turned impatient.

“You made a scene and left, and Rachel’s been blaming herself ever since. She’s cried so hard she’s practically passed out. Are you happy now?

“Waverly, come back here right now and apologize to her—”

I hung up on him.

In that instant, the last shred of attachment I had left for him vanished.

Just then, the red light over the doors went dark.

The doctor walked out, removed his mask, and shook his head at us.

“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”

My mother let out one broken wail and collapsed to the floor.

“Mom!”

I threw myself down and caught her.

I stood frozen like stone outside the operating room, numb and unmoving, for what felt like forever.

Then the doctor came back out again.

“The patient suffered a severe brain hemorrhage brought on by acute emotional distress. We couldn’t save her.”

“Dad... Mom...”

Something inside me snapped.

I sank to the floor, shattered, feeling as if my soul had been ripped out of me.

In a single day, I lost every member of my family.

I stood in the morgue in a daze, helpless, with no idea what to do next.

In the end, I called Julian.

But the one who answered was Rachel’s son, Ricky.

“You bad woman, stop calling.

“Daddy Julian is putting my mom to sleep. I won’t let you take him away!”

Then the line went dead.

I called Rachel next. It rang for a long time before she finally picked up.

Her voice was thick with tears.

“Waverly, you’re capable. You can make money. You can live just fine on your own. But I can’t. I have Ricky to look after.

“I’ve never begged you for anything in my life. Today I’m only begging you for one thing—please let me have him. Okay?”

Behind her words, I could hear Julian’s voice in the background, soft and gentle as he comforted her.

I ended the call and felt every last bit of strength leave my body.

With guidance from the funeral home staff, I sent my parents’ bodies in for cremation.

Their ashes wouldn’t be ready until the next day.

When I returned to the hotel, the clothes they had neatly folded on the bed still seemed to hold the warmth of their hands.

I clutched them to my chest and cried until my body gave out and darkness swallowed me whole.

The next day, I went back to the house I had once shared with Julian and got into the car he had bought me as a wedding gift.

The driver’s seat had been readjusted.

The system profile showed Rachel’s saved settings.

When the car started, it automatically began playing children’s beginner alphabet lessons.

I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I dropped my head onto the steering wheel and sobbed.

The first time I had ever sat in that car, Julian had helped me adjust the seat himself, inch by inch, and loaded in the calming music my therapist recommended.

But in the six months I’d been gone, all of that had been erased.

In its place were Rachel and Ricky.

Without thinking, I touched my lower abdomen.

When I was twenty-four, Julian and I had a child too.

Back then, our careers were just taking off. We didn’t have the time or the stability to keep the pregnancy.

After we made the decision to end it, he held me tight in his arms and promised me in a hoarse voice,

“Waverly, give me a little more time.

“When this baby comes back to us someday, I promise that child will be the happiest kid in the world.”

I had waited eight years.

I wiped my tears away hard.

Julian, I’m done giving you time.

This is where we end.

I went back to the primary bedroom to pack.

While pulling out my documents from the study, I accidentally bumped the computer tower.

The monitor lit up.

A screenshot filled the screen.

It was dated January 24, six months earlier—the day Rachel got divorced.

It showed a message she had sent Julian:

"I chose the wrong man. Do we still have a chance?"

Ten minutes later, Julian had replied:

"I’ll always be here."

I suddenly laughed.

I laughed so hard tears spilled down my face.

Ten years.

After ten years, Julian still hadn’t let go of the woman who rejected him and chose a rich heir instead.

Suddenly, the sheer absurdity of it all hit me.

And me?

What had I been in all of this?

Something inside me went cold and final.

The last thread tying me to him was gone.

I dragged my suitcase behind me and walked out of that house without looking back.