Someone tried to pull Chloe away.
She lost her footing, stumbled, and the teacup in her hand shattered on the floor.
A shard cut into her palm.
Blood spread across the white tile.
Sean saw it through the conference room glass.
Everyone saw him throw down the papers in his hand, shove open the door, and stride over.
He bent down and pulled Chloe into his arms.
His face was cold.
“Who hurt her?”
The employee who had tried to help backed up in fright.
I looked at him and said flatly, “I did.”
“And she deserved it.”
Chloe immediately burst into tears.
She glared at me, then clung to Sean with trembling shoulders.
“Yes, I deserved it,” she sobbed. “Who told me to fall for someone I shouldn’t have?”
“They call me a mistress. A homewrecker. A kept woman.”
“But as long as you love me too, Mr. York, I’ll stay by your side forever.”
“No one can separate us.”
It was ridiculous.
Every word of it.
And yet, coming from her tear-streaked face, it somehow sounded pure. Brave. Heartbreaking.
Sean actually laughed.
He wiped away her tears with his thumb.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “You’re crying like a little kitten.”
I lowered my eyes.
I didn’t want to watch anymore.
So I looked at Sean and said, “For my birthday this year, I want five hundred thousand.”
It was funny, really.
We were husband and wife, yet we didn’t even have each other’s phone numbers.
Other than asking him for money, I never contacted him.
Before the wedding, we had made a deal.
He wanted me.
I wanted his money.
Sean had always hated me for being greedy.
But in the past, whenever I asked, he always gave me more than I requested.
Only this time, he smiled.
Coldly.
“Sure,” he said. “You can have the money.”
“Apologize to Chloe first.”
I froze.
It took me a second to understand what he was doing.
He was using money to buy my dignity.
Using my life-saving treatment as leverage.
Using it all to make his little darling feel superior.
That was the first time he had ever humiliated me for another woman.
I curled my fingers into my palm.
My body had started hurting again—sharp, familiar pain rising from deep inside—but I forced myself to smile.
“No need,” I said.
“I don’t want the money anymore.”
I turned to leave.
And for the first time in a long time, I found myself wondering—
Sean, if one day you find out that this money could have bought me a little more time…
If you learn how much I suffered before I died…
What kind of expression will you make?
I went home alone.
Curled up under the blankets, soaked in sweat, shaking from pain.
I took some sleeping pills and told myself that if I fell asleep, it wouldn’t hurt as much.
Half-awake and half-dreaming, I went back to when I was twenty.
Back to the year Sean was poor.
Poor enough that winter wind seemed to blow right through his bones.
But he loved me.
God, he loved me.
On my birthday that year, we passed by a café.
Inside, a girl was holding a little white cake.
It looked delicate. Expensive. Beautiful.
Outside, snow was falling hard.
I scooped up a little pile of snow with both hands and grinned at Sean.
“Hey, Sean,” I teased, “doesn’t this look like a cake?”
His jaw tightened.
Then he hugged me so tightly I couldn’t see his face.
Three days later, he showed up downstairs at my dorm holding a whole cake in his hands.
A real one.
It cost two hundred and fifty-eight dollars.
And for that cake, he had stood outside in freezing wind handing out three thousand flyers just to make a hundred.
His fingers were cracked and raw from the cold.
I saw them and started crying immediately.
I yelled up at him, “Your hands are for studying. For writing. Not for ruining just to make me happy.”
“I’m not worth a cake this expensive.”
His brows drew together.
“Megan,” he said at once, “you’re the best girl in the world.”
“You deserve every good thing there is.”
That day, I cried while eating the whole cake.
Now, I can’t even remember what it tasted like anymore.
I only know this—
I never had another cake that sweet again.