He threw money on the bed after our one-night stand.
I threw it back in his face at his own inauguration.
By sundown, we were engaged. By the week's end — married.
Franklin Flemington needed a wife to secure his empire. I needed a miracle to save my family. For two years, we played our parts flawlessly — the golden couple the whole city envied.
Behind closed doors, I was invisible to him.
When the two years were up, I handed him divorce papers without blinking.
He stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "I've given you everything a husband should. What more do you want from me, Octavia?"
I smiled, signed my name, and walked out.
I thought that was the end. I thought I'd finally won.
I forgot one thing — Franklin Flemington has never lost anything in his life. And he has no intention of starting with me.
Game on.

Two missed calls. Eight. Ten. Fourteen. By the time the counter hit sixteen, I stopped looking. Ten voicemails and a mountain of texts, all from Franklin, sat like lead in my digital inbox. I wasn't in the mood to hear his voice, to listen to his practiced apologies, or to fall for the smooth timber of his lies. My mind was a battlefield, cluttered with the wreckage of the night at the resort.


I couldn't stop the loop in my head: those photos of Franklin, naked and vulnerable in a bed that wasn't mine. How could he betray me so effortlessly? After that night of passion we shared on the beach—a night where I thought our souls finally touched—he couldn't even wait to run into the arms of another woman. The sting of it was physical. Why do the people I let in always turn out to be the ones who hold the knife?


Chapter 80 - ~ 80