At 11:59 PM, fighting down the annoyance of being woken up by my phone, I pushed open the heavy mahogany doors of the VIP lounge. "Excuse me, everyone. So sorry to interrupt. I'm just here to pick up my husband." The next second, the entire room's New Year's countdown died in their throats. Dozens of eyes belonging to the city's corporate elite snapped toward me, pinning me to the spot. Sitting dead center in the VIP booth was a man in a razor-sharp bespoke suit, his features striking and cold, slowly turning a crystal whiskey glass in his hand. "...Maya Evans?" Someone finally broke the dead silence. "Tonight is an Ivy League alumni New Year's mixer, not a shelter for community college dropouts." The room erupted in mocking laughter. "Wait, isn't she the girl from the 'Manifest Destiny' scandal? The one where the valedictorian intentionally tanked his entire AP History final just to prove a point to the teacher and make her smile?" "I heard she spent years manipulating her way into her stepbrother's bed and trapped him into marriage. Why else would he marry an academic failure like her? Now that he's with Chloe, who actually has a Ph.D. from Oxford, they're a true power couple. How does she even have the nerve to show her face here?" The stares from across the table felt like thousands of tiny needles. They would never know the truth. Julian Vance used to be dead last in our high school class. He worked himself to the bone, grinding his way to the top of the academic ladder, entirely for me. But the past didn't matter anymore. Meeting their hostile gazes, I didn't show the humiliation they were expecting. I just offered a slight, tight smile and said calmly: "I'm not here to ring in the New Year with you elites. I'm here to pick up my husband and take him home." Julian finally lifted his eyes, his gaze dark and heavy. "Maya, we've been divorced for three years." I let the corners of my mouth curve up into a perfectly polite, practiced smile. "I know." "Which is why I never said I was here to pick you up, Mr. Vance." 1 "Have you no shame? You're divorced, and you're still trying to leech off Julian." A few suppressed snickers echoed through the lounge. Carter struck a match, lit his cigarette, and looked at me with lazy disdain. "This is the first time I've seen someone actually volunteer to be the other woman." Carter was Julian and I's best friend in high school. He used to be the second-best person to me in the entire world. But when Julian and I were going through our vicious divorce, he didn't hesitate for a second to take Julian's side. Because the girl Carter had been in love with for years was the exact same woman who had destroyed my marriage. And he had been helping Julian hide their affair the entire time. I was the only one kept in the dark, playing the fool from start to finish. "Carter, enough," Julian snapped, his lips pressed into a thin line. Carter refused to back down, aggressively putting out his cigarette. "Why shouldn't I say it? An idiot like Maya Evans can't even begin to compare to a brilliant woman like Chloe." "You were the only one blind enough to look twice at a moron like her, letting her drag you down for all those years." Julian met my eyes, his voice low. "Maya isn't a moron." Maya isn't a moron. Hearing that from a certified genius like Julian. It actually sounded completely ridiculous. But back when I was sixteen, I believed those words with my whole heart. The summer before freshman year of high school, my mom married Julian's dad. Julian and I were the same age, so we ended up at the same public high school. We were even placed in the same homeroom. He was ranked dead last; I was comfortably in the middle. Julian hated me, so he completely ignored my existence. I constantly saw him getting into fights and ending up in the principal's office. Immediately following those fights, my mom would be called in, forced to bow her head and swallow insults from furious parents and administrators. One night, I got up to get a glass of water and saw my mom sitting alone in the dark living room, wiping away tears. "Maya, what do I have to do to make Julian accept me?" I didn't know the answer. I only knew that after that night. The fragile, distant peace between Julian and me evaporated into open warfare. I put hot sauce in his Gatorade, dumped muddy water into his backpack, and spiked his lunch with laxatives. Julian laid down the law, his voice dripping with venom. "Is that all you've got? Let me tell you something, Maya. If you don't break me, I'm going to break your mother!" We stayed locked in that toxic standoff for half a year. I thought I would hate Julian Vance for the rest of my life. But in the end, he became the only person in this world who still loved me. 2 Julian and I's war ended abruptly after a brutal incident of domestic violence. Julian's dad beat my mom so badly she had to be hospitalized. When they were loading her into the ambulance, his dad was still screaming abuse. "I chased you for two years! You're nothing but a pretty face! You're completely useless!" My mom was almost forty. She had been spoiled rotten by my biological father for the first half of her life, so naturally, she lacked basic survival skills. When Julian heard his dad screaming those words, his cold, hostile demeanor completely shattered. He looked at me in shock, muttering to himself. "It wasn't your mom who seduced my dad..." Julian hated my mom because he always believed she was the homewrecker who had driven his own mother away. None of that mattered anymore. Because after that day. I didn't have a mother, either. When I carried my mom's favorite white gerbera daisies to the hospital, I found out she had bolted. She didn't take a single thing with her. And she didn't take me. Maya Evans no longer had a home. I had nowhere to go. I was wandering the freezing streets in the middle of the night when Julian finally found me. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked incredibly angry. Terrified he was going to hit me, I curled myself into a tight ball on the sidewalk. Amidst my panic, his warm arms wrapped tightly around me. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak so gently. "Maya, come home with me." "From now on, I'll be your whole world." I took his outstretched hand and held on tight. So, starting from the year I was sixteen. Maya Evans's entire world consisted solely of Julian Vance. 3 After my mom left, Julian's dad’s temper grew even more violent. Terrified that I would get hurt, Julian took me and moved us out into a tiny, rundown apartment. Our lives continued, but everything was different. I stopped playing practical jokes, and Julian’s harsh edges softened. He started spending more and more time reading and studying. I couldn't help but ask him one day. "You used to hate reading. You hated going to class." He looked at me with intense seriousness, then helplessly pinched my cheek, his voice soft. "Maya, I want to give you a better life." Looking at the tips of his ears turning red, I nodded emphatically. Maya Evans absolutely refused to drag Julian down. So I threw myself into my studies with everything I had. But when Julian skyrocketed from dead last to valedictorian... I was still barely hovering in the middle of the pack. Julian would stay up until midnight tutoring me. I stared at the calculus problems on the page and just shook my head. He said, "Maya, you really are a bit of an idiot." "But, I love it when you're a little dumb. It's incredibly cute." Exhaustion crashed over me, and the pen slipped from my limp fingers. I mumbled sleepily. "Julian, can you please slow down? I'm not going to be able to catch up to you." Julian said: I would never have to chase him. He would wait for me, forever. He didn't keep that promise. Because later, he absolutely despised how "dumb" I was. I became a nuisance. 4 "She's not dumb? You busted your ass tutoring her, and she still only managed to scrape into some no-name state school." Carter flicked his lighter, keeping the insults coming. I scanned the lounge but didn't see my husband, Liam Thorne, anywhere. Liam had gone to the same university as Julian, but he was in the business school. They wouldn't naturally run in the same circles. I figured he must have texted me the wrong address. I was too exhausted to dredge up the past. "Excuse me," I said, turning on my heel to leave. I texted Liam, but he didn't reply. My calls went straight to voicemail. I decided to just head home. Just as I reached for the handle of the lounge door, a hand shot out and gripped my wrist tight. "Maya, please forgive me." Julian stared down at me, his eyes swirling with an emotion I couldn't decipher. Hearing him use my name like that... It used to make me blush. It used to be the perfect, intimate way to flirt with someone as rigid as Julian. But later, those exact same words were the ones that destroyed me. "Julian, are you addicted to acting?" I shook off his hand, my face blank. "I don't know you." As the tension in the room thickened, a soft scoff broke the awkward silence. "Maya Evans. I didn't expect to see you here." Chloe walked over in her designer heels, as arrogant and aggressive as ever. In the past, I would have been intimidated by her presence. I would have been envious, looking up to her, and inevitably feeling a deep sense of inferiority. But now, after agonizing over that toxic past a million times, all that was left was a dead, flat calm. "Maya, why don't you come home with Julian and me? Your mother misses you so much." Even I was surprised by how calmly I could respond to that after three years. "I don't have a mother." My supposed family. They had all chosen Chloe. And I... had long since decided I didn't need them either. Chloe grabbed my wrist, "accidentally" displaying the vintage emerald bracelet on her arm. It was the heirloom Julian's mother had left him. I had worn that bracelet for ten years. My relationship with Julian had only lasted ten years. 5 Carter was right. I really was an idiot. Even with Julian pouring every ounce of his energy into tutoring me, I still only managed to get into a mediocre state college. Julian, however, secured the highest SAT score in the state and went straight to the Ivy League. We were both in the Northeast, so the distance wasn't terrible. Even though we couldn't be together every day, our time was sweet and intensely close. It was the simplest kind of happiness, and it remains a memory I will never be able to fully erase. Julian was handsome, brilliant, and constantly pursued. But he gave me absolute, unwavering security. During college, I often visited him on his campus. He was too famous. Every little thing he did drew everyone's attention. Gradually, rumors started spreading on the campus forums that I wasn't good enough for him. They said I had nothing but a pretty face. No skills, no background, just a total idiot who didn't deserve to stand next to a god like him. Julian had already made our relationship completely public. When he saw the comments, he was furious. He said they just didn't understand how wonderful I was. So, on his final exam for AP European History. He intentionally answered every single question about "Manifest Destiny" incorrectly, twisting the historical facts into a bizarre, romanticized essay dedicated to me. He nearly failed the class and was officially reprimanded by the department head for being "obsessed with a high school romance." The incident sent shockwaves through the entire campus. Julian wanted to make absolutely certain that everyone knew I was his girlfriend. But when it came time to get married, he said: "Maya, let's keep the marriage quiet for now." "Just give me a few more years. When I've made it to the top, I'll give you the grandest wedding imaginable." I agreed. By our fourth anniversary, Julian had already built a highly successful tech firm. I never got the grand wedding I was dreaming of. Instead, I got his infidelity. 6 On our fourth anniversary, Julian exploded in a terrifying rage. Because I had lost the emerald bracelet he gave me. He stormed out of the house, furious. It was the first time in his life he had ever spoken to me so cruelly. It was pouring rain that night. I searched every single place we had been to. I suddenly remembered the tiny, rundown apartment we had shared during high school. Julian had bought that apartment years ago. Because the walls inside were covered with thousands of photos of us from those three years. The moment I pushed the door open. I saw Julian pinning another woman to the bed. Thrusting into her with primal intensity. In that exact moment, my scalp went numb, and I lost the ability to scream. I knew who she was. Chloe. Julian had mentioned her to me, but rarely. At first, he told me Chloe's dad had forced her onto his corporate board, and he thought she was just going to be a massive headache. But later, he said Chloe was actually incredibly competent. Brilliant, even. And it was right around that time that Julian started treating me like I was stupid. Our shared interests dwindled to nothing, and Julian would constantly say: "Can you just stop asking? Even if I explain it, you won't understand." "Maya, you really are an idiot." But I was genuinely happy that he had found a business partner who matched his intellect. Yet now, Chloe was wearing that emerald bracelet, her eyes filled with blatant, triumphant mockery. I had been tortured by guilt, crawling on my hands and knees like a dog, searching everywhere for that bracelet. It turned out I hadn't lost it. Julian had simply taken it and placed it on someone else's wrist. She slowly, elegantly sat up, leaning back against Julian's chest. "What are you so shocked about?" "In your bed at the penthouse, in the shower, against the floor-to-ceiling windows... we've done it everywhere." "Tonight, we just wanted to see what it felt like to do it in the place where you two had your first time." A deafening roar filled my ears, and all the strength instantly drained from my body. Operating on pure, visceral instinct, I grabbed a framed photo from the nightstand and hurled it at them. Julian shielded her with his body, his eyes blazing with fury. "Maya, have you lost your fucking mind?!" The man who had once promised to be my entire world. Shoved me violently to the floor. My hands were covered in bloody shards of glass from the shattered photo frame. It was the very first photo Julian and I had ever taken together. He had his arms wrapped around me, looking incredibly smug, like he was showing off a prize. But now, it was shattered. And the eyes of the man standing in front of me held nothing but absolute disgust. Before I could even process what was happening, another bombshell detonated in my ears. "Maya, can you stop throwing a tantrum? You are completely suffocating. No wonder your own mother abandoned you!" It turned out my mother had remarried years ago. She had married Chloe's father. For ten years, she had showered Chloe with all the love and affection I had desperately craved. My decade of fantasies... had officially become a living nightmare. Later, when Julian demanded a divorce. I refused to give them what they wanted, but I was completely powerless against them. Every single person I loved had turned their weapons on me. My husband. My best friend. And my mother.
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