Chapter 5

My hands shook as I dialed Clive's number.

"Why would you post a statement like that?"

He didn't even pause. "What happened earlier got put online, and now everyone's coming to me asking about it. What was I supposed to do? If you hadn't thrown a fit, none of this would be happening!"

"Someone at the hospital recognized Jade too. She's a young woman. Getting dragged into something like this is bad for her."

I asked through my tears, "And it isn't bad for me?"

He let out a scornful little laugh. "You got drugged and the next day you acted like nothing happened. A little name-calling is nothing."

"Stop blowing this up. While the statement's still getting attention, I'm going to do a livestream and finally give Jade the proposal I owe her. Bring me the wedding ring. It'll be perfect for you to apologize to Jade in front of everyone on the stream. That'll clear her name completely, and maybe the public will even forgive you."

"I designed that ring with my own hands!" I couldn't hold it back. "And you want me to hand it to another woman?"

His voice turned heavy with meaning. "It's just a ring, Millicent. Once this all blows over, I can come back to you—in nineteen years."

"I know you only have me. If there were any other way, I wouldn't leave you either."

When he proposed, he'd said something almost the same.

"I know you only have me. If there were any other way..."

"I want to be the one you lean on."

After my father had a stroke from the blow of losing my mother, Clive became the only thing I leaned on.

And now he was using exactly that, certain I couldn't get by without him, free to humiliate me as he pleased.

Whatever warmth was left in me went cold.

The second I hung up, someone shouted, "The police are here! Quick! We've caught Millicent Maddox, the murderer!"

So while I'd been on the phone, someone had taken the chance to call them.

I was taken to the police station.

But what waited for me wasn't an interrogation. It was a piece of surveillance footage.

An officer pointed at the timestamp in the lower left corner. "Does this date mean anything to you?"

"It does."

It was the most agonizing day of my life. And the happiest.

Three months ago, at the Sanchez company's annual gala, Clive, who was supposed to take the stage and give the address, never showed.

When I couldn't reach him no matter what I tried, the news broke that there had been a pileup on the road he always took.

I rushed to the hospital and heard the blood bank was running critically low, and an injured man named Sanchez urgently needed a transfusion.

I grabbed a passing doctor. "Take my blood! I'm his girlfriend! Take as much as you need!"

The bag filled slowly with dark red. My vision went black, and still I kept praying for Clive to be safe, even if it meant trading my own life for his.

Then the phone rang.

Clive's voice came through, perfectly fine. "Where did you go? I didn't answer earlier because I was setting up a surprise for you. Stop sulking and come back!"

So it had all been a false alarm. I was beside myself with relief. Ignoring the nurse's protests, I forced my weak, chilled body up off the table, lightheaded from blood loss, wanting only to see him that instant.

That night, with no warning at all, Clive proposed.

I was lost in the joy of getting back what I thought I'd lost, and the happiness of being proposed to by the man I loved.

I never noticed that this "surprise" he'd prepared was nothing but a ring that didn't fit.

The footage in front of me finally showed me the truth of that night.

At the roadside, the window of an SUV rolled down, and a skimpy maid costume was tossed out.

As the car rocked, I could see them clearly inside, Clive and Jade, their bodies tangled and moving, and the ring on her hand.

The ring Clive had used to propose to me.

So while I was begging the nurse to draw eight hundred milliliters of my blood, ready to trade my life for his safety, he had been with Jade in that car.

Even the engagement ring had just been pulled off Jade's finger.

A tearing pain shot through a heart I'd thought long gone numb, and the tears spilled out before I could stop them.

In silence, the officer opened another clip.

When I saw what it showed, my hand froze mid-motion, the tears still on my face.