The Villainess Survival Guide

Right now, my fianc is secretly googling how to get me to let him take care of me again.

The comments are positive he's about to throw me out on the street to die.

Both of those are happening at the same time. Only one of them is true. And I'm about to bet my life on the wrong one.

Let me back up.

There are comments on my life. They scroll across my vision the way they crawl over a livestream, and I am the only person who can see them. An audience I never asked for, watching me like the side character in a show they've all seen before. Tonight, they've reached a verdict.

Commenters: [The villainess STILL doesn't get it. You do not pick a fight with the male lead and walk away clean.]

Commenters: [Family's bankrupt and she's still barking orders. He is so over her.]

Commenters: [Relax. He's about to meet the sweet, angelic FL, fall hard, and finally dump this brat.]

Commenters: [Then our girl ends up out on the street. Car accident. Nobody even claims the body. Iconic.]

Here is what the comments cannot see.

His search history. The man they keep calling "done with me" spends his nights in a search bar they're positive is full of exit plans. What he actually types: how do I get my fiance to let me take care of her again.

He's set a photo of me as the wallpaper on his work computer and tells absolutely no one.

He stands in front of the mirror and works on his body like it's homework. Like if he just gets it right, I'll stay.

They called him the male lead who's finally about to walk away.

They have no idea.

But that night, neither did I. I only had the comments. And the comments said I was going to die.

So when he forgot to warm my milk, right after I'd jabbed a finger in his face and screamed that he didn't love me, didn't care about me, that I wanted that milk and I wanted it now, I panicked.

And shoved the glass straight back into his hands.

"You you've had a long day," I said. "You drink it. You drink it."

Chapter 1

His eyes had been going red. Slow, a deep red creeping up. Lids dropping, gaze sinking out of reach.

Then the glass hit his palm and his eyes snapped up.

He looked down at the cup I'd just shoved into his hands. His throat moved. Something flickered across his face. Confusion, maybe. A man recalibrating.

Fair. One second ago I'd had a finger in his face, screaming that he didn't love me, didn't care, that I wanted my milk and I wanted it warmed exactly right.

"What does that mean?" he said.

The comments kept coming.

Commenters: [Every single time, right? She bullies the ML into waiting on her hand and foot, then has to have her milk warmed to the perfect temperature after. Like he's staff.]

Commenters: [Man closed a deal today, came home wrecked, and she still tore into him for wanting five minutes before he heated her milk. Every little thing is a tantrum.]

Commenters: [Good. Keep it up, sweetheart. Drive him off tonight and he falls for the sunshine FL tomorrow. Then it's the street, the breakdown, the car that doesn't stop. Enjoy.]

I...

A brat?

Okay. Fine. I had standards. A lot of them.

But that was the deal. Wasn't it? When our families signed us off to each other, Roman stood in front of my parents and promised. However spoiled I got, however impossible, he'd take it. No conditions. I'd warned them all up front: I came pre-ruined. High-maintenance since birth. He said yes anyway.

He'd been so convincing.

And now my parents were overseas, ducking the people they owed, our family's whole half of the merger worth roughly nothing. And he was, what, quietly drafting my exit? Writing me out as the doomed fiance who gets dumped and flattened by a sedan in act three?

So that's what a man's promises are worth.

I could have just asked him. Are you planning to get rid of me? But I'd read the comments. I knew how this story went. Asking the male lead to explain himself has never once saved the side character. It only moves the timeline up.

I met his eyes and, without deciding to, scooted back an inch.

"It doesn't mean anything," I said. "You're tired, right? You need it more than I do. Go on. Drink."

His gaze dropped to the eight inches of mattress I'd just opened up between us. His brow tucked in.

Then he looked at my face, pinched and braced, and his eyes went soft and wet all over again. That fractured, about-to-spill look he kept aiming at me lately.

"I didn't forget," he said. "I was going to do it. I just wanted to sit down first."

A beat.

"Why won't you believe me?"

Here's the thing. In three years of me using him like hired help, Roman had absorbed all of it with the same flat calm. Lately he still barely spoke. But the red-rimmed eyes, the wounded-deer thing? The frequency was off the charts.

Which meant, obviously, that he'd been suffering in silence this whole time. Building his case. Waiting for his moment.

The more I turned it over, the colder my hands got. I rolled myself into the blanket until only my head stuck out, and looked at him.

"I believe you," I said. "I believe everything you say. Finish your milk and get some rest. Night."

I did not sleep.

So that was it. I was the control group. The placeholder. The girl whose entire job was to be so unbearable that the male lead could, in good conscience, fall for someone better.

My brain would not shut up.

I rolled over, put my back to him, and pulled out my phone to scroll until my chest unclenched.

It opened straight to my likes. A thousand of them, easy. Soft, fragile, ruinable pretty boys with that one specific look. Like they'd cry if you so much as raised your voice at them.

Chapter 2

I'd barely made it through two videos when something cracked behind me.

Glass. Set down hard enough to mean something.

Commenters: [Oh my GOD he slammed the cup down. First time I've seen the ML lose it. He warmed her milk and she won't drink it. What is wrong with her.]

Commenters: [Meanwhile she's lying there scrolling her thirst traps. The likes are public, you know. Half of them have probably surfaced on his feed by now. Zero respect for the man she's marrying.]

Commenters: [Used like a dog AND made to watch her drool over other guys. Strong, self-made man, getting quietly driven out of his mind.]

Commenters: [Let her keep going. He's done. The FL saves him, he takes out the trash. Any day now.]

I'd literally offered him the milk. That wasn't allowed either?

I went rigid.

Turned my head, one degree at a time, to check his face.

He was standing at the edge of the bed, expression black as a shut door. Then our eyes met, and the door opened. It softened. Slid back into that quiet, drowning, about-to-break look, fixed straight on me.

Oh no.

He really couldn't stand the sight of me anymore.

I swallowed, thumbed the screen dark, and shut my eyes like it hurt.

This was it. I didn't want the street. I didn't want the car.

He didn't move. Didn't do a single thing, for a long time.

The quiet went on until I couldn't stand it, and I tried again, soft as I could make it.

"Are you... not coming to bed?"

He looked down at me. When he spoke, I couldn't read his tone at all.

"You haven't had me do your massage yet."

My stomach dropped.

Every night for three years, I'd put him to work before bed. Back, feet, shoulders, the whole circuit, until I drifted off happy. He'd never once said a word about it.

Commenters: [HE SAID IT. He finally said it!]

Commenters: [CEO of a public company, silently kneading this brat's feet every night. No man on earth sits with that forever. He's done pretending. He's calling her out.]

Commenters: [Right?? She thinks one little "you coming to bed" cancels what she pulled tonight? He is not her lapdog.]

So. The reckoning. Starting now.

I clamped my eyes shut and fisted the blanket.

"It's fine," I said. "You're tired too. Just get some rest."

"From now on, you don't have to do any of that."

Please. Just don't end it.

I cracked one eye open to read him.

The red drained out of his eyes, instant. He snapped back into the cold, flat face he wore by default. Except something underneath it had gone wrong.

Commenters: [Wait, WHAT? Why'd she flip?]

Commenters: [Playing sweet now that she's spooked him? Little late for "reasonable," sweetie. You think he'll keep swallowing it?]

Commenters: [Be serious. He hears "you don't have to wait on me" and you can SEE the man perk up. Whole sky just cleared for him. Free at last.]

Roman stood there. Stared at me for a long, long time.

Then, low: "Fine."

And he pulled back the blanket and got in beside me, not touching, the milk going cold on the nightstand between us.

Chapter 3

I'd had maybe three seconds of peace when a pair of warm hands slid up from behind me and tucked my head into something soft. Firm. Criminally firm.

Right. This was also a me thing. Some months back I'd discovered that Roman had the single best chest I'd ever had the privilege of lying on, and had promptly bullied him into being my pillow every night since.

I wriggled free and dropped back onto my own, regulation, non-sentient pillow.

"You don't have to do that either," I said.

The body that had just curved in against mine went rigid. One beat.

I didn't look at his face. I didn't have to. The pressure in the room dropped like a storm front rolling in.

What followed was a single syllable, low enough to wring water out of.

"Mm."

I exhaled. There. Now he'd resent me a little less. Probably.

For the first time in recorded history, I slept like a functioning adult. No octopus-ing myself around him in the dark. No absent-minded grazing of his abs.

It was torture. Roman, on the other hand, must have hit a personal best for restful sleep, because he was up a full hour early and clattering around the kitchen by six.

I woke to a scolding.

Commenters: [I genuinely do not understand her. They HAVE a housekeeper. But no, the ML has to get up at dawn to make her some precious labor-of-love breakfast, because god forbid she go one morning without working him like a mule.]

Commenters: [A once-in-a-generation business mind, wasting his mornings frying her eggs. Textbook princess-syndrome brain rot.]

Commenters: [Just wait. However high-maintenance she is now, that's how pathetic she'll look the day he throws her out.]

I went from half-asleep to fully online in a heartbeat.

Didn't even grab shoes. Just bolted for the kitchen.

Roman heard me coming and turned, spatula still in hand, and caught my eyes. His gaze dropped straight to my bare feet on the tile, and his brow folded into three hard lines.

"You're up. What's wrong?"

There was open displeasure in it.

Commenters: [I am BEGGING this girl to stop. He's already irritated he had to cook, and now she barges in to start something? You can watch the man's patience drain out of him.]

Commenters: [Honestly? I think he wants to hit her right now. Keep pushing, sweetie. You have no idea your good days are numbered.]

...

He he was going to hit me?

Roman set the spatula down, frowning, and pushed his sleeves up his forearms as he came toward me.

I made a small sound and took two fast steps back.

"It's nothing," I said. "I just wanted to tell you. From now on, let the housekeeper handle breakfast. You don't have to do any of this."

He'd already closed half the distance. His arm had started to move, turning in at the waist, reaching to loop around me.

It stopped midair.

He looked down, slow, at the little gap I'd just opened by stepping back, and something dark gathered behind his eyes and kept gathering.

The whole kitchen set like cooling glass.

I stared at his arm, stalled halfway to me, and let out a long breath.

That was close.

Almost got hit.

"I'll skip breakfast today," I added. "You can head in early."

Roman didn't say anything. He just looked at me, his face settled into something deeply unhappy with nowhere to put it, a sentence stuck behind his teeth.

We stared at each other for a long moment before he forced it out.

"You're not hungry?"

I shook my head, fast.

"Not hungry. Not even a little."

Roman's expression went somewhere words don't really reach.

Chapter 4

He stood there a while, brain visibly offline, before he finally moved. Killed the burner. Put the cookware away. His hand drifted to the apron I'd bought him special. The pink one.

"What about..."

I'd found that apron online one bored afternoon. Big cutouts, front and back. On a man built like him, chest and shoulders and the rest of it, the visual impact was, frankly, a public service.

He hadn't wanted to wear it, at first. But with the right mix of threats and bribes, I'd had him in it every single morning, frying eggs and waking me up looking like that.

Commenters: [He's been suffering through that cursed apron too! Boobs out the front, ass out the back, basically lingerie, and she makes this cold, serious CEO wear it daily?? Unhinged.]

Commenters: [She's never once cared what he wants, only what amuses her. Every bit of this comes back on her eventually.]

I crossed over and peeled the apron right off him.

"Toss that too," I said.

Roman froze.

I rushed to fill the silence. "It doesn't suit you at all."

He stalled, and something I couldn't name flickered behind his eyes. He looked like he wanted to argue. Then he met my earnest, please-just-agree-with-me face, and slowly let his lashes fall.

"Got it."

He didn't say anything else. He went to the bedroom to get ready, silent the whole way, and didn't look at me once.

It wasn't until he was fully dressed and about to leave that he turned back, went into the bedroom, and came out with my slippers. He set them down at my feet and looked up.

"Bare feet'll make you sick."

I'd been standing very obediently by the door this whole time. I jammed my feet in and nodded like my life depended on it.

"Okay. Thank you."

Roman's face got even stranger.

The comments were equally lost.

Commenters: [Um. Is the villainess glitching today? She's being agreeable and I hate it.]

Commenters: [Last time he told her not to go barefoot, she threw a fit about him "ordering her around."]

Commenters: [After that he didn't dare say anything. Just quietly picked her up and carried her to her shoes himself so she wouldn't track dirt around.]

Commenters: [Lol. Years of treating his kindness like garbage. Too late to play sweet now.]

Commenters: [Don't even dream about winning his heart, honey. He spends every day with her gritting his teeth and waiting on her hand and foot. Meanwhile the FL started at his office today and packed him a lunch overflowing with love. What exactly do you bring to the table?]

Roman's silent back disappeared out the door, swallowed up in the scroll.

And I sat there, reading what they said, and actually thought about it.

Honestly? A man with that face, that body, that kind of money. It's hard not to catch feelings.

And he'd never once refused a single ridiculous thing I asked of him, which had let me believe, this whole time, that he liked me. At least a little.

It had never crossed my mind that he was simply honoring the merger. Putting up with me.

And now there was no merger left to honor. Whatever my family had been worth had walked out the door with my parents.

The girl he actually wanted was somebody else.

God.

Fine. He didn't like me. I could live with that.

The problem was, my parents were still overseas dodging everyone they owed, and I had zero intention of ending up on a sidewalk under a car nobody could explain.

I looked over at the entryway, at the wall of obscenely expensive handbags I'd built myself, brick by glossy brick, and set my jaw.

It's a love-packed lunch. How hard could it be.

I rolled up my sleeves and marched into the kitchen.

If the script wanted me written off, it could get in line. I was not going to lie there and be killed off politely. If clawing back my spot meant out-cooking some lunch, then fine. Watch me.

Chapter 5

Roman left the house at eight.

I finished in the kitchen, gave up, ordered takeout, and divided it into insulated jars by noon.

The comments were stunned silent. Then they weren't.

Commenters: [What is even... other people have Kitchen Nightmares. This is one villainess, one kitchen, one ongoing nightmare.]

Commenters: [I can't. Why is watching her go red in the face for four hours and then fold and order delivery the funniest thing I've seen all week.]

Commenters: [She's giving me "tried my hardest in a field I have zero talent for, realized it was useless, then fully gave up." Felt that.]

Commenters: [I'm actually crying. She had to go buy the jars because there weren't any in the house, and she's such a wreck she's too embarrassed to even ask the housekeeper.]

Commenters: [Hold ON. Guys. Is the villainess about to go deliver lunch to the ML??]

Bingo.

I'd misjudged the size when I ordered online, so I was now hauling four family-sized insulated jars, each one roughly the size of a small child, down the street at a hobble.

But I wasn't about to walk quietly into the ending the comments had written for me.

I had to try.

By the time I reached the lobby of Roman's building, the comments had boiled over into a full riot.

Commenters: [Is she INSANE? Today is the day the FL brings him lunch. What is she doing, fishing for attention?]

Commenters: [She hasn't set foot in his office in a thousand years. This brat just wants to wreck things between the ML and the FL.]

Commenters: [Please. That sad pile of lobster takeout versus the FL's lovingly homemade bento? Know your place. He won't even touch it. He'll just resent her more.]

Commenters: [And the FL's bento is already on his desk. A little bunny. A bunny-shaped lunch. He took one look and forgot his own name, wanted to inhale the whole thing.]

I was starting to waver.

Then an employee at the entrance stopped me and said I'd have to confirm my appointment if I was here to see someone.

I was juggling four enormous jars and very visibly losing.

She saw me fumbling and reached out to help, easy, automatic.

"Here, ma'am, let me take those."

I nodded without thinking.

But the second I let go, there was a crack.

The jars hit the floor. Everything in them across the tile.

Four hours of work. Exhausted, frazzled, running on fumes, I snapped before I could stop it.

"What are you doing?"

It came out too loud. I heard it the instant it left my mouth.

The employee's eyes went red on the spot. She was pretty, the lost-and-panicking kind of pretty, like a rabbit that had wandered into the wrong room.

"I I'm so sorry, ma'am! I swear I didn't mean to."

And there it was, the small, ugly thing in my chest that wanted to keep going. I hated that I wanted to. I did it anyway.

"Sorry doesn't pick it up off the floor. If you can't carry it, don't grab it."

The girl's face crumpled, and something in me wanted to take every word back. I didn't. I was too far gone to, and I couldn't even look at her.

I was staring down at four hours of my life splattered across the tile, two seconds from coming apart, when a familiar voice landed behind me.

"What's going on?"

I turned on instinct. Roman was standing there. No idea how long he'd been there.

He looked at the wreckage on the floor. At the employee, about to cry. Then at me. And his brow drew together, very softly.

Commenters: [HAHA oh, she is DONE. She just screamed at the FL to the ML's face.]

Commenters: [Is this the showdown? Is it actually happening right now?]

Commenters: [The ML cannot STAND watching anyone bully the FL, and it's her first day, and she's doing the wounded-rabbit thing. He is going to be wrecked over her.]

Commenters: [The villainess is finished. She kicked the hornet's nest. He's clearly furious. She's dead this time, no question.]

Chapter 6

For a second my brain just went white.

I turned, slow, and looked at the pale, slight, red-eyed beauty in the plain company uniform in front of me.

This was the FL?

Oh my god.

The FL had been hiding in plain sight as a background extra this whole time.

She kept bowing and apologizing, shaking like a startled deer.

And the displeasure on Roman's face was getting harder and harder to keep down.

My brain had basically stopped working. Some animal part of me wanted to physically clap a hand over her mouth.

Under the full weight of Roman's questioning stare, I swallowed.

"No, it's not"

He stepped forward and cut me off. Spared the FL one glance. Laid a hand flat against my back.

"Go sit in my office," he said. "I'll handle it."

He walked me all the way back there. I was still dazed.

He he wasn't angry with me?

The comments were stumped too.

Commenters: [Sorry, WHAT? Isn't the ML supposed to flex some boyfriend energy and put this mouthy villainess in her place?]

Commenters: [I'm lost. Why is he sitting the villainess down on his leather couch with a coffee and leaving the FL to clean up the mess alone?]

Commenters: [You don't get it? He doesn't want an open blowup with the villainess. They're engaged on paper, the FL is just an employee. He can't let her catch the gossip. He's being so noble, keeping it strictly professional with the FL.]

Commenters: [Aww, the villainess still hasn't clocked it. He's worried she'll keep giving the FL a hard time out there, so he got her out of the way fast.]

I was sitting there holding the coffee Roman had made me, with his own two hands, when it snapped back into focus.

Right. Of course. Almost got played again.

Roman caught the shift in my face. He cleared his throat.

"That employee's new," he said. "A little clumsy."

Defending the FL. Knew it.

"Oh. Right. It's fine, it's totally fine," I said, fast.

Roman hadn't braced for that. He stalled.

Because the old me, in any conflict, right or wrong, always had to get my pound of flesh.

Commenters: [Why did the villainess suddenly grow a brain? She knows she can't touch the FL, so now she's not even demanding he take her side?]

Roman's brow pulled in. He held my eyes for a long time, like he was hunting my face for the answer to something.

Once he was sure I really wasn't going to react, he spoke, almost like he didn't believe it.

"You're fine."

"I'm fine."

"You hate it when things get knocked over."

"I've changed."

I held his gaze, earnest, doing my absolute best to broadcast my commitment to being a reformed woman.

"I'm really fine. You honestly don't need to worry about me. That poor employee is cleaning all of it up by herself, it looks exhausting. You should go check on her"

Something in him tripped like a wire.

"Why would I go check on someone else?"

I blinked.

Did I genuinely have to spell this out?

I fought to keep my voice level.

"Well, you said it yourself, she's clumsy. And she's so pretty, so sweet, the way she looked all hurt back there got to even me. You should"

All my graciousness bought me was a flat, feelingless interruption.

"That's what you think."

He looked into my eyes, and his face did something I had never once seen it do.

Under all the cold there was hurt. Disappointment. A dozen deep, heavy things, every one of them a breath from breaking loose. His knuckles had gone white at his sides. His mouth was a hard, flat line.

I had no idea what I'd done, and I scooted back again on reflex.

"What? Is that is that not right?"

Chapter 7

His fingertips were curled into fists, knuckles white. His lips pressed flat.

He didn't speak. He just stared at me, something churning behind his eyes, like he was waiting for me to explain myself. To say the one thing that would fix it.

But my forehead was damp, my brain had gone blank, and I couldn't get a second sentence out.

When I'd given him nothing for too long, he let it go, sharp with anger.

"Vivienne."

"You've been really strange lately."

Then a hard turn of his head, and he left.

He paused for a second at the office door before he pushed it open. His frame swayed.

He didn't look back.

I think I'd actually upset him.

The comments cackled.

Commenters: [The villainess is SHOOK. She can play gentle and harmless all she wants, she's spoiled rotten down to the bone. Can't fake one percent of the FL's real goodness.]

Commenters: [The ML's about done. She was always a brat, and watching her cosplay the FL is somehow more insufferable than the brat thing.]

Was it, though.

I looked around, lost. My eyes caught on the little bunny bento sitting neat and square on a nearby desk.

Delicate. Adorable.

Then down at the two surviving steel jars by my feet, and something hot rose in my chest.

Right. Of course.

The FL is gentle and good, so Roman's heart melts.

I'm gentle and good, and he tells me I'm strange.

All I want is money to spend and a roof over my head and to keep on living. And I fold myself into knots reading his every mood, and still get scolded for it.

Exhausting.

I thought about it. Then I opened a jar, sat down on the couch, and ate by myself in peace.

You want something done, you do it yourself.

Peeling a shrimp with one hand, I opened a resale app with the other and started messaging a luxury buyer.

This beat betting my whole life on Roman going soft on me.

I'd get my own money first. Then I'd walk out on my own terms, before anyone got the chance to write me out.

I didn't see him again before I finished eating and left the building.

What I did run into was a friend of his.

Bennett did a double take.

"Viv?" He rubbed his eyes. "The wedding really must be close, huh. You're actually showing up to visit Roman at the office now."

The wedding.

I blinked. Right. Almost forgot. The date we'd set was coming up.

For the longest time I hadn't understood why we had to stay engaged a full three years before we were allowed to marry. Part of the arrangement, apparently. The terms our families signed.

Until the comments explained it: it was to keep the one and only wife slot open. For the FL.

I tugged my mouth into something like a smile.

"No, just passing through. Thought I'd look in."

Bennett nodded like that tracked.

"Oh hey, actually! Roman's in a god-awful mood today, no idea why. Viv, maybe you could go ask him"

The second he said it, I couldn't keep the irritation off my face.

"His mood's bad. What's that got to do with me?"

Only the FL can make him happy anyway. I'm just the name on the contract.

Bennett clearly hadn't expected me to say it that flat. His whole expression stalled, stuck somewhere between confused and lost.

"Uh...?"

I didn't say anything else. Turned to go.

I'd taken two steps when I saw him.

Roman. Standing just past Bennett, at the corner.

He'd probably been there the whole time. Just standing. Watching me.

His face held nothing at all. Not grief, not anger. A flat, dead quiet.

He didn't say a word.

So I didn't explain a single thing.

Chapter 8

Commenters: [HAHAHA I can't, the villainess is speechless. Dead. She played gracious and mature for all of ten minutes before the mask cracked.]

Commenters: [This girl is a whiplash machine. The ML is completely over her.]

Commenters: [I cannot WAIT to watch him throw her out.]

I frowned.

Was that so.

No need to wait. I'd be gone soon enough.

After that day, things between Roman and me went strange.

He'd never been a talker. At home it had always been me, chattering, bossing him from room to room. Now that I'd learned my lesson, the whole place had gone silent.

Before meals, Roman would reach over, expressionless, to wipe my hands.

I'd snatch the towel away. "It's fine. I've got it."

His hand just hung there a second, then dropped.

During meals, Roman would ladle soup into my bowl, face like stone.

I'd put my fork down fast. "Thanks. I'll do it."

The ladle stopped over the bowl. Stayed there a beat too long. He set it down without a word, something in his jaw working.

After meals, Roman would go cut fruit in the kitchen, teeth gritted.

I'd pass by and murmur, "You don't even eat this. You really don't have to cut it for me."

He set the knife down. Took a few slow breaths. Then stood there, head tipped back, staring up out the window like he was reconsidering the entire point of his existence.

Commenters: [Babe, ENOUGH with the theater, I'm dying. Her nasty little face got exposed and now she's overcompensating with this fake-considerate routine. What's the point? Doesn't all that performing exhaust her?]

Commenters: [I think even the ML wonders, sometimes, whether somebody's lost their mind.]

Commenters: [But the villainess is too deep in her devoted-little-wife cosplay to climb out. She has no clue it's just that things are going great with the FL lately, so the ML's in a good mood and can't be bothered with her.]

Hm. Now that I actually thought about it.

Roman's behavior lately had been deeply, deeply off.

We'd be lying in bed, perfectly fine, both on our phones, and he'd abruptly remember some urgent crisis, toss his still-lit phone onto the mattress next to me, and vanish for an hour.

On calls, he kept "accidentally" hitting speaker. Whoever it was would cheerfully float some invitation, and he'd shut it down cold, every time.

"I already told you. If there are women there, I'm not going."

And that wasn't the half of it. He'd stopped bothering with shirts around the apartment. Just wandered around half-dressed at all hours.

I'd walk past the bathroom and catch him at the mirror, studying his own frankly unreal physique.

Muttering to himself, low, like a man possessed. "Is it enough? No. Not enough. I'll keep at it."

And at night, before bed, he'd inexplicably started watching short videos. Relationship content.

Him, scrolling: [When a couple starts going cold, where did it actually go wrong?]

Him, scrolling: [If your partner suddenly starts doing these things, here's how to respond.]

Him, scrolling: [Master these three principles and you'll have human nature completely figured out.]

Him, scrolling: [Exclusive: a couple married fifty years walks you through surviving the seven-year itch.]

All this devout boyfriend-code discipline. All this self-improvement.

The man was genuinely wracking his brain to go chase the FL.

The one thing that never changed: he was still, tirelessly, set on taking care of me.

And I didn't dare let him anymore.

After I turned him down for what had to be the thousandth time, the way Roman looked at me started to shift too.

Not the old look. Not that faint, slightly-wounded sulk.

Something else.

A strange, creeping anxiety.

I had no idea what he had to be anxious about.

Probably stressing that he still couldn't find one single thing to pin on me.

Chapter 9

I had bigger problems than him, because I was spiraling too.

The luxury buyer I'd been working with had suddenly stopped taking my bags.

He looked me up and down, sunglasses and mask and giant hat, and his face did something complicated.

"Look, it's not that I don't trust you," he said. "But you run every drop like a back-alley spy meet. In and out like a ghost, pieces this rare, quantities this big. I'm a legit reseller. I've got my own neck to think about."

I begged. I bargained. He still wouldn't take the limited-edition orange Birkin I'd finally managed to smuggle out.

But resale haircuts are brutal. Even after offloading a stack of bags, I'd check my balance, think about my parents hiding from their creditors, and feel the floor tilt under me all over again.

So I gritted my teeth, picked a day Roman wouldn't be home, and agreed to let the buyer do the handoff at the front gate.

The comments said Roman was busy today, having his rare alone time with the FL.

Absolutely, definitely would not be coming home.

The buyer's eyes went huge at the sight of the estate.

"Holy you LIVE here? You couldn't have led with that?"

Jumpy, nervous, I kept shoving bags into his arms.

"Keep your voice down. You think this is something to be proud of?"

"Do not let my fianc see this."

He played along, cramming everything into his car. "Got it, got it."

I handed off the last bag I'd meant to sell today and finally let myself breathe.

I was about to bolt back inside and play innocent.

I turned, and a cold, prickling chill crawled up the back of my neck.

I looked up. Someone was standing at the front gate.

That perfect, impossible posture. There was only one person it could be.

Roman.

No idea when he'd come back. No idea how long he'd been there.

Only that he was standing at the gate, perfectly still, watching me trade backslaps and warm goodbyes and see-you-soons with a strange man loading my things into his car.

We looked at each other.

My mind went completely blank.

Wasn't he absolutely, definitely not supposed to be home today?

The comments had lied to me.

Chapter 10