The words hung in the air.

Adrian's gaze turned to ice.

Just when Sara thought he might offer a sliver of comfort, he proved once again that hope was a dangerous thing.

"Stop playing the victim." His voice was flat. "Who could possibly bully you?"

He didn't explicitly defend Eva, but he clearly cast Sara as the villain.

The accusation lodged in her chest like a stone. Ice water seemed to pour over her head, extinguishing the last spark of hope.

She couldn't refute it.

She knew exactly what he was alluding to.

Shortly after they married, a model had tried to provoke her. Assuming Sara was just a glorified assistant with no real power in the Harding family, the woman had tried to seduce Adrian at a banquet.

Later, while tidying his suit, Sara found the model's contact info and a room key in his pocket.

She didn't dare confront Adrian. Instead, she quietly investigated the woman. Finding the model was bribing judges in a competition show, Sara leaked the evidence. The model was cut from the program, her career ruined, buried under a mountain of debt for breach of contract.

Sara thought she had been subtle.

But when the news broke, Adrian had looked up from his tablet. "You did it, didn't you?"

Terror had seized her chest.

But he had smiled—gentle, terrifying—and a chill had crawled down her spine. "Are you happy?"

When she couldn't answer, he pulled her onto his lap. It felt less like affection and more like a warning. "Don't do things like this again. If you have a problem, tell me directly. Understand?"

Caught red-handed in her first act of ruthlessness, she had nodded obediently.

He never brought it up again. But the label *vicious* had likely been stamped on her file in his mind.

A white rabbit was cute.

A rabbit that bit was a pest to be guarded against.

Especially one sleeping in his bed.

That night, Adrian didn't touch her.

Whether exhausted from work or simply uninterested, he fell asleep the moment the lights went out. Even when Sara had brought him a bathrobe earlier—stepping into the bathroom while he was damp and exposed—the air remained cold.

No "accidents."

No sparks.

Adrian wasn't a man ruled by lust. He valued quality over frequency. When work consumed him, going weeks without intimacy was common.

Ironclad self-control, both in the boardroom and the bedroom. Toward people he shouldn't love—like Sara—he wouldn't waver. At most, he would pay her off.

It saved time and effort.

But Eva was different. The fact that she dared to provoke Sara meant she knew she had leverage.

Sara was a pragmatist. Illusory love didn't pay the bills; hard currency did.

She immediately began preparing for divorce.

There was no prenup, but the disparity in their status meant she couldn't dream of taking half his assets. The Harding family, obsessed with face and profit, would crush her like an ant if she tried.

Eva had protection.

Sara had nothing.

Even if he offered money, she'd be wary of taking it.

Her only liquid assets were the jewelry, designer bags, and couture in the walk-in closet. Although she had a supplementary credit card, every transaction pinged his phone. She couldn't use it to build an escape fund.

This was why she'd had to borrow money for Simon's care.

Privately, Sara contacted trusted resellers and began liquidating the luxury goods she rarely used. She deposited the cash into an anonymous account in small batches.

Simon's recovery was complicated by heavy scarring; he would need future surgeries. Sara had to plan for their survival.

During those weeks, both she and Adrian were busy.

When Adrian came home, he bypassed the bedroom and went straight to the study. He seemed buried in an endless stream of video conferences and documents.

At first, Sara brought him coffee, trying to play the dutiful wife.

Eventually, she stopped. She would deliver the cup and retreat to her room.

His obsession with work was a coping mechanism. The last time he worked this hard was when he and Eva broke up.

He needed the noise of business to drown out his thoughts.

Sara didn't know what happened between them that night. But it was clear Eva was the only woman with the power to unravel him.

Other people couldn't earn his love.

Even earning his hatred was a luxury.

One afternoon, Sara entered the study with coffee as usual.

He didn't look up.

She turned to leave, her hand on the doorknob, when his voice stopped her.

"Change your clothes. You're coming with me."

It wasn't until they were on the road that Sara Navarro pieced it together: Adrian Harding hadn't planned this. Some friend had thrown together a last-minute gathering and begged him to grace them with his presence for a few drinks.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't a formal occasion. They were all from the same circle—the kind of people who ran into each other constantly, whether they liked it or not.

But everyone else had brought a female companion. Adrian, likely wanting to sidestep the unwanted advances of random gold diggers, had broken his usual precedent and dragged Sara along as a shield.

She didn't want to be there.

Adrian's friends were nothing like him. While Adrian might not respect her, he at least maintained a passable surface demeanor; he only made things difficult behind closed doors.

These rich, second-generation brats had no such class.

In their eyes, humanity divided into two neat categories: those with use-value, and those without.

Sara belonged to the latter. On the few occasions she'd encountered them, she'd been treated like air—or worse.

But since Adrian rarely brought her into his social sphere, she couldn't very well spoil the mood.

Forty minutes later, the car pulled up to a private club so grand it bordered on obscene.

To the wealthy, this was merely a spot for leisure. To ordinary people, a single bottle of liquor inside cost more than a year's salary.

The manager was already waiting at the entrance, having heard Adrian was arriving. He ushered them in with a reverence usually reserved for descending royalty.

The private room was packed.

Sean Whitney, the organizer, approached first.

Sara knew Sean. His family owned a bank—so poor they had nothing left but money. Aside from a decent face, he possessed neither character nor intellect.

He and Adrian were polar opposites. The phrase "spoiled rich kid" might as well have been tattooed across Sean's forehead.

Despite his young age, the women around him rotated like a revolving door. A different face on his arm every day wasn't an exaggeration—it was an understatement.

He'd occasionally tried to shove women onto Adrian, so Sara held no goodwill toward him.

The feeling was clearly mutual.

Seeing her, Sean's eyebrows shot up.

Sara understood why immediately.

Eva James was there.

Her gaze snapped to Adrian.

He'd been kept in the dark too. His eyes narrowed, a look of cold displeasure cutting toward the mastermind.

Being set up was what Adrian hated most.

Sensing the temperature plummet, Sean scrambled forward. "She showed up last minute. I didn't know beforehand, I swear. Couldn't exactly kick her out. Just turn a blind eye—pretend she's not here."

The instant Adrian looked over, Eva looked back.

Their eyes met.

Sara's heart seized.

"Adrian, thank you for helping me last time. I caused you trouble."

Eva moved closer, taking the initiative, staring at him as if the rest of the room had dissolved into mist.

Adrian's response was ice. "If you knew it was trouble, Ms. James, you shouldn't have contacted me."

That same rigid barrier. Keeping strangers at arm's length.

*So it still hasn't been settled.*

*She rushed over to show off to me—probably because she feels insecure.*

"If it were really a bother, Adrian wouldn't have gone," Sean interjected, smoothing things over with a practiced smile. "Eva, no need to be so formal. We all grew up together. Helping each other is just what we do."

Eva's gaze lingered on Adrian's indifferent face. She forced a smile.

Adrian seemed completely blind to her disappointment. He led Sara past her and sat down without a backward glance.

But Sara knew better.

If he truly didn't care, he would have left the moment he saw her.

A woman's intuition screamed at her: Adrian still couldn't let go.

There was nothing she could do. She could only brace herself, sit beside him, and play the part.

As the night wore on, she heard someone ask Eva, "Now that you're back, are you leaving again?"

"Even if the outside world is wonderful, being alone is lonely in the end." Eva's words carried a weight meant for someone specific. "Unlike here, where I still have you friends."

"Then stay."

Several mutual friends chimed in, clearly trying to broker peace. "Back then, you pursued your career and insisted on going abroad. Now you're a world-famous pianist. Time to settle down, right? You're twenty-nine. If you don't consider marriage soon, you'll miss your chance."

Eva smiled, half-joking, half-serious. "I'd like to. I'm just afraid someone won't welcome it."

"Impossible. If you came back for good, everyone would be overjoyed."

The small talk flowed. The atmosphere livened up.

Naturally, the games began.

The room was full of the rich and noble, but the man at the apex of the pyramid was undoubtedly Adrian Harding.

No one dared prank Adrian.

Sara wasn't so lucky.

During the third round of Truth or Dare, the bottle spun and pointed directly at her.

Knowing she'd studied dance, someone immediately goaded her to perform on the spot, denying her the option to choose Truth.

Sara wasn't stupid. She heard the malice dripping beneath their smiles.

They were using the game to test her weight in Adrian's heart.

If he didn't step in to protect her, she had a dark premonition she would die a miserable social death tonight.

The room fell silent.

Every gaze shifted to Adrian, waiting for his reaction.