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.

The days following the disaster at Madison Square Garden had been a blur of corrosive silence and obsessive rumination. My mind had become a broken record, skipping over the same jagged groove: those photos. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the digital glow of Octavia's phone, the undeniable image of my own body captured in a moment of vulnerability I had absolutely no memory of.


How was it possible? I had replayed the night at the resort a thousand times. I remembered the salt in the air, the weight of the confession I'd finally found the courage to give her, and the warmth of her hand in mine.


 Then, the gap. The suffocating, black void where my memory should have been.


Chapter 94 - ~ 94