Chapter 4

Once Julian left, the others quickly cleared out, sensing the shift in the air.

I was the only one left in the booth.

I stared at the screen for a moment, then quietly blocked and deleted his contact.

I took a cab back to our cold, empty house and began sorting through my things.

Item by item. Box by box.

When I reached the very bottom of the closet, my hands paused.

It was a thick, worn stack of letters that had never been sent.

They were love letters I wrote to Julian when we were teenagers.

Everyone thought our marriage was purely a business deal. No one knew that I had secretly loved him for years.

Even during the messiest, most miserable years of our marriage, I hadn't been able to let him go.

I looked down at the bold, rebellious handwriting on the first page:

[Julian Vance, just you wait. I'm going to make you fall in love with me.]

It felt like another lifetime.

Just a pile of useless paper.

With a blank face, I tossed them toward the trash can, but a hand suddenly reached out from behind me and snatched them away.

Carter stood there, flipping through the pages with a nasty, mocking glint in his eyes.

I didn't care how or when he got into the house. I just held out an empty hand.

"Give them back."

He skimmed the letters, a sneer spreading across his face.

"You want them?"

"Daisy, so this was the filthy little secret behind all your tantrums over the years? Don't flatter yourself. To Julian, you're not even worth as much as a stray dog."

Those words sounded familiar.

I remembered a fight Julian and I had during our first year of marriage. He had looked at me with cold disgust and said:

"Daisy, you throw all these fits just to get my attention, don't you?"

"Do you think you're worthy? To me, you're just a pathetic dog begging for scraps."

I stayed silent for a moment. When I spoke, my voice was as flat as stagnant water.

"What do you want, Carter?"

The smell of alcohol rolled off him as he stepped closer, his smile predatory.

"Daisy... sleep with me again."

He pulled out his phone, set it on the nightstand, and hit record.

"Face the camera. Let's do it one more time."

He shoved me down onto the mattress, leaning over me with a leering grin:

"I've always regretted not recording it back then. You were screaming so loud."

I didn't fight him. My hand slipped beneath the pillow, fingers wrapping tightly around the plastic pill bottle.

...

Across town, Julian pulled up to the driveway of the villa.

He checked his phone. Daisy hadn't replied to his message. She hadn't even sent her usual angry curses.

He frowned and typed:

[Daisy, I'm home.]

[I told you that you're still Mrs. Vance. Stop throwing your spoiled tantrums.]

The only response was a red exclamation mark.

She had blocked him.

"Daisy!"

He stepped through the front entrance, and the sight of dark red smudges on the floor violently hit his eyes.

Julian's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

He kicked the door open with a violent slam.