Love Signed Away the One Hundredth Time

The spring air was sharp, and my bare feet trembled on the asphalt.

I'd walked this road countless times. The worst was when the Moore family faltered. They drugged me and delivered me to Craig's bed like a commodity to secure their survival.

Now the Moore Group was gone. Freed from groveling, I felt an odd lightness, a release.

"Madam," Mervin called out, hurrying toward me.

Before I could turn, he draped a coat over my shoulders. "Mr. Kennedy sent this. He cares for you. Why let it..."

"Pass on my thanks to him," I cut him off.

He sighed before heading back.

The coat, familiar and heavy, pulled me into memories. Craig had bought it for me when I was still the cherished Moore heiress. His eyes had brimmed with love, and he had promised to protect me forever.

As a child, he shielded me from every slight. Once, when someone bullied me, he fought them, earning a beating from his family's discipline. Bedridden, he still made faces to make me laugh.

I wept for his pain, and he clumsily wiped my tears. "Don't cry. I won't let anyone hurt you."

In high school, when delinquents cornered me, he charged in alone, battered but unyielding. Even as he struggled to stand, he asked if I was scared, making me laugh through my tears.

Back then, he shunned other girls, proudly telling his friends, "My girlfriend keeps me on a tight leash."

We were childhood sweethearts envied by all as a perfect match, destined for marriage on the day our families set.

But fate turned cruel. The Moore Group faced a crippling crisis, and my family, fearing the Kennedys would break our engagement, drugged me and sent me to Craig's bed. I handed him the drugged wine, unaware of its contents.

I explained countless times, but his eyes always held the same disgust from that morning, appraising me like a tainted object.

He believed I'd schemed to save my family, seducing him with despicable means. From that moment, I was branded with shame, stripped of any right to defend myself.

Yet he honored the engagement, giving me a grand wedding that sparked envy. He saved the Moore Group, and I thought he still loved me.

But on our wedding night, he brought home another woman. Every night after, he paraded new ones, trophies that could fill a nightclub.

He took pleasure in humiliating me in every imaginable way and never seemed to grow tired of it. It was as though my pain was his only joy.

I endured, believing he'd relent and reconcile with me one day.

Three years passed, ending in the Moore Group's collapse and my parents' suicides.