Chapter 1

Cassandra’s POV

I checked my reflection anxiously one last time before stepping out of the elevator. My gown shimmered faintly under the hotel lights, it was a soft gold that hugged my waist and fell in silky folds to my ankles. Austin always said gold looked like it was made for my skin.

I hoped he liked it.

My heart was beating too fast. I told myself it was simply my excitement. He had called that afternoon, his voice smooth and low in my ear. “Come to the private suite at The Crest tonight. I have a surprise for you.”

I had immediately rushed to check the calendar the moment the call ended, only to see that there was no special event we had going on.

I was confused to say the least. Austin never spontaneously planned romantic getaways.

The receptionist had smiled when I gave her my name, but the smile faltered halfway through. Her eyes lingered on me softly, before she looked away. It was strange enough to make me pause.

“Suite 807,” she said quickly.

“Thank you.”

Her gaze dropped to the counter. I was tempted to ask her why her mood suddenly shifted, but I just walked away, telling myself it was nothing.

Maybe she recognized me. Austin’s name carried weight in this hotel. He had designed half the uniforms the staff wore. I was overthinking again.

Despite my justification, the soft, almost pitying look on her face stayed with me all the way to the elevator and out of it.

I had curled my hair for tonight. The little white box with the pregnancy test results was tucked inside my purse, wrapped with a red ribbon. I imagined his face when I told him, the shock, the joy. Maybe he’d lift me off the ground the way he did when we first fell in love.

I slapped myself on the cheeks twice, gently. I couldn’t spoil the surprise with the look on my face alone. I had to hold on.

The carpet smelled faintly of new paint and roses. Austin always had roses sent ahead when he planned something romantic.

I passed a row of suites, the numbers glinting gold against dark wood. 802, 803… and then, just as I reached the door with the glittering number 804, I heard laughter. Not from 804, but from the room before it.

The door there wasn’t fully closed and it seemed like they weren’t aware of it.

I wouldn’t have cared. I liked minding my business.

But the voices inside were familiar.

I slowed without meaning to. The laughter was soft and intimate, punctuated by soft wet sounds. Kissing sounds. A woman’s breathy voice followed by a man’s low chuckle, a chuckle that always made butterflies flutter in my stomach.

It was Mirabel.

And Austin.

For a second, my brain refused to piece it together. It couldn’t be. Mirabel was his cousin. His cousin.

I had to be hearing things wrongly. I was definitely hallucinating. I’d been thinking too hard about Austin and now I was imagining his voice in room 804.

I took a step closer, meaning to knock and ease my confusion, to make sure I was just hearing things. Then her voice came again, soft, bright and cruel.

“She really signed it? All the assets?”

My body froze.

Austin’s laugh was lazy, the timbre of his drawling and low like it usually was whenever we were cuddling. “She’s too naive to question it. By tomorrow, she’ll be out, and everything she owns will be ours.”

“Ooh, I’m so excited!”, Mirabel practically squealed. “It all worked out perfectly. I’m glad you didn’t get her pregnant”, the last part was said like she was pouting.

“Why? Are you jealous?”, he chuckled. “Even if she did get pregnant, I’d just get full custody, no matter what.”

My ears hummed like they were at full capacity, like I couldn’t hear anymore.

Something inside me cracked. I heard it like a real sound, the shattering of something that felt like glass.

The corridor tilted and my vision became blurry.

I threw my hand to the wall to steady myself. Their voices became a dull hum after that, like I was hearing them underwater.

I could still make out Mirabel’s giggle, the shuffle of movement, the continuing wet sounds of open mouthed kisses.

My fingers trembled so badly that my purse fell to the floor and the little ribboned box slipped from it. I stared at it blankly, that proof of a new life, and suddenly it all felt obscene.

We’d been trying for a baby for three years, and when we finally got it, I found out that our entire marriage was a ruse.

A lie I told myself.

They had probably been laughing at me everyday.

As I bent down to pick it up and clutch my purse tightly, a searing headache pierced through my skull and I couldn’t think anymore. I just pushed the door fully open.

The room smelled like expensive wine and roses. Austin never bought me roses. He said I never asked.

Their heads both snapped to me as I walked in, entangled in an embrace almost half naked. Mirabel sat in his lap, wearing one of Austin’s shirts unbuttoned completely. Austin had one hand cupping her breasts, and it looked like they had only just gotten started.

Had this always happened?

Austin was always late to appointments with me. Did he always spend some time with “his cousin” in a room not too far away? Did he always have sex with my best friend before coming home to me?

Had I always been the fool?

He didn’t even look surprised.

“You’re here. It’s rude to barge in,” he said, lifting a wine glass to his lips with his other hand, still touching Mirabel.

Mirabel’s soft smile widened. She didn’t bother to cover herself. “Hey you.”

I looked at him, really looked, and realized I didn’t recognize the man sitting there. He had the same sharp jawline, the same steady eyes, but all the warmth I’d built my world around was gone.

Stripped off in a single instant.

I laughed, a small broken sound, gripping my pursed tightly, trying to contain the urge to burst in and scream. “How long has this been going on, huh?”

Austin shrugged. “Long enough.”

It felt like a humiliation ritual, the way I was the ine breaking and they didn’t even care. “Was any of it… any part of us…real?”

He tilted his head and dropped the wine, studying me like I was a nuisance. “It was convenient. You were generous. I needed that.”

My palm connected with his cheek before I could stop myself. The sound was sharp in the quiet room.

He didn’t react to it. Mirabel gasped and leaned bac, or at least she tried to. Austin clamped down on her waist and prevented her from moving.

I raised my hand again, this time targeting Mirabel, but Austin’s hand, the one he had been touching her, held me in a death grip.

“You’re too rash, Cassie. Think carefully, I won’t hesitate to ruin you if you touch my Mira.”

A sharper pain than before lanced through my heart as I snatched my hand away. Why hadn’t I noticed all those years? What had I been looking at?

“Cass, don’t be dramatic. I let you borrow him a little, and now that period is over. Don’t be greedy!”, she said self righteously, her brows furrowing like it did when she thought I wasn’t being grateful for something.

What did she want me to be grateful about? The fact that she had apparently given me her lover to swindle me? The fact that I’d been deceived for nearly six years?

“Pigs. The both of you,” it was hard not to advance to hit Mirabel again, but my wrist was still red and swollen where he had grabbed it.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded check. He placed it on the glass table beside the wine bottle. “That’s all you’ll ever get from me. Consider it payment for your… loyalty.”

Mirabel giggled.

Giggled.

They had connived to ruin my life and all she did was giggle.

The numbers on the check blurred through my tears, but I saw enough to know it wasn’t even close to what he owed me.

I tore the check in half. Then in quarters. Then in shreds. And then I flung the pieces at them.

Austin sighed, as if I were a child throwing a tantrum. “You should leave before security escorts you out. You always ruin everything. You could’ve found out in a much better way, eh.”

My throat burned. My heart beat against my ribs so hard it hurt.

“I loved you,” I whispered.

“Yeah, we know,” he said in derision. Like my love had been a burden.

He’d been a struggling fashion designer. Mirabel had introduced him to me as her cousin, and I’d helped him, then I fell in love, and put my full force behind him.

He could book suites because of me. He could sit on the velvet couch and regard me snootily because I had put my everything into supporting him.

I had also foolishly signed off my assets.

Mirabel’s laughter filled the room again, soft and poisonous.

Something inside me hardened. I looked at them both, at the man I once would’ve died for, and the woman who had held my hand through every heartbreak, and felt the last of my fear drain away.

“You’ll regret this. I won’t rest till you’re crawling on the ground like the vermin you are.”

I didn’t wait for a reply. I turned, clutched up my purse, and walked out.

The elevator ride down felt endless. My reflection looked strange, the mascara smudged beneath my eyes, the gold gown clung to me like armor. When the doors opened, the receptionist looked up again, and this time she didn’t hide the pity.

Outside, the sky had opened up. Rain poured over the city in sheets, heavy and relentless. I didn’t care. I stepped into it, the water soaking through the thin fabric of my dress, cooling my burning skin.

People stared as I passed, a woman in gold, barefoot now because the heels had hurt too much, walking like she’d just learnt how to.

I clutched my purse to my chest. Inside it, the little white box pressed against my ribs. The life growing inside me. The secret I’d thought would bind us closer.

Now it was all I had left of him.

I almost wished I didn’t have anything related to him at all.

I stopped at the edge of the street and my hands found my stomach, still flat, but warm beneath my touch.

“You’ll be okay,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure who I was talking to, the baby or myself.

My phone chimed with a text. I shakily lifted it up and had to wipe my eyes to see clearly.

It was a very detailed message. No, it was more like information was gathered by a strike team.

It was all about Austin.

My grip on the phone tightened.