"The servants' quarters?"

I stared at Guy in disbelief.

His jaw was clenched tight. "Once Mabel's baby is born, you can move back."

I looked up at the man I'd loved for so long, my eyes flooding with tears.

I had given him everything.

And he wanted me to wait on the woman who'd killed my daughter. To serve the bastard child growing in her belly.

My nails dug into my palms. Blood rushed to my head, a deafening buzz filling my ears.

I stared at the murderer standing in front of me, rage swelling inside me like a living thing.

I raised my hand, but Guy's voice cut through, dripping with menace. "Don't forget your mother is still in the hospital."

My hand froze midair. The words struck like lightning.

My mother was all I had left. Nothing could happen to her.

My nails bit deeper into my palms, holding back the fury by sheer will. My voice trembled. "Fine. But I have some documents that need your signature."

I grabbed the papers from the nightstand and slipped the divorce agreement in among them.

Guy snatched them impatiently. He was about to read through them when Mabel interrupted.

"Guy, I don't like these decorations. I want them replaced with something else..."

So he scrawled his signature in a rush and tossed the papers into my arms.

I looked down at the documents pressed against my chest, bitterness rising in my throat.

Tears blurred my vision as I watched Mabel sweep the ornaments into the trash. My heart felt crushed in a giant fist, squeezing until I couldn't breathe.

Every single piece in that bedroom was something Guy and I had spent hours choosing together. When he'd placed them on the shelves, he'd pulled me close and taken a photo with each one. In those pictures, his eyes had been soft, brimming with love.

Now all that love belonged to Mabel.

The bitterness slowly settled into something cold and still. I wiped my tears, turned, and walked out.

I dialed the first number in my contacts.

"I need you to finalize the divorce proceedings. And start acquiring shares in James Group."

Everything Guy cared about most, I was going to take it all.

That night, I lay on the narrow bed in the servants' quarters, my heart frozen solid, staring at the ceiling until dawn.

When the sky outside the window began to lighten, I forced myself up and pulled on the maid's uniform. I stood before the mirror.

The woman staring back had swollen red eyes and tangled hair, looking no better than a stray dog.

Was this really me?

The door burst open. Bodyguards flooded in and dragged me to Mabel.

Something cruel and amused flickered behind her eyes. She seized my arm, her grip bruising. "Oh, sister. Still here, clinging on with that shameless face of yours? Why bother occupying a place that was never yours?" She let out a little laugh. "Silly me, I forgot. You're so in love with Guy, you just can't bear to leave."

Before I could get a single word out, she raised her voice. "Someone, grab her!"

The guards swarmed in, locking my arms on both sides.

Their grip was crushing, enough to splinter bone. A vicious kick buckled my knees, and white-hot pain shot straight through my skull as I crashed to the floor.

I clenched my teeth so hard they ached, forcing words through the gap. "What the hell do you want, Mabel?"

"Let's make a little wager, sister. Let's see who Guy really cares about most."

Mabel pulled a bottle of red wine from the cabinet. She grabbed my chin and forced the wine into my mouth.

I was severely allergic to alcohol.

I clamped my jaw shut with everything I had, but the liquid still poured down my throat and into my stomach.

A searing burn blazed from my throat to my gut, then spread through my entire body.

Within seconds, my skin flushed red and began to swell. Clusters of blisters crawled up my arms and crept along my neck.

Then she ordered the guards to drag me to the edge of the swimming pool. From behind her back, she produced my daughter's keepsake locket, the one she'd worn since birth.

"Don't you touch that!"

My vision was already blurring, my throat swelling shut. I thrashed against the guards despite the agony tearing through me, my voice raw with desperation.

Mabel leaned in close to my ear, her whisper dripping with venom. "Amber Fox, why should you get a brother who adores you? A good husband? Everything you have, I'm going to take it all."

Then came the splash. She flung the locket into the pool.

"No!"

The fury that erupted gave me a strength I didn't know I had. I tore free of the guards, grabbed Mabel by the collar, and hauled her into the water. "Who gave you permission to throw that? Since you did, you're going to find it for me!"

Water exploded around us. I fought through the pain and shoved Mabel beneath the surface, searching frantically for the locket at the same time.

My arms swept blindly through the water. My fingertips scraped the tile at the bottom, but there was no cold metal.

Where... where was it...

The allergic reaction was tearing through me. My whole body shook. Each breath came harder than the last.

The water's surface warped and blurred before my eyes. My throat had swollen so tight I could barely draw air.

Mabel's thrashing and sputtering filled my ears, broken fragments of a scream. "Help... help me... Guy..."

Then a large hand clamped around my wrist and wrenched me off her.

A searing pain ripped through my stomach as Guy's foot slammed into me, sending me flying.

Water erupted around me. My consciousness began to sink. I thrashed, slapping the surface with everything I had, screaming with the last of my strength: "Guy!"

But he only held the woman in his arms tighter. He didn't look back.

My body drifted downward into the pool. I thought of three months ago, when I'd gone skiing and been caught in an avalanche, trapped in the mountains. Guy had charged in without hesitation, pulling my hypothermic body from the snow.

"Amber, I'll always protect you. Whenever you call my name, I'll be right there."

All lies.

Every last word.

Soon, they would pay for everything they'd done.

When I opened my eyes again, a hospital ceiling stared back at me. I'd barely twitched my fingers when that grating voice slithered into my ears.

"You're finally awake. So you're pregnant." Mabel looked me up and down, a loaded smile curling at the corner of her lips. "You should take good care of that baby, sis."

I wrapped my arms around my stomach on instinct and turned my head. Mabel's contemptuous gaze met mine. She stood there like a victor claiming her spoils, then reached out and seized my chin, fingers digging in hard. "Looks like your husband cares about me more after all, doesn't he, sis?"

I stared into her eyes. I'd expected bitterness to flood through me. Instead, my heart was a stagnant pool. Nothing stirred. Not a single ripple.

When I said nothing, the smile on Mabel's face nearly cracked. "I stole Guy from you. You don't have anything to say about that?"

I reached up and pried her fingers off my chin, one by one, my gaze dripping with mockery. "Say what? You want me to throw a fit? Wail and beg? Not going to happen."

"You stole a piece of trash. Why would I be upset? Congratulations on recycling someone else's garbage."

Mabel hadn't expected that. The smile vanished entirely, replaced by raw fury burning behind her eyes. "Amber, a sharp tongue won't help you. You still couldn't protect your own child or your mother."

She stepped closer, her expression vicious. "And this baby? Don't think for a second you're keeping it."

The mention of my daughter sent a spike of pain through my chest. My nails dug into my palms until the skin nearly broke. My body trembled, and no words would come.

But that wasn't the reaction she wanted. Her lips curled again. "I've prepared a big surprise for you, sis. When you see it, you'll lose your mind."

Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked out.

I stared at the doorway long after she disappeared, her words circling through my head on a loop.

What was she going to do to my mother? What was she going to do to the baby inside me?

I couldn't let myself think about it, but the images clawed their way in anyway.

I didn't know how long I sat there before I realized my face was soaked with tears.

I wiped them away with a shaking hand, picked up my phone, and dialed the number.

My voice was hoarse, but every word came out razor-clear. "Wallace, get the divorce certificate processed and send it straight to James Group headquarters. And look into Mabel's financial records."

"I'll come for you the day after tomorrow."

After I hung up, I stared at the IV drip. Pain radiated from my stomach. The space where my heart should have been felt hollow, cavernous, wrong.

But the longer the pain lasted, the more numb I became. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, nothing remained but cold resolve.

Discharge day came. I gathered my things and had barely stepped through the door when I saw Guy waiting outside, leaning against his car as if he'd been there a while.

His tone carried a thread of impatience. "It's your birthday. Mabel went out of her way to put together a party for you. Don't waste her kindness. I'm here to take you."

I sidestepped him without a word, a bitter smile ghosting across my face.

Every birthday before this, he'd been called away by one of Mabel's convenient little emergencies. Now he wanted to play the devoted husband?

My voice was flat. I frowned and refused.

"I'm not going."

Guy's expression darkened instantly. He didn't speak, but the silent pressure radiating off him was more suffocating than any threat.

He lifted a hand. Bodyguards moved in immediately, forcing me into the car and dragging me to the party.

The moment I was shoved through the doors of the banquet hall, Mabel swept toward me in a gown, all smiles, and placed a party hat on my head.

She played the part of the doting little sister to perfection, pressing a beautifully wrapped box into my hands, her voice honeyed and sweet. "Happy birthday, sis. I've been working on this gift for a long time. You're going to love it."

Every pair of eyes in the room settled on my hands, silently urging me to open it.

I lifted my gaze, cold and indifferent, and tore the wrapping apart.

Inside lay a single sheet of paper.

My mother's death certificate.

My vision went black. The report crumpled in my grip and slipped to the floor.

Tears spilled down my face, but no sound came out. I was a fish with a hand around its throat, gasping for air that wouldn't come.

My daughter was gone.

Now my mother was gone too.

The last person on this earth who loved me, and Mabel had killed her.

With my daughter and my mother both dead, what was left to be afraid of?

Mabel's coy laughter drifted to my ears. "Big sister, are you satisfied with your gift?"

I looked at the woman smiling prettily in front of me. Something savage filled my eyes, and the last thread of reason inside me snapped clean through.

I lunged and locked both hands around her throat, squeezing harder with every breath. "How did you kill my mother, Mabel? Like this?"

"You psycho!" Mabel shrieked beneath my grip, her face flushing a deep, mottled red.

That's right. I had lost my mind.

You murdered my mother. If I wasn't going to lose it, who would?

"Amber! Mabel gave you a gift out of the goodness of her heart, and this is how you repay her? Why do you always have to hurt her?"

The next instant, Guy shoved me to the ground. Pain tore through my lower spine like a blade.

He cradled Mabel in his arms as though she were the most precious thing in the world. The look he turned on me was the one you'd give a piece of trash.

I lay sprawled on the floor. And then, slowly, I laughed.

Ten years.

I had loved this man for ten years.

The first time he looked at me like that was the day Mabel and her mother walked through our door.

The first time he raised a hand to me was the day Mabel ran to him crying that I'd bullied her.

The first time he abandoned me without a second thought was the day Mabel screamed for help.

Again and again and again. He had never once chosen me.

It was his indulgence that let Mabel destroy everything I ever loved.

I pulled myself upright. My gaze locked onto Mabel, cold as a blade, and I raised my voice so every guest in the room could hear.

"Mabel, all that money Guy gave you, you funneled it straight into Max Fox's accounts. What's going on between you two? Some kind of affair?"

Guilt flickered across Mabel's face. She blurted out in a panic, "Don't make things up! The only man I care about is Guy!"

I let out a sharp, scornful laugh and turned to face the crowd. "You all heard that. My adopted sister just confessed she's in love with her brother-in-law."

Whispers ignited through the room like wildfire. Fingers pointed at Mabel.

"The Fox family's second daughter looks so sweet and innocent. Who knew she'd go after her own sister's husband?"

"Wait, hasn't the older sister even divorced Guy yet? Doesn't that make Mabel the other woman?"

I watched Mabel throw herself into Guy's arms, tears streaming prettily down her cheeks, and my stomach turned.

Guy soothed the woman clinging to him, then walked to the center of the banquet hall. He picked up a microphone, gazed at Mabel with eyes full of adoration, and spoke for every person in the room to hear.

"The only woman who will ever be my wife is Mabel. Amber Fox was always the interloper."

Just like that, the crowd's judgment swiveled onto me.

I watched the two of them with frozen eyes. Nothing stirred inside me anymore.

But when I heard the word interloper, I still smiled.

Interloper?

I met you when I was eighteen. I married you when I was twenty-two. Was I intruding on your little underground affair?

I couldn't be bothered to argue. I walked straight up to Mabel and demanded through clenched teeth, "Where is my mother's body?"

Mabel's lips curled in triumph. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and wrenched my head down, her voice dripping with venom. "Your mother? She's already been burned to ash. You want her? Go pick her up from the funeral home yourself."

A violent tremor ripped through my body. I said nothing. I tore myself free of her grip and ran for the exit.

I had barely climbed into a taxi when Mabel caught up, her fingers clamping onto the door like claws. "Sister, why are you leaving so soon? Didn't you like your present? I really do want you to be happy. Don't go. I'll give you my place. Just stay—"

"Get off." I had no interest in performing in her little show. I looked at the driver, my voice flat and dead. "Drive."

The car had barely pulled away when Mabel darted in front of it, arms flung wide.

A split second later, the screech of brakes cut through the air. Not from the taxi.

From the Maybach behind us.

Guy's car.

CRASH.

The impact sent the taxi skidding sideways. My head slammed into the window glass, and the world turned red.

Through the blur, I saw Guy climb out of the Maybach and sprint toward Mabel.

He didn't so much as glance in my direction.

I closed my eyes. A bitter smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth.

The divorce papers should have been delivered by now.

Guy James, from this moment on, we are nothing to each other.