CHAPTER 1

Gilda's POV

“Ahhhh, Ethan. Ughhh, ugh, ugh… Take me to hell with you, you’re so good at this… ruin me. Ughnnn.”

My hand froze on Ethan’s doorknob. The words and intimate whimpers filled the hallway and split something inside me. I told myself I was imagining it. That they couldn’t be real. But as the moans kept coming, it became impossible to deny.

My fingers slipped. I’d been ready to face him, to look him in the eye and demand answers, because Ethan would be the last person to do this to me.

We’d been together for years; our third anniversary was just a few weeks away. We’d planned a future together, stitched it up with quiet promises and late-night plans. There was no place in that future for betrayal.

I bent to pick up the bottle of water I’d dropped when I first heard the sound and pushed the door open. The sight that met me sent the bottle clattering from my hand again, with water scattering across the floor in a dripping arc.

“Ethan?” My voice came out thin. Tears stung hot at the corners of my eyes before I could stop them. I’d prepared myself to stand firm, but the figure beside him stole my breath and knotted it in my throat.

“Vera?” The name tore out of me like a threat and a plea all at once. My voice cracked.

My stepsister. We’d grown up under the same roof until life pulled us in different directions, and while she stayed, I left for New York.

I’d come back to Los Angeles after our father died, and because of Ethan. I came back for a life I could manage without long-distance heartbreak. I came back hoping my acting career might finally find a foothold in this city where she already shone.

Vera was famous now. She had everything I’d worked for but never received: attention, money, doors that opened at a whisper.

I’d never asked her for favors, not because I didn’t need them, but because I knew the price of asking and how easily she could refuse.

Anger flared hot under my skin. I thought, for a wild second, of throwing myself at her.

On set, she’d refused me a drink when I was exhausted, despite my running up and down as a minor character; she’d laughed when I stumbled through a line. All the little humiliations that had seemed like chance now looked like rehearsal for this moment.

I stood there, soaked water at my feet, my pulse thrumming in my ears, trying to make sense of the betrayal. Ethan, who had promised me mornings and mundane things and forever, and Vera, who was family.

I was supposed to be the female lead. After years of investing in acting lessons, auditioning endlessly and fighting for scraps of recognition, I had finally been given my shot. My first real chance.

I had prepared for months, memorizing lines, rehearsing and building the character in my head and heart. But last night, everything shattered. They told me the roles had been changed. My “big break” had been reduced to a single, pitiful role… a palace maid in the very movie I had poured myself into.

Still, I had taken it. I swallowed the humiliation. I told myself it was enough just to be featured in such a star-studded project, even if my role was nothing more than a shadow lingering in the background.

But then, stepping onto set, I discovered the cruelest twist of all. Vera. My stepsister had stolen the role from me — the lead role I was supposed to own. I swallowed that insult too, forced it down and told myself it wasn’t worth the scene it would cause. I bottled up the bitterness and focused on doing my best, no matter how small the part.

And now this? To walk in on Ethan with her, their mouths locked and their bodies shamelessly entangled as if the universe had conspired to drag me to my knees.

The irony clawed at my throat. I wanted to scream and demand an explanation, but instead, Ethan leaned in again, kissing her. Their wet mouths moved against each other, making obscene sounds that churned my stomach. Vera didn’t hesitate to return the kiss, moaning into it as if I wasn’t even standing there.

The scene played out like a performance staged just for me. And I, the rightful lead, had been cast as the humiliated extra in my own life.

I should have expected it. This wasn’t the first time Ethan had cheated. Not even the second. I had forgiven him before, but seeing him with her, with Vera of all people, burned away every shred of forgiveness I might have had left.

He knew how she treated me. He knew the venom she and her mother spewed at me after my parents died. To them, I was nothing but the living scar of the union that “ruined” her mother’s perfect marriage. But this? This level of disrespect was unimaginable. I didn’t even know where to begin condemning it.

“You know,” I said with a dry voice, bile rising in my throat, “you two could quit pretending not to notice I’m here.”

They didn’t stop even after I said that.

My body shook from rage. I walked to the study table by the side of his bedroom, my eyes locking on the glass vase I had gifted Ethan on his birthday months ago, perched there. Without hesitation, I grabbed it and hurled it at the ground. It shattered into a hundred glittering shards that scattered across the floor.

“Gilda, what have you done?” Ethan’s voice cut through the room angrily. He finally tore himself away from her because I had dared to disrupt them.

I stared down at the broken glass, my lips curling into a bitter laugh. “If I hadn’t done this, you wouldn’t have stopped. You’d still be kissing her.”

Before I could even lift my head, pain exploded across my cheek. Ethan’s palm had connected with them as he had slapped me.

The tears I had fought so hard to contain broke free, spilling hot and unrelenting down my face. Every ounce of self-control I’d mustered crumbled in that moment, shattering as completely as the vase at my feet.

“I’ve been nothing but a good girlfriend to you all this while, Ethan… why? Why this?” My voice cracked, heavy with desperation as I searched his face, hoping to find even a shred of explanation that could soften the blow.

I did everything for him. His laundry. His meals. I kept his home spotless. I gave him my time, my body, my heart — all of me!. Even when money was tight, I gave him all I had, all I could have even used to set myself up, even slipping crumpled bills into his hand when he came back broke from wasting it on shallow shows to impress people.

And yet… this was what I got in return? This was the reward for my sacrifices? Tears streamed hot down my cheeks as I stared at him, the betrayal carving deeper with every second.

“You promised me, Ethan. You promised me!” My voice trembled as I turned toward Vera, who sat proudly on the bed, not a hint of shame in her posture. “Why now? And with her?”