So Done With Her

Claire: [I think a news story about 'Anders Group Heir Suffers from Both Physical and Mental Disorders' would be a lot more interesting than the Bishop Group's funding crisis, don't you?]

I stared at Claire's message. My heart felt like it had been dunked in ice water.

Me: [That's fraud. It's slander.]

Claire: [Exactly.]

There was something reckless in her reply. A nothing-left-to-lose kind of boldness.

Claire: [You pushed me to this. I bought gifts today. I was going to come home and talk to you. Try to make things right.]

Claire: [But you know what you did? You cut off my money, Ethan. If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me.]

Claire: [We were always just a business arrangement. So why are you demanding loyalty from me?]

Suddenly, the woman on the other end of that screen felt like a stranger. A terrifying one.

Three years ago, when our two families first agreed to the merger, she said, "Ethan, an arranged marriage is miserable enough. I don't want our marriage to be full of affairs, secret love children, and constant fighting.

"We have to be loyal to each other. At least on the surface. We keep it clean. I don't want to be anyone's laughingstock."

She was the one who wanted a "clean" marriage. She was the one who swore there would never be any betrayal.

And now she was the one asking me why I expected loyalty.

Unbelievable.

Me: [Fine. I'll restore the funding to the Bishop Group.]

Claire: [That's more like it.]

What a smug reply.

Claire: [Oh, and one more thing. You need to apologize to Noah.]

My temple throbbed. [For what?]

Claire: [You were awful to him at the hospital. You scared him. You need to apologize in person. Properly.]

I sneered.

Me: [No.]

And Claire went right back to threatening me.

Claire: [Ethan, I'm warning you. Don't make me do something you'll regret.]

It was almost funny.

The only thing I regretted was agreeing to this marriage three years ago.

Back then, Claire only became the heir to the Bishop Group because of our engagement. She was incompetent and made terrible decisions. Without my help these past three years, she would have been pushed out long ago.

Now it was time to put her back where she belonged.

The Bishop family had an older son—Claire's half-brother, Julian Bishop. The first wife's child. He'd lost an eye in an accident years ago, so the family tossed him aside and left him to rot in a subsidiary company.

I thought Julian and I might have something to talk about.

It didn't take long to reach him through my connections. We set a time and place to meet.

I was just about to walk out the door when—

Whoosh.

A bucket of something foul hit me right in the face. Reeking, disgusting liquid burned my eyes. I gagged.

"You sick bastard!" a man's voice shouted. "You call yourself a doctor? Rich piece of trash with no morals!"

"Get him!" someone else yelled. "This is for every patient you've screwed over!"

Before I even understood what was happening, a fist slammed into my face. Then more fists. More boots. They came at me from every direction.

I tried to explain. Tried to fight back. But there were too many of them.

Then—a crack. A blinding flash of pain from my leg. I heard the snap of bone.

But they didn't stop.

…

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed.

My leg was wrapped in a thick cast, hoisted up in the air.

Lying there under the harsh fluorescent lights, I finally understood what the paint and the beating had been about.

Number one on trending: a video about me.

The thumbnail was taken from the ER that night—our wedding night.

The video had been carefully edited. Spliced. Twisted.

The grainy footage showed only my face clearly. I was edited to look cold and aggressive. And they'd dubbed over it with new dialogue—none of it true.