Chapter 4

The day I gave birth, Arthur was already on a plane, flying overseas.

Regina insisted on going with him.

He still refused to sign the divorce papers, so on paper I was still Mrs. Sanchez.

There was no way to reach him by phone out there, so he wrote letters by hand.

Regina's fierce love, he didn't turn away.

My quiet, steady presence, he didn't care about.

Every letter he sent, I threw straight in the trash.

After the baby was born, Arthur wrote ten letters and came up with twenty names, never quite satisfied with any of them.

He wrote: "No rush on registering the birth. Let me think of something better."

But I'd already registered our son long before that, under my own surname. Vincent James.

I printed out the photos on purpose and mailed them to Arthur.

For three months straight, his entire paycheck went into my account.

He said he was working hard, saving up his vacation days, so he could come back and talk things through with me.

Regina, on the other hand, was working three jobs over there.

Arthur gave all his money to me, so without a job she had no way to live.

Even throwing herself into the sea wouldn't help.

People out there liked their thrills. Jumping into the sea was routine.

Even if she went, she'd have to wait in line.

I brought my son back to my parents' home, and just like that a year went by. He could recognize faces now.

Then word came from overseas. Regina was pregnant.

She'd borrowed money and had a procedure done abroad, and she'd successfully conceived Arthur's child.

Arthur knew my family had money, so he wanted me, as the mother, to chip in a little more. It wasn't as if I'd shortchange the child anyway.

Regina didn't have to work anymore. She lived in Arthur's little apartment.

To make sure I saw how happy she was, she rode a bus for over ten hours and sent me a photo of Arthur gently stroking her belly.

I smiled and replied: "I'm Mrs. Sanchez."

"The person Arthur loves most is me." She was hunched over, dry-heaving, her eyes fixed on her phone.

"We're not divorced." I still hadn't divorced Arthur, which meant she would always be the one people cursed.

I had my account back now.

I told one of my own stories, and I refunded every product Regina had listed for sale.

Only then did my followers realize they'd been deceived by a scumbag and a cheap little woman.

They felt so sorry for me that they wanted to buy my family's products.

I told everyone to buy only what they actually needed, not to spend out of guilt.

I wanted the people who'd been deceived to keep their nerve to flip the whole thing over.

That only made my followers rally harder, and even buying just what they needed, our sales climbed a good deal.

It was Arthur's side that blew up instead.

Regina's pregnancy was fake.

To be precise, I'd had the doctor over there drop a few hints, and Regina actually thought she'd conceived.

Afraid I'd take Arthur from her, she'd paid a fortune to have me killed.

Too bad the man conned her out of the money and vanished.

And all that money had come from Arthur.

Regina had also talked Arthur into getting a vasectomy, and to soothe her he actually went and did it.

But her fake pregnancy came out anyway.

Arthur beat Regina, a neighbor caught it, and someone quickly called the police.

When people learned the two weren't married and were living together, they were disgusted.

Arthur's reputation was finished for good.

The clinic sued him for three million, on the grounds that what he'd done had damaged the clinic's name.

But Arthur couldn't come up with it at all.

And no one dared let him counsel them, afraid of being manipulated, afraid of being abused.

He could only do odd tasks, frozen out by his coworkers, and still had to take care of Regina.

No time left to write me letters.

Before I knew it, it was time for my son to start preschool. I no longer had to circle around him all day, so I took over the family business.

But he'd only been in preschool half a month when someone snatched him away.

The one who took him was Arthur.

When we met again, he was unshaven, worn ragged, and my son was sobbing in his arms.

He'd snuck back into the country a month ago and had been secretly following me the whole time.

He'd waited for his chance and grabbed my son. The preschool wanted to call the police, but afraid something would happen to the child, they contacted me first.

I asked him what he wanted.

"Veronica, I've been gone all these years and suffered so much. Doesn't it hurt you at all?"

He wanted thirty percent of my family's shares, and he wanted to take my son.

"Being the James family's son-in-law really isn't easy." He bared the scars on his arm. The refined, gentle man from before was gone.