1 Ten years of marriage, and my husband Tedd never let me enter the Vance family estate. Each time I asked to meet his parents, he’d gently squeeze my shoulders and soothe, “Just a little longer, Ava. You’re not established enough. I don’t want them to be hard on you.” Today felt different. I’d just closed a billion-dollar deal for our company. Finally confident, I stood before his iron gates. But a nine-year-old boy opened the door. He scanned me with disdain. “Who are you? Dressed like trash—what do you want with my dad?” My throat closed. Before I could speak, a maid warmly guided me inside. There, on the living room table, stood a framed marriage certificate—with Tedd and his assistant Evelyn. The maid beamed. “See? Our young master and mistress have been married ten years! Their son is already big. The mistress just landed that huge deal. The old master’s so thrilled, he’s throwing her a celebration tonight!” I watched the boy—Tedd’s perfect copy—leap into his father’s arms. Evelyn leaned against them lovingly. My mind went blank. All that talk of me not being “established” was a lie. Ten years of marriage, my hard-won victories—they were just stepping stones for him and another woman. … In a corner of the living room, Tedd’s arm was wrapped possessively around Evelyn’s waist. He gave her a playful squeeze, his voice a low, teasing murmur. “You spoil him rotten. He’s nine years old and still clinging to his father like a toddler. It’s not a good look.” He leaned closer, his lips brushing her ear, his voice dropping to a husky whisper that still carried across the room to where I stood, frozen. “Besides, your arms… they’re meant for me to crawl into at night.” A deep blush crept up Evelyn’s neck. She gave him a soft, theatrical shove. “Ten years, and you still haven’t had enough of me?” Lust thickened Tedd’s gaze as his thumb traced lazy circles on her hip. “A vision like you? How could any man ever have enough?” My fists clenched, my nails digging so deep into my palms that they should have drawn blood, but I felt nothing. They flirted as if I wasn't even there, a ghost in their perfect home. The irony was suffocating; I was a ghost. After a decade of marriage, I didn’t even have the right to enter this house, while they had built their nest here, complete with a child. Tedd, not yet satisfied, purred, “Send the boy off with the nanny. Let’s head upstairs for some… business.” It was then that his eyes finally drifted across the room and landed on me. The color drained from his face, leaving behind a pasty, white mask. He froze, his lips trembling as he stammered, “Ava… wh-what are you doing here?” The air crackled and died. Evelyn followed his gaze, her brow furrowing. “Who is this?” Tedd scrambled to untangle himself from her, clearing his throat and composing himself with a pathetic flicker of his former confidence. “Honey, this is Ava Sterling, one of the sales reps from the office. You probably don’t recognize her; she’s always on the road for work.” A bitter, hollow laugh escaped my lips. Ten years. Ten years of building an empire with him from nothing, and I was just a sales rep. Evelyn ignored him, her gaze sweeping over me with cold appraisal. Her eyes finally snagged on the delicate silver bracelet on my wrist, and her expression curdled into pure contempt. “A lowly sales rep can afford a piece like that? And why does it look so much like the one I threw in the trash last month?” A wave of humiliation so powerful it stole the air from my lungs washed over me. Tedd rushed to explain. “Darling, you know how some people are. When they can’t afford nice things, they’ll happily pick up other people’s scraps. You tossed it in the office bin; she must have seen it and fished it out.” With a single sentence, he absolved himself, painting me as a pathetic scavenger. He was now shooting me frantic, desperate glances, silently begging me to play along. But this bracelet… this was the gift he’d given me after I’d closed a major deal. He’d fastened it around my wrist himself, right there in his office, his eyes full of what I had mistaken for love. He’d told me it was part of a matching set, that he had the other, and that I should never take it off. I’d sworn to myself that day that I would land the billion-dollar deal, that I would finally earn his parents’ approval and bring our marriage into the light. It never even occurred to me that I had never, not once, seen him wear the matching piece. Only now did I understand. The treasure I had cherished was someone else’s garbage. The real reason I’d never met his family was because he already had one. I took a deep breath, fighting down the storm of rage and betrayal churning inside me. I managed a cold smile. “You’re right. I wasn’t aware of the situation when I… found it. Allow me to return it to its rightful owner.” I unclasped the bracelet and threw it hard onto the marble floor. The sharp crack of splintering silver echoed through the silent room. Tedd lunged, his face contorted in fury. The crack of his hand across my cheek was even louder. “How dare you break my wife’s things! Ava, you’ve gone too far!” Five angry red fingerprints bloomed on my skin. I touched my stinging cheek, staring at the man I had once loved with everything I had. He was a stranger. “My apologies,” I whispered, turning to leave. “Wait.” Evelyn’s voice cut through the air, laced with the smug charity of a queen addressing a peasant. “Don’t be in such a hurry. Since you’re already here, why don’t you stay?” She smirked, her eyes glinting with malice. “My father-in-law is throwing this party to celebrate my success with the billion-dollar deal. You’re a company employee, after all. You should join the festivities, shouldn’t you?” She dragged out the words “billion-dollar deal,” a clear, deliberate jab. Tedd’s face paled, but a sharp look from Evelyn silenced him. She gestured expansively. “My husband had this entire estate renovated just for me, you know. Every last detail chosen to my taste. Pick any room you like. Don’t be shy. Make yourself at home.” “I don’t want her here!” the little boy shrieked, running to tug on Evelyn’s designer dress. “Mommy! I don’t want the beggar staying in our house! She’s dirty! She’ll make everything stink!” He pointed a chubby finger at me. “Look how dark her skin is, and her clothes are all raggedy! She must have crawled out of a garbage can! Make her leave!” A triumphant smile played on Evelyn’s lips. I looked at her, so pampered and pristine, then down at my own hands, calloused and rough from years of fieldwork, my skin tanned from endless business trips. For Tedd, for those damn deals, I had run myself into the ground. I’d worked so hard I’d given myself an ulcer. And this humiliating spectacle was my reward. 2 I laughed, a dry, self-mocking sound. A quick check on my phone confirmed it: all the trains back to the city were sold out. I was trapped here for the night. I had barely set my luggage down in the guest room when my phone rang. It was Tedd. “I told you not to come to the estate, Ava. Did you show up unannounced just to embarrass me? Let me make one thing clear: this disgusting stunt of yours has made me furious. And there will be consequences. Don’t expect my forgiveness anytime soon.” Listening to him, my fingers tightened around the phone. For ten years, every argument had been the same. He would be the one in the wrong, yet he would always adopt that condescending, superior tone, waiting for me to come crawling back, begging for his forgiveness. And like a pathetic fool, I always did, swallowing my pride just to make him happy. This time, I finally worked up the courage to ask the question that burned in my throat. “How could you be legally married to two women at the same time?” But before the words could leave my mouth, the line went dead. I tried calling back. Blocked. It seemed in his eyes, I didn’t even have the right to question him. My heart felt like a hollow cavity in my chest, too numb even for pain. As I stood staring blankly out the window, the door was violently kicked open. Evelyn strode in, a sickeningly sweet smile plastered on her face. Slap! A stack of glossy photographs hit my face, their sharp edges slicing a thin cut across my cheek. “So, you’re the little homewrecker. Did you really think I didn’t know you existed?” I balled my fists, my voice a raw whisper. “Tedd and I are legally married! We have a certificate!” “A certificate?” Evelyn burst out laughing, a shrill, ugly sound. She pulled a document from her purse. “Your marriage certificate with Tedd is a forgery. The entire thing was a scam, from start to finish.” She smoothed her skirt, her voice dripping with condescending pity. “He only let you stick around for so long because you were useful. Obedient. A loyal little dog who worked for peanuts, right? He even told me himself, he only played along because you were so pathetically cheap. You barely took a salary and even spent your own money buying him gifts.” She paused for effect. “Oh, and by the way? Every proposal you stayed up all night to write, every contract you signed while destroying your own health… it was all credited to my name.” She then fanned the photos out in front of my face. “You’re quite the exhibitionist, aren’t you? Tedd showed these to me himself. Tsk, tsk. When a woman has nothing else to offer, I suppose this is the only way to keep a man’s interest. How pathetic.” There I was. On my knees, wearing cat ears he’d cajoled me into putting on. And there were others, far more humiliating. He had called it foreplay, a fun little game between lovers. I had debased myself to please him, and he had turned my humiliation into a spectacle for his real wife. Evelyn drove her heel into my chest, sending me staggering backward. “These photos have been making the rounds on the company’s internal forums for ages,” she sneered. “Do you know what everyone calls you behind your back? The ugly toad trying to play kitten. Hahahahaha!” I collapsed to the floor, the searing pain in my chest nothing compared to the suffocating rage and shame that consumed me. I had known Tedd first. She was the one who came later. But somehow, in their twisted reality, I was the one branded the homewrecker, the one deserving of this torment. I couldn’t stay in this hellhole a second longer. “From this day forward,” I choked out, “you will never see me again.” 3 I dragged my suitcase out of the room, but as I rounded the corner in the hallway, Tedd’s hand clamped down on my wrist. “Where do you think you’re going at this hour?” His handsome face was a mask of displeasure. “You think you can just come and go as you please? What do you take the Vance estate for, a hotel?” The sheer, unadulterated audacity of it was breathtaking. I had just closed a deal that would change his company’s fortunes forever, and I had rushed here, hoping for a crumb of acceptance from his family, only to find his perfect, secret life. “Mr. Vance,” I said, yanking my arm free with a cold laugh. “Isn’t it a little late to pretend you care?” His brow furrowed. “Ava, what is this attitude? Who gave you the nerve to speak to me like that?” Before I could leave, the sound of frantic footsteps echoed down the hall. Tedd’s son, wielding a baseball bat, charged at me and swung it with all his might against my shin. “Ah!” A blinding flash of pain shot up my leg, and I lost my balance, stumbling forward. But to my utter shock, the boy immediately threw himself backward, landing on his bottom and letting out a theatrical wail. “Waaaah! The beggar hit me! The beggar is hitting me!” My eyes widened in disbelief. Before I could process the blatant lie, Evelyn was there, scooping the child into her arms and rounding on me with a roar. “You homewrecking bitch! It’s bad enough you invade my home, but now you dare to lay a hand on my son? Take a good look at yourself in a mirror! If there is so much as a scratch on him, I will make you pay, you worthless piece of trash!” Servants flocked around us, their whispers like a swarm of angry bees. “Shameless. A homewrecker with this much nerve.” “The mistress is too kind. If it were me, I’d have stripped her naked and thrown her in a dumpster.” “Exactly! A low-life like her, daring to cause trouble at the Vance estate. Does she not know what Vance Industries is worth now? Without our mistress, this company would be nothing!” I clutched the wall, trying to stand as agony pulsed from my leg. But what hurt more was Tedd’s reaction. He didn’t even glance at me. He knelt, fussing over his son, checking him for imaginary injuries. Once satisfied the boy was unharmed, Tedd shot up, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and yanked my head back. His voice was laced with a venom I had never heard before. “Apologize to my son. Now.” The pain was searing, as if my scalp was being torn from my skull, but I gritted my teeth. “I didn’t touch him. Why should I apologize?” My vision blurred with tears of rage. “Tedd,” I pleaded, my voice cracking, “we’ve known each other for fifteen years. We were together for ten. Even if you wanted to marry your assistant and have a child, why couldn’t you just tell me? Did you think I would cling to you? I may not have much, Ava Sterling, but I have my pride! I would never stand in the way of your happiness. But why did you have to humiliate me like this? A fake marriage certificate? Turning me into a laughingstock for the entire company?” A flicker of something—guilt? uncertainty?—crossed his eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a cold, hard mask. He released my hair, and I slumped against the wall. He looked down at me, his voice dripping with condescension. “Ava, I thought you were a smart woman. It seems I overestimated you.” He motioned to the maids, who seized my shoulders and forced me to my knees. “This is your punishment for showing up here uninvited. You will accept it.” He then turned to his wife. “Darling, go on. Hit her until you feel better. Hit her until our son is happy again.” The boy’s face lit up. He scrambled to the coffee table, grabbed a heavy crystal ashtray, and hurled it at my head. The sharp edge of the crystal sliced open my forehead. Warm blood instantly began to stream down my face. Evelyn, suddenly, adopted a look of feigned horror, a stark contrast to the vicious woman who had kicked me just moments before. “Tedd, darling, maybe this is too much. Let’s just stop.” Tedd sneered and grabbed her wrist. “What are you afraid of? I said hit her, so you hit her!” He guided her hand, forcing her to slap me, again and again. At first, Evelyn pretended to resist, but soon she was adding her own strength to the blows, her rings scratching my face, leaving behind bloody trails. When they were finally done, I was a heap on the floor, my vision swimming in and out of focus. Evelyn, a smug, triumphant smirk on her face, said sweetly, “Honey, we should lock her in the cellar for now. The heiress from Sterling Enterprises is supposed to be at the party soon. It wouldn’t do for her to see… this.” Tedd glanced at my bloody form and grunted in disgust. “I told you this morning to reflect on your actions, but you wouldn’t listen. You brought this on yourself. Ava, you’re going to the cellar to cool off. When you’ve learned how to be obedient and behave, then you can come out.”
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