Chapter Two

Daphne’s POV

I can save this. Tonight is the Black Foundation Charity Ball, and I have been preparing for it for months now with fittings, rehearsals, and spotting of investors to send my husband's way. Here, I no longer have to keep quiet just to ensure my husband shines through.

I can finally prove to them that I belong in the Black family.

Nodding to myself, I moved to my side of the penthouse to start getting ready. It takes two hours to be done with bathing, waxing, makeup, hair, and shimmering into the stunning dress.

But the moment I stare at my reflection in the mirror, I know it was worth my time.

“Zayn?” I called when I stepped out of my room, heading towards it like the events of the day did not happen. It is the only way I can put on the best performance for the night. “Honey, hurry up! We’re going to be late.”

“She still calls you honey?”

A chuckle.

I stop outside the door when I hear that voice. Tatiana.

“Talk about desperation,” she continues, her laughter as light as a bird’s. “Do you think she actually read the contents of the document you handed over to her? You know your wife can be a little silly. Maybe she thought it was some property allocation or something.”

“Call her, my wife, one more time, and you will be out of here as well,” Zayn snaps, the fury evident in his tone.

"If you hated her that much, why did you wait until Charles practically almost threw you out of the board, too, before you did something about it?"

I can imagine him shrugging before I hear his voice again. “Pity,” he mutters. “She signed a prenup that makes her penniless the minute I walk out on her.”

Pity? That is all I am worth?

I try to ignore the pang in my chest and the tears stinging the corner of my eyes as I push the door open and stroll in, an automatic smile on my face. Tatiana is leaning on the wall in a silver dress that clings to her curves like a glove.

My eyes fell on the diamond necklace framing her neck. I wore it to the last gala of the Empire. Did Zayn give that to her?

“We’ll be late, Zayn,” I called out, ignoring everything Tatiana stands for and just hoping I get it through the night without her hurling something at me.

Zayn comes out of the closet in his tuxedo, his hands working at his tie. "You're not coming," he says sharply, without even glancing at me.

My stomach drops. “What? Zayn, if this is about…”

"Didn't you witness what happened at the board meeting today?" His eyes regarded me like I was just another stranger that he has to work with in his office, and not his wife, who had spent two hours trying to look good for him.

“The last thing the board wants to witness on a night like this is you strolling in through their doors. It does not matter if the divorce hasn’t been finalized. We can’t risk losing any more investors tonight.”

My heart breaks into a thousand pieces as I take a step towards him, reaching for his tie like I used to in the first year of our marriage. He hated doing it himself and would always come to find me.

But now, he retreats from me, like I am dirt he can’t risk messing with.

“Zayn, please,” I whispered, letting my hands drop to my side. “Just for tonight, let me fix this. I can….”

"He doesn't want you to," Tatiana murmurs with amusement in her tone. "You can be Cinderella somewhere else, honey, but not at a Black function."

Ignoring her and her taunts, I step closer to my husband, to the man I love with every part of me. I take his hands in mine, but he wiggles them out of reach, his eyes stern as he regards me.

“Daphne…”

“Just give me one more chance. "I’ll stay quiet, I’ll smile, I will even apologize to the whole board and Manhattan if you want." My knees hit the marble floor before I even became aware of it.

The cold stings my bones, and I shiver from the impact.

My palms are pressed together as I let the tears I have been holding at bay all day free. “Don’t ask me to leave, Zayne. You know I have nothing. I wouldn’t know where to go.”

“And how is that any of my business?” Despite his sharp words, I see a flicker of softened expression on his face. But it disappears immediately, so fast that I might as well have been imagining it.

“I am your wife!” I sob, my hands wrapped around his legs. “I have been faithful to you for the last three years.”

“You signed the prenup, Daphne. You knew what that meant, and you still signed it. What do you expect me to do now? Choose you over the firm?"

“You can’t understand the sense of duty that comes with being Black,” Tatiana purrs, coming around to put a hand around his shoulders. Unlike me, Zayn doesn’t even flinch. “And you never would, because you have never really been a Black.”

My eyes meet his shiny black shoes, made opaque by the torrents pouring down my face. I remember the day we got married, the vows we said to each other that are not being tossed aside.

I know Zayn still feels something for me, even though he doesn't act like it. But his loyalty to his father outweighs whatever love we have. Or rather, I think we have.

It always has.

"You should start packing," Tatiana says as she pulls Zayn along with her towards the door. "The driver will take you wherever you ask him to." She stops, then smiles sweetly. "Although I can't imagine where."

I wish she were wrong.

I stayed there on my knees, long after Zayn and Tatiana leave for the ball. My chest aches so much that it feels like I am going to die, and I double over from the pain, clutching hard onto it.

By the time I finally make it out of the penthouse, the rain starts falling, as if reminding me of the hell my life has become. It soaks through my dress, washing off my makeup and plastering my hair onto my skin.

I don't know where I am heading, but I keep moving, not seeing through the tears and rain.

Suddenly, the city shakes underneath my feet, and I slip, hitting the ground with a loud thud.

“Urghh!" A groan escapes my lips, but the heavens don't care as the rain keeps hitting me. My eyesight grows dim, threatening to pull me into a dark maze.

The last thing I see before the darkness finally gets a strong hold is a pair of piercing dark eyes and the feel of firm arms lifting me gingerly from the ground.

Daphne’s POV

The picture fills the huge screen hanging on one corner of the boardroom, zoomed out to its max. Staring back at me is myself, taken a few days ago. I am in a beige trench coat, stepping out of the doors of our rival, Harlow & Pike.

And the picture was even taken from my bad side. Why do my cheeks look so swollen?

"This," Tatiana Chase drawls, her perfectly manicured nails pointing at the screen, "is what the gossip columns have all been talking about today.”

Her voice is so smooth, laced with the right amount of concern and worry enough to sound believable to those who don’t know her.

And I doubt that anyone really knows her on the board.

Around the glass table, eyes stare at one another, and their lips move in a buzz. I might as well not be present, because as they scribble notes and give their opinions, no one looks directly at me.

Not even my husband.

Tatiana moves to the next slide. It bears pictures from social media threads and news headlines, all bearing my name and picture with shocking titles.

“The Future of Black Financial Empire rocked by a scandal.”

“Stock of the Black Financial Empire drops after picture of heir’s wife emerges.”

Sharp. Cutthroat.

"As you can see," she continues, her nail still in view, "the picture has travelled far and wide over the face of the internet, and now, our investor confidence is taking the most hit. In the last forty-eight hours alone…"

The chairman of the board and the CEO of the Black Financial Empire, Charles Black, who also happens to be my father-in-law, slams his hands on the table. Tatiana doesn’t jerk like me. Instead, a sly smile spreads on her face as she turns away from the screen, placing a hand on her waist.

She never looks out of place, not even on the worst days when we have to be at the office around the clock. This is an emergency meeting, yet she still manages to look like she just strolled out of a fashion magazine.

"We've lost fourteen million in market value," Charles roars, hitting the table again. "Just because my son's wife decided to visit our enemies and sit at the same table with them."

I begin to shake my head. “I…”

“I don’t want to hear a word from you!” he snaps, sending a shiver down my spine. “You have done enough damage.”

“But…”

“Zayne, if you don’t get your wife to shut up, I will. And trust me when I say it won’t be pretty.”

My husband shakes his head firmly at me, and the words in my throat die. I have a lot of things to say. For one, I was sent there by Tatiana herself to check their quarterly filings. Charles himself left the instruction that I have to do whatever she tells me to.

And now…

My lips part open again, and this time, Zayn’s fingers come down hard on my arm, pinching me. “Don’t say a word,” he murmurs. “Just swallow it, okay? No one wants to know what you have to say.”

I have made it a duty not to contradict my husband in public, especially because I know how hard he has been trying to please his father.

So, I stay put, folding my hands in my lap, just like I always do.

I tell myself this will pass, just like all the others. But something deep down tells me that it is different.

“Zayne,” Charles yells, shifting his anger to his son. “Explain why you are still married to the woman who jeopardizes a firm I and my fathers have laboured over for a whole century. She’s just a total waste of space.”

I shift uneasily in my seat as everyone turns to look at me. This is really not happening, is it?

"She hasn't given you an heir, she can't open her mouth to say anything reasonable in a board meeting, and worse, she's a blockhead. An empty chair with a pretty dress. How do we keep funding something like this?"

I want to say that I am right here with them in the room. That I can hear everything, and it doesn't feel nice. A flicker of heat finds its way to my neck, and I scratch at it.

But my expression remains neutral as I count one to ten in my head.

"Father, I told you that…" Zayn begins to say, before he is cut off.

"I warned you not to get married to her, didn't I?" his father continues. "Perhaps, Tatiana was the better choice after all, and you just threw her away. If she hadn't discovered this on time…Maybe you're a blockhead too."

Tatiana leans back in her seat and winks at me, a smirk on her lips that she doesn’t bother to hide. She’s untouchable here. She always has been.

"Turn off the screen, please, honey," Charles murmurs to her before addressing the board again. "I propose that we vote to remove Daphne Riverra-Black from any roles in the empire and remove her access to all our confidential data immediately. The press will come for our necks if we do not act now.”

The table moves immediately, as hands rise in the air. They don’t even hesitate, like they have been waiting for this moment.

And just like that, I am no longer a member of the board or the empire at large. I am now a full-time housewife.

Tatiana clicks her tongue suddenly. "This is what happens when the wrong person is given a seat at the table. You should learn from this, Zayn, before something worse happens in your marriage. That is, if it isn't already happening."

Zayn looks at me sharply, anger slowly filling his eyes. “Let’s go,” he mutters, his chair scrapping the ground loudly as he steps out of the conference room, even when it hasn’t been adjourned.

Leaving me no choice, I get up as well, tailing after him. We don't say a word to each other in the elevator or the car. By the time we pull into the private garage beneath our apartment building, I am already almost hyperventilating.

My husband reaches for the back seat and retrieves a brown envelope, tossing it at me.

“What is this?”

“Divorce papers. Sign them.”