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."

I lowered my gaze. I'd seen it on my phone just two days ago—the car accident near Rivergate Bridge. The victim was Tilda Pruitt. And the very first thing he did after his "release" was drag me here to donate blood for his mistress.

"Mick Weiss, how much longer were you planning to lie to me?"

I shoved the photos I'd taken that day right in front of his face.

"You lied about prison. You lied about the company going bankrupt. So why couldn't you even bother lying properly to the end?"

"A man who supposedly went bankrupt two years ago, and the day he gets out of prison he's driving a Porsche?"

"And that suit—worth more than most people make in a month. You couldn't even find something cheap to play the part?"

The more I said, the bleaker my expression became, until I was laughing at the absurdity of it all.

"Mick Weiss, you changed your release date."

"Just so I'd come donate blood for Tilda Pruitt. That's all this was, wasn't it?"

Mick went rigid. Panic flashed across his face before he forced himself back to calm.

He let out a long, slow breath.

"Didn't expect you to figure it out."

"Fine. Since you know, I won't hide it anymore."

"These past two years, I wasn't in prison. I was with Tilly—her and our son."

"Tilly said she wanted to know what it felt like to be my wife. So for two full years, I was completely hers."

"But I promised that once the agreed time was up, I'd come back to the family. You'd still be my wife."

"As for Benny, he'll be my heir. You can raise him as your own."

I stood frozen, my whole body nearly shaking. "Why? Why would you do this to me?"

"I could have given you a child. So why did you go have one with her?"

Mick's smile turned cruel.

"You wanting another child is never going to happen."

"What do you mean?"

"After the nanny gave birth, I got a vasectomy."

"I swore to her that Benny would be my only child. Ever."

Before I could process it, I was brought to a hospital room. I watched Mick rush to Tilda's bedside, his face tight with worry.

Then he turned and ordered me without a shred of hesitation. "Desiree. Give her your blood."

"If Tilly wakes up, I'll end the punishment. You can go back to being Mrs. Weiss—all the status, all the luxury, starting today."

That tone. As if he were granting me a favor.

"And if I refuse?"

Mick's expression went cold. "Then don't blame me for what happens next."

One look from him was all it took. A wall of bodyguards surged forward and pinned me in place, their faces blank.

They forced me to give blood.

I watched bag after bag filled and carried out, and with each one my body hollowed a little more, the color bleeding from my face along with everything else.

Mick sighed. The way he looked at me softened, just slightly.

"Desiree, come on now. Be good for me."

"I promise, once Tilda wakes up, whatever terms you want, I'll agree to all of them."

I stared at him, ice in my eyes. "Even... dying with me?"

His whole body locked. His brow furrowed hard. "Don't joke about that."

He glanced down at his phone. "Get some rest. I'm going to check on Tilly."

He was gone in a stride. Tilda didn't wake until that evening.

By then I had the fruit knife in my hand, and I was already moving toward her room.

"Desiree Gilbert?"

Tilda's eyes opened and found me standing there. She went still.

"I heard you're the one who saved me. I really should thank you. Though I have to say, these past two years I've been taking very good care of your husband, too."

"Shut up."

I narrowed my eyes and stepped closer. "Tilda Pruitt, I've never been able to figure it out. I never wronged you. We had no grudge between us. So why? Why would you do this to me?"

Tilda laughed. "You're asking the wrong person, sweetheart. That's a question for Mick."

"You say there's no grudge between us? That's cute. That's your version."

"But if you weren't squatting on the Mrs. Weiss title, I'd have married him years ago. You think I wanted to hide like a dirty secret this whole time?"

"Oh, right—" Tilda added, like something had just come back to her.

"You thought that surveillance footage was real? Mick and I paid someone to fake it. And those ultra-thin condom wrappers in the trash? I made that up on the spot. And you actually fell for it."

"These past two years, Mick and I were the real husband and wife. While you were rotting away in your miserable little life, we couldn't have been happier."

My head snapped up. I locked onto Tilda and tightened my grip on the fruit knife. "Then you can pay for it with your life."

Tilda shrieked in terror, but the blade never reached her. Someone seized my wrist and wrenched it back.

"Desiree, have you lost your mind?"

Mick's face was white as he stared at me, pulling Tilda behind him on instinct.

"You kill her and you go to prison. Is that what you want? You want to die that badly?"

I let out a cold, brittle laugh. "I don't have much of a life left anyway."

Mick looked at me, hesitated, then spoke again.

"Desiree. Have you been thinking this whole time that you have cancer?"

"That was fake, too."

"I paid a doctor to write you a fake diagnosis. You think just punishing you was enough? I wanted you to believe you were dying. I wanted you to live every single day wishing you were already dead."

Each word landed somewhere I'd already stopped being able to feel. I stared at him, numb past the point of pain, my thoughts too slow and too far behind to catch up.

"What did you just say?"

"Fake?"

From behind Mick, Tilda snickered. "Mick, look. She really is an idiot."

"Did you even read that diagnosis?"

"Every stamp on it was forged. The signature was completely made up. And you just swallowed the whole thing."

I stood there, rigid, my face drained of color, my lips moving without producing a single sound.

"All of it was a lie."

So even my cancer diagnosis had been staged. They'd bribed the doctor themselves.

Just to make me feel the despair of a terminal illness.

Mick Weiss, you really did think of everything. All to avenge your precious little nanny.

"Mick Weiss, you're heartless."

But before the words even left my mouth, the bodyguards behind me shoved me out.

"Blood's done. You're useless now. Get out."

They pushed me without mercy. I hit the ground, and blood ran freely from my knees.

"Ma'am, here."

Miles Chavez walked over with an umbrella in one hand and a fistful of tissues in the other, unhurried, like this was a routine pickup.

"Mr. Weiss's orders. Punishment's complete. I'm here to bring you home."

A few days later, Tilda was discharged and came back to the house. She made a point of carrying the baby right up to me.

"Desiree, you probably haven't met my son, have you?"

"You were the one who wanted me to get rid of him, remember? Lucky for me, Mick played favorites. He hid me away in a villa to carry the baby to term."

"Look how big my boy's gotten."

I stared at the child's face—and Tilda shoved Benny into the pond.

"Desiree!"

Her scream hit before I could move.

"If you have a problem, take it out on me! How dare you touch my child!"

She plunged into the water after him.

I hadn't moved. I was still standing in the same spot, hands empty, not understanding a single thing that had just happened.

Mick came at me from across the room and slammed me to the ground.

"Desiree, I thought two years of this would've beaten that out of you. But you're the same vicious, arrogant bitch you always were."

"No—worse. You'd go after an innocent child."

"He's one. He's a baby. He doesn't know a damn thing. You should be dead, Desiree!"

They rushed over and pulled the baby out of the water.

They called in the best private physician in the country to look after him.

The doctor said the child was fine, just a little chilled. Mick's face went ice-cold anyway, and he made me kneel at the doorway as punishment.

When Benny's fever hit 39 degrees, Mick grabbed the ashtray off the table and hurled it at my forehead. He cursed me without stopping, every word meant to break something.

"You really are hard to kill, Desiree."

"Two years of this, and you're still not dead?"

"Go die. Why won't you just die?"

And I, numb to the bone, nodded.

"Okay."

But my voice was swallowed almost instantly by Tilda's.

"Mick, hold Benny, please, he needs you right now. His fever's spiking again..."

I got to my feet and walked slowly toward the window. I opened it. The movement drew everyone's attention, and they all turned to look at me.

Even Mick. His eyes went wide, his face drained white. "What are you doing?"

My face was already the color of paper. I looked at him and smiled, just barely.

"Granting your wish."

"I'll go die."

And I jumped. No hesitation. I threw myself out.

"Desiree!"

Mick lunged for me, white-faced, but his fingers didn't catch so much as the edge of my sleeve.