My husband got the live-in nanny pregnant.

The moment I asked for a divorce, Tilda Pruitt threw herself between us.

"Don't blame Mr. Weiss—I'm the one who took his used condom out of the trash and got pregnant on purpose. I just wanted a baby so badly."

My husband even pulled up surveillance footage to prove his innocence.

I decided to forgive Mick Weiss. I had only one condition.

"Abort the baby."

Mick dragged the nanny to the hospital himself. He held me and swore he would never betray me for the rest of his life.

Six months later, Mick went bankrupt and was sent to prison. I was forced into the basement.

To pay off tens of millions in debt, I bused tables. I took jobs sleeping in haunted houses for real-estate agencies.

Two years of that ground me down to nothing. By the time I found out I had cancer, I couldn't afford treatment.

I was about to buy a bottle of pesticide and end the pain when I saw him—Mick Weiss, who was supposed to be behind bars, a one-year-old on his hip and his arm around Tilda Pruitt, the three of them looking every bit the happy family.

Tilda's gaze flicked toward me, deliberate, taunting. She leaned in and kissed my husband on the lips.

"You've been faking prison for Desiree this whole time, spending two years playing house with me and the baby instead—aren't you the least bit worried your wife will find out and come after you?"

Mick didn't even bother to look concerned. He let out a cold laugh.

"She's the one who insisted on aborting your child. This is exactly what she deserves."

"The moment you got pregnant, I'd already decided I was going to be with you and Benny—our family of three, together."

"As for Desiree, the punishment doesn't end until she crawls to me and begs."

The pesticide bottle slipped from my hand and cracked against the ground, and I laughed until tears ran down my face—the bankruptcy, the prison sentence, all of it nothing but a scheme to punish me.

But Mick Weiss,

you won't live to see that day.

——

Acrid liquid seeped from the fallen bottle, pooling on the ground.

I bent down slowly, reaching for it—

and then his voice carried from the Porsche's window again, close enough to cut.

"Isn't this a little much? What if she finds out the truth—you're not scared she'll lose her mind, go hysterical, throw herself off something, demand a divorce?"

Mick scoffed, his tone bored.

"She can't live without me."

Tilda smiled and draped her arms around his neck.

"I always knew you were the one who was good to me."

"She still has no idea, does she? You brought me into your house as the nanny just so we could be together more easily."

"I made up that ridiculous lie on the spot and she actually believed it. Believed it and forgave you. Ha!"

"A woman that stupid deserves to be fooled a thousand times. Ten thousand times!"

I couldn't move. Cold bled out from somewhere deep inside my bones, freezing me where I stood.

That lie she told, paired with Mick's little performance of innocence,

had played me completely.

And now, two years later, she wore it like a trophy, flaunting her victory with that smug, taunting face.

Mick ruffled her hair, indulgent. "She's always been an idiot. Otherwise she never would've believed I was actually bankrupt."

"Two full years I funneled assets out right under her nose, set up a whole other home, lived happily with you and our son—and she never noticed a single thing."

He let out a derisive laugh.

"What else would you call her?"

Tilda's eyes slid toward me again, feigning casualness, then she pouted.

"But I heard a couple of days ago you faked being sick in prison, and Desiree completely lost it—went running to every one of your friends begging to borrow money?"

"So? None of them gave her any?"

Mick laughed, careless. "Of course not. I'd already warned every one of them. They wouldn't dare."

I closed my eyes. Of course they wouldn't. Not a single one.

I knelt in front of his friends. Every single one of them looked down at me with cold eyes. Not one would lend me a cent.

Only Maurice Fox—the quietest one in the group—

had wavered as I was being shoved out the door, then finally opened his mouth.

"Stop trying to borrow money. Look after yourself."

"Even if you can't raise the funds, Mick… he'll be fine."

At the time, I thought he meant inside the prison.

That those people would never just stand by and let Mick die in there.

Only now did I understand what he'd really been telling me.

By now, Tilda had already spotted me. She'd steered Mick into saying all of that on purpose, for my ears.

I could only listen, swallowing the humiliation, my face showing nothing.

What expression was I supposed to wear?

In two years, I had swallowed more suffering than most people see in a lifetime.

The day Mick's company was declared bankrupt and the police took him away, the house was seized along with everything else.

I was forced into a damp, freezing basement.

To pay off tens of millions in debt, I bussed tables, took overnight shifts sleeping in houses no one else would set foot in.

Two years of grinding myself down wrecked my body, and when I was diagnosed with cancer, when the doctor urged me again and again to have surgery immediately,

all I could do was shake my head with a bitter smile. "Doctor, I'm done treating it."

If I hadn't stumbled onto what I just saw,

I would have already mixed pesticide into a bottle of cola and drunk it.

But no. I wasn't going to let this cheap life end for nothing.

I tossed the bottle of pesticide into the trash.

Mick opened the car door with careful attentiveness, letting Tilda climb into the passenger seat with the baby in her arms.

I almost couldn't stop myself. I wanted to walk straight up to him, rip apart every lie about his bankruptcy and his prison sentence, and slap him hard across the face.

I wanted to demand why he'd lied to me for two years. Was it really just because I'd suspected Tilda was carrying his child and pushed for her to have an abortion?

I had gathered solid evidence proving the baby was his.

He was the one who cheated first, yet he'd looked down at me from on high and said I deserved to be punished.

But in the end, I did nothing.

I turned around, expressionless, and walked back to my basement rental.

Dark and damp, and I had lived in it for three years.

The bathroom was right by the front door, its walls crusted with mold that had built up layer by layer, a smell of rot seeping out at all hours.

When I first moved in, I threw up every single day.

For the first twenty-five years of my life, I had been pampered. The sheltered eldest daughter of the Gilbert family, never exposed to a single day of hardship.

An internationally recognized painter, award after award until I'd lost count.

And at the height of all that, Mick Weiss—the kind of heir every socialite in the city wanted—had proposed.

After the wedding, he spoiled me rotten.

Just like that, without seeming to lift a finger, I'd become the kind of woman every girl envied.

The media called me a woman who had it all.

Then the old nanny retired, and Mick hired a replacement: a timid, soft-spoken young woman. That was when everything began to change.

From the day Tilda Pruitt walked through our door, my things kept being moved.

I told Mick about it, dead serious. He brushed it off.

"Come on—Tilly's a nanny, not a thief. She was raised well. She's not going to touch your things. It's all in your head."

So I told myself I was overthinking it.

Until I came home early from a trip and found Tilda sprawled across my bed in my nightgown, rolling around in it like she owned the place.

Clothes and bedding everywhere. Tilda froze, the color draining from her face. "Mrs. Weiss, I just thought the fabric of your nightgown felt so nice, I wanted to try it on. I'm sorry…"

I frowned hard.

I've always despised people who don't know their place—no sense of boundaries, no respect for the line. I was ready to fire her on the spot.

But she dropped to her knees in front of me, sobbing.

"I know I was wrong, Mrs. Weiss, please don't fire me. My mother's still in the hospital waiting for me to send money back."

And right at that moment, the door was shoved open and a figure barged in.

Mick pulled her to her feet with a frown, then turned a cold look on me.

"Desiree, you've always been generous about everything. So why is it that the moment Tilly's involved, you turn cruel?"

"It's nothing. Don't be so petty over every little thing."

With Mick shielding her, Tilda only got bolder.

Until the day she flung a pregnancy test showing two lines and a paternity report right in my face.

"Desiree Gilbert, I'm pregnant."

"It's your husband's baby."

"I'd advise you not to try throwing me out again. Otherwise, the one who ends up suffering will be you."

I exploded that same day and demanded a divorce.

He stared at me with a crease between his brows. "Fine. And why exactly do you want a divorce? Can you stop being unreasonable?"

"You got the nanny pregnant and you're calling me unreasonable?"

Then Tilda rushed out and fell to her knees in front of me, crying.

"Don't blame him—it was all me. I took one of his used condoms from the trash and did it behind his back. I just… I only wanted a baby of my own."

I laughed, cold with fury. "Do you two actually think I'm stupid?"

But that same day, Mick produced surveillance footage to prove his innocence.

He knelt in front of me, begging me to forgive him, even swearing he'd fire Tilda—and against every instinct, I softened.

I had one condition. "Get rid of the baby."

He agreed to my face and told me he'd already taken her to the hospital for the procedure—but behind my back, he'd hidden her in a villa.

A few days later, Mick claimed he'd gone bankrupt and been sent to prison. Overnight, the sky fell.

I sold the property and moved into a damp basement. There was nothing else left to do.

Hiding from the debt collectors, I couldn't sleep through the night.

They eventually found my basement. A group of them stormed in with clubs and beat me.

Two of my ribs were broken. My wrist was shattered. I could never pick up a brush again.

It took me longer than I can say to force myself to accept it.

I gave up everything, just to stay alive.

And now I'm told all of it was fake.

For two whole years, Mick had been out there wrapped around another woman, warm and tender, enjoying every comfort of family—while I ran in circles like a fool believing every lie.

Right then, my phone buzzed.

A message from Mick.

"Desiree, I'm getting released in three days. Don't forget to come pick me up."

I gripped the phone and stared at the screen for a long time, blank.

In the two years since Mick went to prison, he was allowed to check his phone once a week. That was our only window to talk.

Last time, he'd told me he was being sentenced to ten years. Told me to sit tight and wait for him.

That was before the brain cancer diagnosis.

I'd thought, in despair: Mick, I won't live long enough to see the day you get out.

Maybe his conscience finally stirred. Or maybe he'd had enough of the act.

Either way, he'd decided to end the lie.

"Okay. I'll come pick you up."

What I never could have imagined was that the moment Mick saw me that day, he shoved me into a car and headed straight for the hospital.

I stared at this Mick I didn't recognize, at the panic written all over his face, and asked quietly.

"Why are we going to the hospital?"

"Til—a friend of mine was in a car accident. She needs an emergency transfusion and your blood type is a match. Desiree, you'll help—won't you."