His First Love Bullied Me; He Refused Divorce

I dragged Solomon Delgado down from his pedestal with my own hands. With half the Fox family fortune, at the lowest, most humiliating point of his life, I forced him to marry me.

After the wedding, whenever the first love who'd fled the country came back, all it took was one blurry, suggestive photo from her, one honey-coated barb loaded with hidden meaning, and that same night I would push open the door to Solomon's study.

Under the excuse of punishing him, I would pour out every ounce of my humiliation and jealousy.

He never fought back. He only watched me with those fathomless black eyes, cold and distant, as if he were looking at a clown throwing a tantrum.

Until later, when I'd saved up enough disappointment and handed him the divorce papers I'd already signed.

He tore the pages to shreds right in front of me, his eyes bloodshot as he pinned me hard into the corner, his voice raw, like it had been ground out from the bone of his throat: "Dorothy Fox, who said you could leave?"

"Solomon, open the door."

I pressed my palm flat against the cold walnut door of the study. My voice wasn't loud, but it was clear enough.

No answer came from inside. Only the faint, cold scratch of a fountain pen moving across paper.

I drew a breath, rapped my knuckles against the wood, and repeated, "I'll count to three. If you don't open this door, I'll cut the power to the whole house."

The scratching stopped.

A few seconds later the lock gave a soft click, and the door opened a crack from the inside.

Solomon stood there in a charcoal-gray silk robe, the collar loose and open, showing the clean line of his collarbone and a pale sliver of chest.

A pair of gold-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, and behind the lenses his eyes watched me through the gap in the door, remote and cold.

"What is it?" His voice was like the man himself, without warmth, like snow on a mountaintop that never melts all year.

I didn't answer. I just shoved my phone screen up to his face.

On the screen was a mutual friend's feed. The newest post was from Meg Swanson, half an hour ago, a photo of a hand with well-defined knuckles gripping a pencil, sketching something on a sheet of drawing paper.

I knew that hand too well. Solomon had a tiny mole on his right wrist, usually hidden under his watch, showing only now and then when he lifted his arm.

Meg's caption was as suggestive as it got: "Keeping someone company while he works late. Snuck a photo. Turns out a man who's serious about his work really does glow. [starry eyes]"

Below it, a row of mutual friends had liked it and were egging her on, all asking who "someone" was.

Meg didn't reply. That kind of coy silence grated worse than a straight confession.

Solomon's gaze rested on the screen for less than a second before it slid away, back to my face, his tone flat. "Done looking? And?"

"And?" His unbothered coldness, so certain of itself, made me laugh out of sheer anger, and the temper I'd been swallowing the whole way over shot straight up. "Solomon, she's your first love, not mine.

You let her prance around like this in front of me. Who exactly are you two trying to disgust?

Or is this a little show the two of you are putting on for me, so I'll take the hint and clear out early, and make room for your precious Meg?"

At that, his brow drew together, barely perceptibly, as if he found me too loud.

"Dorothy, I'm tired today. I'm not in the mood to fight with you." He pushed his glasses up and moved to shut the door.

I jammed my foot into the gap before it closed. The pain shot straight through me and I sucked in a sharp breath, my eyes going red on the spot.

I wasn't faking it. It really hurt.

But I didn't pull my foot back. Instead I threw all my weight against the door, tipped my head up and glared at him, my voice shaking. "Solomon, don't forget the deal we made. I keep the Delgado cash flow steady, and you marry me. You're my husband for two years.

The agreement spells it out. During the marriage, you can't have any improper relationship with another woman. What, six months in and Mr. Delgado already wants to break the contract?"

At the word deal, the last trace of warmth in his eyes vanished.

It was a look laced with disgust and contempt, the way you'd look at something filthy.

Every single time I brought up what our marriage really was, he looked at me like that. As if I were the lowlife who'd seized on someone's misfortune and stopped at nothing.

But he forgot. If he hadn't been backed into a corner back then, how would I ever have found my opening?

If that shameful little feeling I had for him hadn't already rotted me down to the marrow, why would I have gambled everything my mother left me to fill that bottomless pit of his?

"What do you want?" He finally gave up on shutting the door, let go, and leaned against the frame, looking down at me with a note of tired resignation in his voice.

I knew he thought I was going to do what I'd done those other times: make a scene, use Meg to provoke him, force him into doing something with me.

Use the most intimate acts to take revenge for his emotional betrayal.

It was pathetic. It was laughable.

But it was the only way I had left to hold on to him.

Fighting through the pain in my foot, I limped into the study, my eyes sweeping over his wide desk.

There was no drawing paper, no pencil. Just a thick stack of documents and the Montblanc pen he'd just been writing with.

Clearly, that photo of Meg's hadn't been taken here at all.

Maybe it was an old one, maybe she'd dug it up from somewhere else, maybe it was even photoshopped.

But so what?

As long as it gave me an excuse to come at him right now, it was enough.

I circled around behind him, stretched out both arms, and hugged him around his lean waist from behind.

His body went rigid at once, his muscles pulled tight as stone.

I could smell him clearly. Not some expensive cologne, but something clean and cool, like moss and earth in a pine forest after rain, threaded with a faint trace of ink.

Clean. And good.

I buried my face against his broad back, greedily breathing him in, my voice coming out muffled. "Solomon, you smell so good."

He didn't move, didn't speak. Only his throat bobbed once.

"Stay tonight. With me." I tightened my arms and said it almost against his ear, one word at a time. "Otherwise, tomorrow, when that overseas loan of Delgado's comes due, I'm not sure the Fox finance department will remember to renew it on time."

A naked threat.

I felt his breath catch for a moment.

A few seconds later he lifted his hand and laid it over the back of mine where it circled his waist.

His hand was cold, the pads of his fingers rough with the thin calluses left from years of holding a pen.

He didn't push me away. Instead, with something almost like comfort, he stroked the back of my hand once, gently.

Then I heard him sigh, low and reluctant, breaking the silence of the study.

"...Fine."

Back in the bedroom, I sat at the vanity and pulled the clip from my hair, and a mass of long, seaweed-dark curls tumbled loose.

In the mirror, Solomon had already taken off his gold-rimmed glasses. He stood behind me, unfastening the ties of his robe one by one.

Without the lenses to hide behind, whatever moved in those peach-blossom eyes had nowhere left to go.

Restraint. Control. And something I couldn't name... exhaustion.

He was always like this, a well so deep you couldn't see the bottom of it, and no matter how large a stone I threw in, it never so much as rippled.

Only when Meg's name came up, or when I used the Fox family's power to force his hand, did that still water stir at all. And even then it settled again fast.

I looked at the two of us in the mirror, our reflections set apart, and suddenly I remembered the first time I ever saw him.

I was sixteen that year, just brought to the Fox house from the countryside by the man who was my father in name only, Sam Fox.

My mother was an unknown painter. She died of illness when I was ten. Only at the very end did she tell me that my real father was the famous chairman of Fox Group in Ashford City.

She told me to go find him. She said Sam owed her a great deal from when he was young, and that he would take good care of me.

But my mother died never knowing that a man's promise is the least reliable thing in the world.

Sam did bring me home. Not out of guilt, though. His precious son, my dear "brother" Herbert Fox, had been diagnosed with a rare blood disease and needed a bone-marrow transplant.

And I was the backup "marrow bank."

Life in the Fox house was hardly better than picking through trash with my grandmother back in the countryside.

My stepmother, Marion Chavez, was a smiling tiger. In front of Sam she fussed over me, cooing "Dot, Dot" as if I were her own flesh and blood.

But the moment his back was turned, her eyes went cold as ice picks, and every word out of her reminded me that I was nothing but a shameful illegitimate daughter, a stain on the Fox name.

Herbert was worse. He was the only heir to the Fox family, spoiled beyond all limits since childhood. He couldn't stand me, felt I'd stolen away some of his father's attention, and made a game of tormenting me.

He'd cut the power while I was in the shower. He'd pour soy sauce into my milk. He'd tear the homework I'd worked so hard on to shreds.

And all I could do was take it.

Because I knew I had nothing to fight back with.

The first time I saw Solomon Delgado was at Herbert's sixteenth birthday party.

The party that night was lavish beyond words, packed with guests. I wore an old dress washed pale with age, an ugly duckling wandered into Swan Lake, huddled awkwardly in a corner and trying to make myself invisible.

Herbert stood at the center of a crowd of rich kids like a king on his throne. He spotted me at once, took a glass of red wine, and came weaving over toward me.

"Well, if it isn't my little country-bred bastard sister. What's this, you actually dared show up to my birthday dressed like that? Come to beg for scraps?" He laughed, easy and cruel, and the other young men around him roared along with him.

I clenched my fists, nails digging deep into my palms, and kept my head down, saying nothing.

"What, gone mute?" When I didn't answer, Herbert felt he'd lost face, and he pushed it further, reaching out to yank at my dress. "Let's have a look at what treasure you've got hidden under this rag..."

Just as his hand was about to touch me, a long, strong hand closed firmly around his wrist.

"Herbert. That's enough."

The voice was cool and clean, like a scoop of clear spring water in high summer, and in an instant it drowned out all the noise around us.

I lifted my head and fell straight into a pair of deep, dark eyes.

The boy wore a well-cut white suit, standing tall and straight as a pine, striking in a way that set him apart. He was half a head taller than Herbert, and though they were about the same age, his presence was so powerful you didn't dare look at him directly.

He was Solomon Delgado, the only son of the Delgado family, and the dream man of every socialite and young woman in Ashford City.

Herbert was clearly afraid of him. He struggled a moment, then sheepishly drew his hand back. "Solomon, I... I was just messing with her."

"She's your sister." Solomon spoke lightly, his voice quiet but carrying an authority that left no room for argument. "That's not how you joke."

Then he took off his own suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders.

The jacket still held the warmth of his body and a faint scent of soap, and it wrapped around all of me.

In that moment, all the mockery and contempt around me seemed to vanish.

In my whole world there was only the look in his eyes as he lowered them to me, tender and full of pity.

From that day on, the name Solomon Delgado was like a seed. In the barren, desolate ground of my heart it took root and sprouted.

I began to gather everything about him I could, obsessively. I knew what he liked and what he hated.

I knew which cafe he liked to read in, which route he took home.

I chased my god like the most devout of believers.

I thought that if I only worked hard enough, made myself good enough, one day I could stand at his side out in the open.

But I forgot that gods have their own believers.

And I was never the one who got chosen.

He had Meg Swanson, the girl who matched his family, his childhood sweetheart. Standing together, they looked like the prince and princess from a fairy tale, made for each other.

And I was just a weed in a dark corner, without even the right to look up at them.

Later, the Delgado family collapsed overnight. Solomon's father, ruined by a failed investment and buried under enormous debt, jumped to his death. Delgado Group teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

The friends who had once circled around Solomon all disappeared overnight.

Even Meg left him in his hardest hour, using study abroad as her excuse.

That was the first time I saw him brought so low.

He sat alone on the rooftop terrace at the top of the company, drunk out of his mind, eyes rimmed red, like a cornered animal abandoned by the whole world.

I walked over, sat down beside him, and handed him a bank card.

"That's everything my mother left me, plus what I've saved over the years. It isn't much, but it should keep you going for a while."

He lifted his bleary, drunken eyes and looked at me for a long time before he spoke, his voice rough. "Why?"

Why?

I looked at his handsome, worn-out face, and my heart felt as if an unseen hand had seized it and squeezed until I could barely breathe.

How I wanted to tell him: because I love you. I've loved you for my whole youth.

But I couldn't.

I knew that in that moment, any pity, any sympathy, would only make it worse for him.

So I did what I imagined a shrewd businesswoman would do. I pulled up the cleverest smile I could manage and said, "Because I want to take a gamble.

Solomon Delgado, you've always wondered why I clawed my way up so desperately. It's because I wanted you. And now the chance has come."

I paused, then laid out my terms one word at a time.

"I'll have Sam Fox pour capital into Delgado Group and get you through this. And youyou marry me."

I'll never forget the way he looked at me then.

Shock, disbelief, and then a cold that went to the bone. Disappointment.

As if I had shattered the image he'd held of a soft, kind Dorothy who needed protecting, and exposed the ugliest, most calculating core underneath.

"Dorothy," he said, laughing at himself, his voice broken and hoarse, "I really did underestimate you."

In that moment, I felt my own heart break along with his words.

The next day was the weekend, and for once I slept in.

When I woke, the space beside me was already empty, the sheets gone cool. Solomon had clearly left long ago.

On the nightstand sat a cup of warm water, and beside it a tube of ointment.

It took me a moment to remember the foot I'd hurt when the door caught it the night before.

I looked down. My ankle was mottled purple and a little swollen.

Something turned over in me, hard to name, like a sour green plum slowly dissolving on the tongue.

He clearly loathed me, yet he still remembered my injury.

That kind of contradictory tenderness is the most fatal of all.

As I rubbed in the ointment, I told myself, mocking myself, that it was probably just part of his duty as a contract husband, and I was reading too much into it.

My phone chimed. A message from my best friend, Kathryn James.

A screenshot, plus a row of furious stickers.

[Kathryn: Dot! Look at this! Meg Swanson's up to her tricks again! I'm furious! Does she literally have to make your life miserable to keep breathing?!]

I opened the screenshot. Another one of Meg's posts.

This time it was a selfie. She wore a plain, elegant white dress, seated in what looked like an upscale cafe, a latte with delicate foam art in front of her.

Her makeup was soft, her eyes wide with innocence and hurt. The caption read: "Some things aren't yours. Even if you scheme your way into having them, you'll lose them in the end. The string of a kite has to be held by the right hands to fly higher."

Below it, someone had commented: "Don't cry, Meg. We all know who the right one is."

Meg had replied with a hug emoji.

Anyone with eyes could see who she was talking about.

Me. The wicked woman who "schemed her way" into stealing her "kite."

Kathryn's call came through right after, her voice going a mile a minute. "Dot, did you see it? This little snake keeps leveling up! She's basically declaring war on you out in the open! What are you going to do?"

Kathryn is one of the few friends I have. We grew up together in the countryside, and later, after I was brought back to the Fox family, she worked her way into a university in Ashford City and stayed on here.

She's hot-tempered and fiercely loyal, and she can't stand to see anyone wrong me.

"It's fine," I said mildly, no real feeling in my voice. "She's just a fly buzzing around. Swatting her would only dirty my hand."

"But it's so disgusting! She's basically calling you a home-wrecker who schemed her way up! And that so-called husband of yours just stands there and lets her bully you? Is he blind?" Kathryn was livid.

I smiled but didn't answer.

Blind?

No. Solomon sees it more clearly than anyone.

He just doesn't care.

If anything, he probably enjoys the arrangement.

On one side, the first love he keeps in his heart, soft and innocent and pitiful. On the other, the contract wife he loathes, spiteful and jealous and repulsive.

Set side by side, the contrast only highlights his "devotion" to Meg and his "helplessness" with me.

What a fine tragic little melodrama.

"All right, stop stewing. I've got an appointment with my stylist today, going to get my hair done. Want to come?" I changed the subject.

"Get your hair done? You're in the mood for that?" Kathryn's voice climbed.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I said, swinging my legs off the bed as I spoke into the phone. "Even if the sky falls, I'll hold it up looking gorgeous. Besides, the sky hasn't fallen yet."

I hung up, changed, and did my makeup with care.

The woman in the mirror had bright eyes and clean teeth, lips red as fire, a champagne-colored slip dress tracing every curve of her figure just right.

Not a trace left of the hysterical madwoman from the night before.

I got into my red Porsche and drove straight to the Summit Club, Ashford City's most exclusive private club.

The place was members only, intensely private, the favorite haunt of the city's wealthy wives and socialites.

As it happened, Meg had also arranged to have afternoon tea there today.

When I arrived, she was sitting by the windows on the ground floor with a few socialites, deep in cheerful conversation.

When they saw me come in, the women's expressions turned awkward, and the air went quiet at once.

Meg, though, recovered fast. A gentle, gracious smile spread across her face, and she rose to come toward me.

"Dot, what a coincidence. Are you here for tea too?" She linked her arm through mine, warm as if we were sisters who went back years.

I didn't pull away. I just looked at her, the smile not quite reaching my eyes. "Not a coincidence. I came to see you."

Meg's smile stiffened, then smoothed over just as quickly. "See me? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing major." I took my phone out of my bag, pulled up that post of hers, and held it in front of her. "I just wanted to ask you, Miss Swansonwas this post of yours aimed at me?"

I didn't raise my voice, but it was enough for the nearby tables to hear.

Every gaze in the room snapped to us at once.

Meg's face went white in an instant. She glanced nervously around and tried hard to tug me aside, dropping her voice. "Dot, you've misunderstood, I didn't mean anything by it... Let's go talk over there, all right?"

"We'll talk right here." I didn't budge. I even raised my voice. "I'm not clever like you, Miss Swanson. I can't quote poetry and go on about kites and strings and all that. So just give me a straight answerdo you think I stole Solomon Delgado from you?"

"I didn't! Dot, you've really got it all wrong!" Meg was so frantic the tears were about to spill over. She clutched my hand and shook her head desperately. "Solomon and I... we're just ordinary friends, we always have been..."

"Ordinary friends?" I laughed as if I'd heard the greatest joke in the world. "Ordinary friends keep each other company working late into the night? Ordinary friends post the kind of photos that make people's minds wander? Meg, do you take me for a fool, or does everyone here look like a fool to you?"

Whispers began to ripple through the room.

The way those socialites looked at Meg turned subtle too.

In their circle, nothing was more despised than the kind of "sweet little schemer" who slept her way in and then wanted a medal for her virtue.

"I... I just happened to be passing by that day, I was only dropping off some documents for him... and that photo, I took it without thinking, I..." Meg stammered through her explanation, tears already welling in her eyes.

Just then, a cool voice came from behind us.

"What's going on here?"

I turned and saw Solomon standing in the doorway. When he'd arrived, I had no idea.

He wore a crisp black suit, his face hard, and he was striding straight toward us.

At the sight of him, Meg looked as if she'd found her savior, and her tears came pouring down in an instant.

She let go of my hand and stumbled back two steps, the very picture of someone who'd suffered a terrible wrong, and choked out, "Solomon... I... I don't know why Dot would say these things about me. I really didn't..."

Before she could finish, Solomon cut her off, his voice cold.

"I asked what's going on." His eyes weren't on Meg at all. They landed straight on me, with a trace of scrutiny and displeasure.

The few socialites who'd been enjoying the show fell silent, lowering their heads and pretending to sip their drinks.

The whole caf went so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

I met his gaze, and something in me went cold.

There it was. He'd come.

In his mind, I would always be the unreasonable, overbearing villain, and Meg would always be the fragile, gentle little flower who needed his protection.

Suddenly it all felt pointless.

Like an actor pouring everything into a one-woman show, only to find that the single person in the audience had long since stopped paying attention.

I put my phone away, and every sharp, cutting edge on my face fell away, leaving nothing but indifference.

"It's nothing," I said flatly. "Just a little joke with Miss Swanson. Since you're here, Mr. Delgado, I'll leave you two to it. I'm going."

With that, I turned to leave.

"Stop." Solomon's voice came from behind me, carrying a command that left no room for refusal.

My steps paused, but I didn't turn around.

He crossed to me in a few strides and blocked my way.

He stood more than a head taller than me, and at this distance I could almost feel the pressure coming off him.

"Dorothy," he said, looking down at me, his black eyes churning with emotions I couldn't read. "Are you done making a scene?"

"A scene?" I twitched my lips into a mocking smile. "You're joking, Mr. Delgado. How would I dare make a scene in front of you?

I only came to remind Miss Swanson that people should know their limits.

After all, I'm still your wife in name, at least. When she keeps flaunting things in front of me on her feed like this, over and over, anyone who didn't know better would think you were playing both sides, Mr. Delgado."

"You!" Solomon's face darkened at once, the pressure rolling off him dropping to something frightening.

Seeing it, Meg quickly stepped up and took hold of his arm, coaxing him gently.

"Solomon, don't be angry, it's all my fault, I'm the one who did wrong, I shouldn't have posted that and made Dot misunderstand. I'll delete it right away, so don't blame her, all right?"

Her words sounded like she was pleading on my behalf, but every one of them poured oil on the fire.

Sure enough, Solomon's face grew even uglier.

He drew a deep breath, as if forcing down his anger, then only gave me one cold glance, took Meg by the wrist, and turned to go.

"I'll take you home." He didn't spare me another look.

I stood where I was, watching the two of them walk off side by side, the man tall and upright, the woman small and delicate. They looked so well matched.

The socialites around me watched me with eyes full of pity and mockery.

I felt like a complete joke.

A pathetic, laughable failure who didn't know her own limits, who'd tried to hold on to a man who didn't love her with money and power.

In that moment, something that had held me up all these years seemed to collapse with a crash.

All these years, I'd been like a tireless moth chasing after Solomon, that flame forever out of reach.

I'd thought that as long as I was brave enough, stubborn enough, I could eventually warm that cold heart of his.

Only now did I understand. Some people are like ice that will never warm no matter what. The closer you get, the worse you're burned.

Back home, I shut myself in my room and, for the first time, didn't smash a single thing, didn't cry either.

I just sat quietly on the carpet, watching the daylight fade little by little outside the window, my mind a blank.

So it turned out that when disappointment piled up high enough, there was no more fighting, no more scenes.

There was only exhaustion.

That evening, Sam Fox called, a careful, ingratiating note in his voice.

"Dot, are you busy? Your father just wanted to ask how things are between you and Solomon lately."

Ever since I married Solomon, the Fox family had climbed aboard the Delgado ship, their standing in Ashford City rising with the tide, and Sam Fox's attitude toward me had done a complete one-eighty.

The old neglect and exploitation had turned into concern and dependence.

"If you've got something to say, just say it." My voice held no feeling.

"Ah, it's like this," Sam Fox said, rubbing his hands, a little sheepish. "Your brother's project has hit a snag lately, hasn't it?

The other company specifically wants to work with the Delgados before they'll budge. So your father was thinking... could you mention it to Solomon, ask him to help out?"

My brother. Herbert Fox.

The man who'd once seen me as a thorn in his side, who'd wanted nothing more than to grind me into the dirt.

And now he needed to turn around and beg me for help.

How ironic.

"On what grounds?" I gave a cold laugh. "Because he's my brother? Chairman Fox, have you forgotten what my mother's last name was?"

On the other end, Sam Fox was left speechless, unable to get a word out for a long moment.

"Dot, don't talk like that, we're all family..."

"I don't have family like you." I cut him off flatly. "You want my help? Fine. Send that precious son of yours to come beg me himself."

With that, I hung up.

Listening to the dial tone on the other end, I suddenly felt drained of all interest.

Taking revenge on the people who once humiliated me wasn't as satisfying as I'd imagined.

Because those wounds were already carved into my bones, and they wouldn't vanish just because the ones who'd inflicted them had fallen.

I leaned against the headboard and, for the first time, seriously asked myself whether there was any reason left to keep this marriage with Solomon Delgado alive.

I'd forced him to marry me. Was it really because I loved him?

Or was it just that I couldn't stand to lose?

Couldn't stand that all those years of chasing him, of looking up to him, had come to nothing.

It seemed I'd never truly known him.

Never truly stepped into his world.

Between us lay a gulf too wide to cross.

The name of that gulf was Meg Swanson.

And it was also simply this: he didn't love me.

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

Miss Fox, Saturday at seven, top-floor ballroom at the Grand Hyatt. There's a charity gala, and Solomon will be there. I think it's time the two of us met and talked properly.Meg Swanson

I looked at that message for a long time.

Then I replied with one word: Fine.

Maybe it was time to end this.

Saturday night, the Grand Hyatt.

The gala was a high-profile affair, drawing out half the upper crust of Ashford City.

Under the blazing lights of the ballroom, perfume and jewels glittered, and glasses clinked all around.

I wore a custom black mermaid gown, the hem scattered with tiny diamonds that caught the light and shimmered.

My hair was swept into an elegant knot, with only a few loose curls left to frame my cheeks. Paired with a bold red lip, the whole effect was cold, striking, and remote.

The moment I walked in, every eye turned to me.

Some awed, some probing, and some openly envious.

I crossed the crowd without looking left or right, picked up a glass of champagne, and made for a quieter corner.

I didn't go looking for Solomon, and I didn't go looking for Meg.

I only wanted, before I left, to take one more good look at this world I'd once fought so desperately to break into.

Everything I'd craved was here. Fame, status, respect.

And now that I had it all, I found it didn't make me happy in the slightest.

I saw Solomon.

He stood at the center of a cluster of business heavyweights, cool and untouchable as ever, as though no one could ever truly enter his world.

His gaze swept the room now and then, but it never rested on me, not even for a second.

Meg stood not far from his side, in a gown of pure white gauze, like a lily too fine for this earthly world. She was chatting with a woman she knew, a gentle smile on her face, though her eyes kept drifting toward Solomon with a faint, barely hidden infatuation.

I looked away and tipped my head back, draining the champagne in one swallow.

Then I turned to leave this suffocating place.

I'd draft the divorce papers the moment I got home.

Two years was long enough. I didn't want to wait another day.

The glass door to the terrace was pulled open from outside. I was about to step out for some air when I heard voices from within, deliberately lowered.

Meg's voice, edged with hurt and a coaxing lilt.

Solomon, Dorothy came after me again this afternoon. The things she said were so cruel, and she humiliated me in front of all those peopleI really can't take much more.

I stopped without thinking, my body going rigid, and slipped behind the huge decorative plant beside me.

My heart slammed against my ribs, as if it might leap out of my throat.

I heard a very soft, impatient sigh.

Solomon's voice, cold as ice.

Didn't I tell you to go provoke her?

My mind went blank with a single roaring hum.

Then Solomon's voice, cold and without a trace of warmth, drove into my ears clear and word for word, like a poisoned blade slicing me straight down the middle.

He said: Go provoke her one more time. I want her never to be able to leave me, not for the rest of her life.

Meg seemed startled by the chill in his words, and argued in a small voice: ButSolomon, the things you've had me do, I keep feelingshe looks like she's about to fall apart. What if she really

That's her problem. Solomon cut her off coldly. Just remember one thing. Our arrangement is only an act.

Whatever ideas you shouldn't be having, put them away now. There is only ever going to be one woman who's my wife, from start to finish.

A roar

The world blew apart in my ears.

So that was it.

So all of it had been a setup.

Meg's taunts, his coldness, his indulgence of herevery bit of it had been staged by his own hand.

In the name of love, he'd woven a vast net, using those sharp, bone-deep wounds as the bait.

The whole point was to make me suffer, to make me jealous, to drive me mad, to make me go begging to him again and again like some pathetic clown, leaning on him, until I was pinned in place and could never break free.

What he wanted wasn't my love.

What he wanted was sole possession of me.

A tide of rage and cold surged up from my feet and flooded through me in an instant.

I was shaking with fury, my nails digging so deep into my palms they nearly drew blood.

I couldn't hold back anymore and lunged out from behind the plant.

Crack!

A sharp, ringing slap landed hard across Solomon's face.

The whole terrace fell dead silent in an instant.

His head snapped aside from the force, and five clear finger marks bloomed at once across that handsome face.

He seemed to have had no idea I would appear like that. He froze for a few seconds before slowly turning his head back.

Youheard all of it?

Dot! Meg was the first to react. She cried out and rushed to plant herself in front of Solomon, shielding him with a stricken look on her face.

She turned and wailed at me, How could you hit him! This is all my fault, it has nothing to do with Solomon. If you want to blame someone, blame me!

Watching that phony, playacting face of hers, I was so furious I laughed, laughed until the tears came.

Blame you? As if you're worth it.

I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes and looked at her coldly. Meg, do you really still think you're some spotless little lily?

Everything you did behind his back, did you really think I knew nothing about it?

Meg's face went white in a flash, and a flicker of barely hidden panic crossed her eyes, but she held herself together and kept up the wronged-victim act: :

II don't know what you're talking about

Don't know?

I let out a cold laugh and pulled a neatly folded sheet of paper from my bag.

Under their startled, uncertain stares, I unfolded it, then flung it hard into Meg's face.

Then take a good look at what this is!