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.

I didn't realize how fast I was walking until the hospital's automatic glass doors hissed shut behind me with a soft, final sound. It echoed in my chest like the closing of a vault. I stopped dead on the sidewalk, the cool evening air slapping against my face. The city kept moving around me—cars slicing through traffic, strangers laughing into their phones, life pulsing on as if nothing had changed. But inside me, everything had fractured.


She remembered them. Her parents. The way her eyes had softened when she looked at Ben and Patricia, the quiet recognition that lit up her face—it had been real. Warm. Immediate. But when she turned those same eyes on me… nothing. Just polite confusion and a stranger's wariness.


Chapter 107 - ~ 107