Chapter 1

At the celebration party for Theo Delgado—my boyfriend of ten years, who had just won Best Actor—someone suggested playing a finger-folding game.

His assistant was the first to look at me, smiling as he spoke.

"I've never spent ten years with a man, helping him rise from a nobody to Best Actor, only to find out in the end that I was the mistress no one could know about."

The room went silent in an instant.

The next second, Theo took my hand and folded down one finger without hesitation.

"Since it's all out in the open, consider the money you earned off me these ten years my compensation to you."

He spoke calmly, like he was settling an old account.

"I'll admit it—you're very good at landing resources for me."

"But after sleeping with you for ten years, I got bored a long time ago."

"Rowena is clean, young, and carrying my child. I can't keep leaving her without a name or a title."

"So I've already announced on Twitter that she and I are legally married."

Finally, someone in the room laughed out loud.

"So what if she toughed it out for ten years? We've been calling Rowena the boss's wife for ages."

"Beulah's slept with who knows how many people to snatch resources. Theo got sick of how dirty she is long ago."

My stomach turned.

So it turned out that all the storms I'd fought so hard to shield him from were, in their eyes, nothing but the cheap sacrifice a woman had made of her own accord.

I went cold all over, my hands trembling as I opened my phone.

Theo's marriage announcement had already shot to number one on the trending searches.

They thought that winning Best Actor meant they had everything.

But they forgot.

Theo hadn't made it this far on his acting alone.

There were also the resources and connections in my hands, and the studio I had built with my own two hands.

I wiped away my tears, turned, and dialed that number.

"I accept the offer. And I have one more piece of news for you."

"Theo Delgado's era is over."

...

When I came back from the restroom, my hands were still shaking.

Theo's closest buddy, Kent Dickerson, raised his glass with a teasing look.

"The game goes on."

"Today we're celebrating Theo winning Best Actor, so nobody gets to ruin the mood."

"Here's mine. I've never desperately helped a man fight for resources until I drank myself into a stomach hemorrhage, only to find out everyone had gone to his legal-marriage banquet with someone else."

Once again the whole room turned to me with mockery.

Theo casually pressed down another one of my fingers.

Kent grinned and pushed his glass toward me.

"We all went to Theo and Rowena's legal-marriage banquet last Valentine's Day."

Theo's other buddy, Reginald Taylor, laughed too.

"You were busy fighting for Theo's resources, so we didn't invite you."

My heart clenched with a sharp pain.

Last Valentine's Day, to help Theo land the male lead in Twilight, I was forced to drink by the investors until my stomach bled.

That night my stomach felt like it was being twisted by a knife, and everything I threw up was blood.

Yet I kept my face steady, forcing down glass after glass and smiling through it.

Only because Theo had told me then that this resource was the closest he'd ever get to Best Actor.

He said, "Beulah, I don't want you toughing it out with me anymore. Once I win this award, it's my turn to take care of you."

When I came to in the hospital bed, my first instinct was to message Theo.

"Got the resource. Go sign the contract tomorrow."

But his reply never came.

I made sixty-five calls, and every one went unanswered.

It wasn't until the middle of the night that he finally texted me back.

"Got it. Been busy, didn't check my phone."

Turned out he'd been busy getting legally married to another woman.

While I was fighting for him at the drinking table, he was helping Rowena pick out a wedding ring.

While I lay in the hospital waiting for a single word of concern from him, he had his arm around Rowena, accepting congratulations at their legal-marriage banquet.

Even the road to Best Actor that I'd paved for him with ten years of everything I had ended up as the bride price for him marrying Rowena.

My gaze swept over them.

Not one of these people—people I had brought into the industry, people I had lifted up—had thought to warn me.

When Reginald first got into the business, he couldn't even read an agency contract. I taught him step by step and helped him find his footing.

When Gayle was still an intern, she couldn't even put together a call sheet. I guided her, bit by bit, into becoming a project lead.

As for Kent.

When his father was diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure, Theo was still a nobody, and I took out every dollar I'd saved to buy a home and covered his surgery.

He once knelt in front of me and said,

"Beulah, for the rest of my life you're my own sister."

But now.

That "sister" was still there.

It had just become what they used to mock me with at the table.

I took the glass and was about to drink.

But Theo naturally caught my wrist and took the glass away.

"Your stomach's bad. I'll drink this one for you."

His tone and his movements were as familiar as they'd always been.

I froze for a moment.

The first time the investors forced me to drink, he'd snatched my glass the same way, his eyes red.

Drinking it down for me, glass after glass.

Back then I thought he truly cared about me.

So no matter how hard it got afterward, I was willing to bear it all for him.

But now.

The hand that used to take the drinks for me was already wrapped around Rowena's waist, without a shred of hesitation.

Rowena pouted and refused to let it go.

"Sweetie, she did stick with you for ten years, after all. You're the legal wife, be a little gracious."

"Fine."

"Then you have to admit out loud that she's the mistress, and only then will I let you drink for her."

The room fell silent for a moment.

Every eye landed on Theo.

I looked at him too.

In that moment, I was somehow still waiting for his answer.

But he only paused for a second,

then raised his hand and gently stroked Rowena's hair.

"Whatever you say goes."

The words fell, and the whole room burst into laughter.

I looked at Theo.

Suddenly the person in front of me felt like a total stranger.

The man who had once shielded me from every hurt

had now, with his own hands, turned me into a joke in everyone's eyes.

I said nothing more and stood to leave.

But Kent spoke up, smiling.

"Beulah, leaving already?"

"The game isn't over yet."