Chapter 1

When my husband, Kevin, and I were at our favorite exclusive restaurant, he ordered a T-bone steak and told the waiter with practiced ease, "The usual, and no arugula in the side salad."

I paused, then gently nudged his elbow.

"Honey, did you forget? Arugula is my favorite."

Kevin's body tensed, and he quickly corrected himself.

I even teased him, asking if he was so tired lately that his memory was starting to go.

A week later, I came back to the restaurant alone to unwind, only to overhear the young woman at the next table waving to the waiter with a smile.

"The T-bone again, and no arugula in the salad. Just put it on my husband's tab."

"The account number is 8993."

My knife and fork clattered against the bone china plate.

That string of numbers was my husband's private phone number.

Chapter 1

The young woman heard the noise and turned to look at me. "Are you all right, miss?"

"I can ask the waiter to bring you a new set of silverware."

I forced a smile. "Thank you."

I picked up my knife and fork again, but I couldn't swallow another bite of the Wagyu beef.

Six months ago, Kevin had brought me to this exclusive restaurant.

"Babe, this place is super exclusive. Their dry-aged steak is five hundred dollars a plate. The quality is incredible."

I frowned.

"A five-hundred-dollar meal? That's enough to pay for a full day of private care for Lily at the nursing home. We should leave."

But Kevin firmly wrapped his arm around my waist, pressing me back into my seat.

"I have two meals credited to my account. My wife works so hard taking care of our home every day. You deserve a reward like this."

"Next time I go on a business trip, you can come back and use the other one on your own."

But when it was time to order, the instruction "no arugula in the salad" had subconsciously slipped out.

After I pointed it out, panic had flashed in his eyes.

That night, he was uncharacteristically tender and affectionate.

I had thought it was a sign of his guilt over leaving me alone during his long business trip.

Only now did I understand. It was guilt.

"Miss?" the young woman called to me softly. "The beef here is really good. Why aren't you eating?"

I looked up and studied her carefully.

She couldn't have been much older than twenty, dressed in a designer dress from the latest collection.

Resting beside her was a limited-edition Birkin bag.

In comparison, I instinctively clutched my own worn, four-year-old, no-name bag. It was laughably shabby.

"That account number you gave for the tab, it's your husband's?" I asked, feigning casual curiosity.

She nodded without a hint of suspicion, her smile making her eyes crinkle at the corners.

"Yeah, my husband spoils me rotten. Just because I mentioned once that the steaks here were delicious, he opened a twenty-thousand-dollar house account for me."

"And a couple of days ago, he dropped two hundred thousand on me at the biggest jewelry store in the North End."

"I told him it was too much, but he just laughed and said I deserve the best of everything in the world."

Her cheeks were flushed as she spoke, her face glowing with happiness.

She practically glowed in the restaurant's soft, ambient light.

An icy dread washed over me.

Kevin's mother, Lily, was paralyzed in an accident and lived in a private nursing home that burned through money.

I spent my days at the nursing home and my evenings taking care of our young daughter at home.

Our daughter's private school tuition ate up most of our budget.

What was left for me was so little I hesitated before even buying a cup of coffee.

For the past two years, I'd been secretly selling off my personal belongings to cover our bottomless household expenses.

I had sold off nearly all the valuable jewelry from my family.

I sympathized with Kevin, knowing how hard he worked to build this life from scratch, so I never complained.

I even thought he was madly in love with me for treating me to that five-hundred-dollar dinner.

After all, I was the one who, after a huge fight with my parents, had chosen to give up my privileged position as an heiress, hide my identity, and run away to build a life devoted to Kevin.

I thought I had won the gamble of love, but I never imagined he would turn around and drop two hundred thousand on another woman without batting an eye.

"Your husband is wonderful."

I heard my own voice drift out. "I'm so envious."

She touched her belly, a little shyly. "I'm carrying his child. Of course he's good to me."

"Actually… we had a secret wedding two years ago. He said as soon as he resolves things with his ex-wife, he'll legally marry me. My parents were worried at first that I was getting married too young and would be taken advantage of, but luckily, my life now is both exciting and sweet."

Two years ago. That was the year Kevin convinced me to quit my job to "focus on being a wife and mother" at home.

I gripped the napkin on my lap so tightly my knuckles turned white. My nails dug into my palms, but I felt no pain.

So his claims of "caring for me" and "doing what's best for me" were nothing but a carefully constructed lie.

Chapter 2

"Miss Chloe, Mr. Walker has been notified of your arrival and has requested we escort you to his private room."

The restaurant manager hurried over, stopping respectfully beside the young woman.

The manager didn't even spare me a glance.

It made sense. The way I was dressed, I hardly looked like a guest who belonged in a VIP room.

But the young woman grabbed my wrist warmly. "Come with me, won't you? It's no fun eating alone. I'm enjoying our chat."

I was about to refuse, but the words died on my lips. I swallowed them.

"I'd be honored."

Following her into a hidden second-floor area, I discovered a whole other world within the restaurant.

In the private booth, the crystal chandelier was adorned with real gold tassels, and the sofas were custom-made from imported black calfskin.

The cashmere carpet under my feet was so soft that it made the furnishings in my family's estate pale in comparison.

"It has a great atmosphere, doesn't it? My name is Chloe. We should be friends."

Chloe pulled me down onto the leather sofa, watching as I silently took everything in. Then she took out her phone, ready to add me as a contact.

"I don't have many close friends in this city, and I feel a real connection with you. We have to be friends."

I took her phone. The screen lit up, revealing a wallpaper of a sunrise over a snowy mountain.

A slash of golden sunlight cut across the snow line, revealing a churning sea of clouds below.

My breath caught in my throat.

Because Kevin had sent me this exact photo just last week.

"Took this on my business trip," he had said. "Absolutely stunning. Had to send it to you."

"What's wrong? You think it's beautiful, too?" Chloe followed my gaze, her eyes lighting up. "My husband took this for me on his trip. He said the view reminded him of me."

"He also said that after the baby is born, he's going to take me to that mountain to see it for myself."

I managed a faint, weak smile and said nothing.

A waiter wheeled in a cart and served a pre-sliced steak.

Chloe toyed with her fork and sighed.

"When my husband is home, he always cuts my steak for me. And at night, he warms a glass of milk for me before I go to sleep."

"Do you miss your husband when he's on a business trip? I can't sleep a wink when he's gone."

"You might laugh, but every night he has to talk me to sleep."

My hand froze. Something sharp stabbed at my heart.

I remembered when we first fell in love, Kevin used to take care of me just like that.

Every night, he would cut up fruit for me, warm a glass of milk, and hold me until I fell asleep.

"Jess, you're my little princess. Let me rock you to sleep for the rest of our lives, okay?"

But after we got married, all of that disappeared.

"We're an old married couple now. You're a mother. Don't be so clingy. Go to sleep."

"If you can't sleep, take some melatonin. You can't just keep bothering me."

Back then, I truly thought I was being dramatic, that I wasn't being considerate enough of his stress.

But the truth was, all of Kevin's tenderness and devotion had long been reserved for another, younger woman.

"My husband travels for work a lot, too," I heard myself reply calmly. "When you need him, you just have to get through it on your own. You get used to it."

A flicker of pity appeared in Chloe's eyes.

"Jessica, you're so strong."

"I couldn't do that. I can't do anything without him, and he doesn't like me to be out of his sight."

"See? I just came out for a meal, and he had to call and check on me in the middle of a meeting."

She held up her phone and wiggled it.

The caller ID read: [My Dearest].

Clinging to a sliver of hope, I double-checked the number. It was Kevin's.

Chloe answered the call and put it on speaker.

The voice I had known for seven years drifted from the speaker, but it was laced with a sweetness I had never heard before.

"Baby? Sneaking out all by yourself? Are you trying to get into trouble?"

"If I hadn't checked your location, I wouldn't have known you were so bold. You're pregnant, what are you doing running around?"

"Bundle up. Don't let any other men look at you, or your husband is going to have to punish you properly tonight..."

Chloe cooed in response, her cheeks flushing.

And in that instant, the strength I had been mustering vanished into thin air.

Kevin had never used that kind of tone with me.

With me, he was always rational, a man of few words.

I had thought that was just his nature, but now I knew. With the person he truly loved, he could be childishly affectionate and incredibly clingy.

For the past seven years, I was simply not the one he loved.

In that single moment, seven years of marriage became an absolute joke.

Chapter 3

After hanging up, Chloe leaned back on the sofa and continued to gush about her husband.

"Jessica, I really have to brag about my husband. He's the best man I've ever met."

She scrolled through her social media feed and showed it to me.

"He always says I'm young and need to see the world, so he takes me on a trip every month."

"Last month we went skiing in the Alps, and next month he's booked a helicopter to take us to see the Northern Lights."

The screen was filled with photos of them doing extreme sports all over the world.

I swiped through them one by one.

In one photo, Kevin, dressed in a ski suit, held her close from behind.

The next showed them bungee jumping off a cliff. Kevin held her protectively in his arms, his gaze so intense it seemed to burn.

In another, they were at a private shooting range. He stood behind her, his hands covering hers, teaching her how to hold a gun.

In every photo, he smiled with a wild, uninhibited joy. It was a look I hadn't seen on his face in years.

If not for these pictures, I might have forgotten that before Kevin, I was the beloved jewel of the Moretti family, a firebrand of the criminal underworld.

Shooting, racing, skydiving… I loved all those extreme sports. But every time I suggested them to Kevin, trying to get him to join me, he would just wave it off.

"Jess, I just want to live a quiet, stable life now. That exciting stuff isn't for us anymore."

"Just be a good wife, take care of the family, and that'll be enough."

And so, for him, I had willingly sheathed all my sharp edges.

It turned out it wasn't that those things "weren't for him," they just weren't for him to do with me.

My eyes began to sting.

"He really loves you."

"He does. I'm so lucky." Chloe rested her chin on her knees, her eyes crinkling with a smile. "It's all thanks to his gold-digging ex-wife who abandoned him that I got to meet such a wonderful man."

Ex-wife? Gold-digging?

My fingers tightened around the glass.

"Your husband… was married before?"

"Mhm." Chloe pouted, her expression immediately filling with contempt. "I heard his ex-wife was an incredibly greedy woman."

"She took all his savings and ran off with some lowlife. No one has heard from her since."

"They didn't even finalize the divorce."

"My husband feels bad about it, so to make it up to me, he's willing to buy me anything and everything."

She was still rambling on, but I had nearly forgotten how to breathe.

In the story Kevin had woven, I had become the despicable woman who ran off with all the money, a promiscuous tramp.

And he was the poor, betrayed victim.

"That's just his side of the story," I said, my voice hoarse. "Has it ever occurred to you that he might be lying?"

"Even if he lies to me, his mother wouldn't, right?"

Chloe shook her head and held out her wrist for me to see.

A diamond bracelet flashed with a cold, unrelenting light.

"Two years ago, in the fall, on the day we got engaged, his mother put this bracelet on my wrist herself. She said it was worth a hundred thousand dollars and was meant to make up for things."

"She also said that if her son ever dared to mistreat me, she would be the first one to make him pay."

The blood in my veins ran cold.

That hundred thousand dollars was my money.

Two years ago that fall, my mother-in-law, Lily, urgently needed an expensive experimental treatment.

She had held my hand, tears streaming down her face. "Jessica, Kevin is working so hard. I can't bear to make him worry about me. Please, I'm begging you to save my life."

"Once I get through this, I will absolutely make it up to you."

My heart had softened, and I hadn't doubted her for a second.

I hadn't brought much with me from my family and didn't want to contact my parents, so I opened the private safe I rarely touched.

Inside were some antique jewels left to me by my maternal grandmother, including a gemstone-encrusted brooch.

It was also the emergency token I had brought with me, a symbol of my status as a Moretti princess.

I took it to the most discreet appraiser in the city and quietly sold it for what felt like a pittance: one hundred thousand dollars.

I had always believed that money had saved her life.

I just never imagined she never had the surgery at all.

That money, my goodwill, and my family heirloom had all become bargaining chips for her son to win over his new lover.

I thought I had grown numb to this marriage, but as another truth was unveiled, my heart was still torn apart.

The overwhelming absurdity felt like an invisible hand choking me, and the room began to spin.

"Jessica, are you finished?" Chloe put down her napkin and jumped up to take my hand.

"We've been talking for so long. Want to come see my apartment?"

"It's really close. I get so bored being alone."

This time, I didn't refuse. I followed her out of the restaurant.

I wanted to see what kind of home Kevin had built for this woman.

It wasn't until we walked up to the most luxurious high-rise directly across the street from my own building that I stopped.

I looked up, and the irony almost made me laugh out loud. My eyes stung with unshed tears.

This building was directly across from our home. The two buildings were separated by a street barely a block wide.

It meant that for two whole years, Kevin had been keeping another woman in a home right under my nose, in an apartment we could see from our own balcony.

No wonder he always said he was working late and would just sleep at the office.

It turned out his so-called office was right across the street, visible from my window.

And I, like a blind fool, had been kept in the dark, never suspecting a thing.

Inside the elevator, we ran into one of Chloe's neighbors.

"Chloe, all by yourself today?" the woman asked with a teasing smile. "Your husband isn't following you around like a puppy dog for once? The whole building is talking about how much he pampers you."

The neighbor's face was full of envy. "We're all so jealous of your lovey-dovey relationship!"

My fingertips tightened. "Her husband is usually that clingy?"

"More than that," the neighbor said, amused. "He does whatever Chloe says. Makes her breakfast, does the laundry himself. Where can you find a man like that these days?"

Chloe shyly covered her hot cheeks. "Oh, stop it, you guys. Don't tease me."

The elevator door opened with a ding. I took a deep breath and followed her out.

Chapter 4

Stepping out of the elevator, I discovered something even more absurd.

She entered the passcode to open the door: her birthday. The passcode to our apartment had always been his.

I once asked him why he didn't set it to mine. He had said, "I can never remember that string of numbers."

Now, I finally understood the difference between not being able to remember and not wanting to.

"Jessica, come on in!" Chloe pushed the door open and turned to pull me inside. "My place is minimalist. I picked everything out myself. Isn't it nice?"

As I stepped inside, my gaze fell on the display cabinet directly across from the entryway.

An autographed snowboard, a trophy from a sailing regatta… the cabinet was filled with trophies from their extreme sports adventures.

There was also a huge world map with red lines marking all the places they had traveled together.

Kevin and I had almost never traveled together.

"The company is at a critical stage right now. I can't get away," he had said at the time.

Even for our honeymoon, we just stayed for a few days at a vineyard in the countryside nearby.

In seven years, I had barely left this neighborhood.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. A message from my mother-in-law, Lily.

"Jessica, how long have you been out? You said you were just having a meal."

"The caregiver's hands are too rough when she changes my diaper. It hurts. Come back right now."

"If you're not in my room in ten minutes, I'm calling Kevin."

A suffocating feeling washed over me again.

For two years, I had endured her condescending demands like a hired maid.

She used her status as an elder to manipulate me at will.

If I was gone for half an hour, her calls would blow up my phone.

Today, with my daughter at school, I finally had a moment to myself, a chance to use the other pre-paid meal credit from Kevin and have a quiet dinner.

And now she was hounding me again.

I stared at the screen, and the irony of it all suddenly made me want to laugh.

I ignored her questions and calmly typed back.

"Lily, when are you going to pay back the hundred thousand dollars you borrowed from me?"

"A few of my friends are in a tight spot and have been pressing me for the money."

The other end went silent. No more messages appeared.

I turned off the screen and tossed the phone back in my bag.

"Jessica, come play cards!" Chloe beckoned to me from a custom-made card table in the living room. "Just for fun, to pass the time."

"My husband had this table custom-made for me because he was worried I'd get bored at home!"

"He's so thoughtful," I said, my smile not reaching my eyes.

Thinking back, in seven years of marriage, Kevin had never seemed to care whether I was bored.

I felt ridiculous again. Why couldn't I admit it, even now? In his heart, I had never held any place at all.

I sat down across from Chloe and played a few tedious rounds of Texas Hold'em. She won several hands in a row and was as happy as a child showing off a new toy.

She grabbed her phone, took a picture of her chips, and sent it to Kevin.

"Hubby, look! I totally crushed my new friend!"

A few minutes later, the electronic lock on the front door clicked.

A click.

Chloe's eyes lit up, and she trotted over excitedly.

"Honey? I thought you had a work dinner. How are you back so soon?"

Kevin walked in, his overcoat still on, not seeing me where I was sitting behind the sofa.

"How could I leave you home alone?" He wrapped her in his arms. "No meeting is more important than you."

"You think I could sit still after seeing that picture?"

He buried his face in her neck, his voice incredibly indulgent. "Darling, who's this new friend you brought home?"

I stood up from behind the sofa and reached under the collar of my blouse, pulling out a thin gold chain.

At the end of the chain hung a pigeon-blood ruby ring engraved with the Moretti family crest. It was the only family heirloom I had kept for myself.

I took it from my neck and held it in my palm, my voice as cold as a blade.

"Kevin, that ex-wife you claimed took all your money and ran off with another man? Well, she's back."