CHAPTER 1

Serena's POV

“Move Serena’s things out of the master bedroom. Vanessa will be staying with me from now on.”

The words dropped like stones in the middle of the quiet hallway.

I stood still on the staircase, one hand gripping the railing, my breath catching in my throat. Slowly, I turned, and there he was.

Damian Cross. My husband.

We have been married for three years, and he had never once said my name with love.

“Come in Vanessa,” he said carefully to the woman beside him as if her name was the sweetest word in the world.

Her heels tapped against the marble floor, sharp and confident, with her golden hair catching the light as if she had stepped straight out of a magazine cover. She smiled at the staff as if she owned the house and was destined to be a queen.

“Take my bags upstairs,” she said, handing her designer purse to the butler without so much glance. “And tell the chef I'd like something light for dinner. No oil, or butter. Also, have someone bring fresh flowers into the master bedroom. Damian knows they’re my favorite.”

The butler bowed. The maids spread out to obey.

Not one of them looked at me.

I stood halfway on the staircase, clutching the rail so tight that my knuckles turned white. After three years of silence in this mansion, three years of being ignored, mocked, treated as if I were nothing more than an inconvenience and now this?

My husband brought his first love into our home.

Damian’s hand was locked with hers, their fingers fitting as if they belonged together. Finally, his gray eyes, which were as cold and sharp as steel, lifted to me.

“Serena,” he called out, his voice was flat, without care, without hesitation. “You won’t cause trouble.”

It wasn’t a question. It was an order.

The same tone he used with his workers. Not a tone for a wife.

My throat burned, but I said nothing.

Because I knew no one cared how I felt. So I didn't say anything.

But something screamed inside me.

For three years. Three long years of enduring humiliation in silence. His mother once told me at dinner that I was a waste because I had given Damian a child. His cousins made fun of my simple clothes, whispering that I was a country girl pretending to be rich.

Damian for once never stood up for me.

He was always too busy, too cold, too distant all the time.

I was wrong to think that love could grow. That if I wait, and stay loyal, he might see me one day.

But today, as I watched his hand lock with Vanessa's and his lips twitch into a smile I had asked for but never got... It hit me that love had never even been a possibility.

He had already made his choice.

Finally it was dinner time and I was the clown at dinner.

The long dining table sparkled with crystal glasses and silver cutlery. Damian sat at the head, as he always did. Vanessa sat next to him, in the seat that used to belong to me.

I sat down farther away, near the edge, where the light didn’t quite reach.

Servants poured wine for Damian and Vanessa. But for me? A glass of water.

“Don’t bother with the red,” Vanessa said in a sweet voice, her hand brushing Damian’s sleeve. “She won't like it. Water is safer. Isn’t that right, Serena?”

Her voice was polished and smooth, but it was full of poison that was disguised as honey.

I forced a small smile and put my steady hands on my glass. "Of course."

Damian didn’t look at me. His attention was fixed on her, on the curve of her lips, on the way her golden hair sparkled when she tilted her head.

“Do you remember that summer in Paris?” Vanessa said suddenly, her voice low but clear enough to be heard. She leaned close, her lips brushing his ear. "You told me that nothing would ever get in the way of us being together."

His lips curved. Not wide or bright, but enough. Enough to break me.

Because I hadn't seen that smile in three years.

And here, in front of me, he smiled.

Not for me. But For her.

I tried to eat. I could feel the fork shaking in my hand as it lightly scraped against the plate. The food tasted like dust in my mouth when I ate it.

“You’ve grown thinner,” Vanessa said suddenly, her blue eyes gleaming as she glanced at me. “Damian, don’t you think your wife looks… fragile? Almost sickly. A woman should glow beside her husband, not fade away.”

Vanessa looked at me with her bright blue eyes and said, "You've grown thinner. Damian, don't you think your wife looks... weak? Almost sickly. A woman should glow beside her husband, not fade away.”

Yet, Damian didn't say anything.

I swallowed hard, pushing my plate away. My fingers curled in my lap, nails digging into my palm until I felt pain sharp enough to remind me I was still alive

By the time dinner ended, Vanessa was laughing softly, her hand on Damian’s arm as though she had always belonged there. He leaned in close when she spoke, his lips curving into warmth, his gaze lingering.

The world around me blurred, the glitter of the chandelier, the clink of silverware, the laughter of his family.

All I saw was the truth.

He could smile. He could laugh. He could care.

He just didn't want to do it with me.

As I looked at them across the shiny table, I felt a cold clarity fill the empty space inside me that I had never felt before.

My marriage wasn’t just cold.

It was dead.

And if I didn’t leave soon, it would bury me too.