Chapter 1

After the company went under.

Sid Gilbert fell into a deep depression, and after he was saved from slitting his wrists a second time,

he broke down crying and said to me: "Cassie, I dragged you down, made you carry this debt with me! Please, just let me die!"

I looked at Sid, and the ache in my chest was so heavy I could barely breathe.

To help Sid get back on his feet.

I brought out a magic lamp and told him it could grant three wishes, and any wish he made would come true.

Sid half believed it. "First wish. I want the company brought back from the dead!"

And later, the company really did come back, its resources even stronger than before.

Sid's whole face lit up. "Second wish. I want the old Gilbert estate back!"

And later, the old estate really did come back into our hands.

Sid held the lamp and said to me, "Cassie, the third wish, I have to think it through carefully! I can't let myself have a single regret!"

I was so glad to see him changed that I got ready to tell him the truth about the lamp.

But I walked in on Sid on a video call with his first love.

"Cassandra Dudley isn't worthy of my status anymore."

"So," he laughed, "the third wish. I want power, wealth, and a new wife."

1

"Sid."

On the screen.

Sid's first love, Mavis Fox, leaned close to the camera, her voice soft and coy.

"Isn't this kind of wrong, though?"

She blinked, looking at Sid.

"Your wife stayed with you in that basement, stayed with you while you clawed your way back up. Yes, it was your own luck, your own ability that carried it, but she really was the one who walked through it with you. At a time like this, if you ask her for a divorce, won't it hurt your career?"

Every word came out of Mavis in that innocent, unknowing tone, all of it framed as concern for Sid, only making him more certain.

"I'll admit these past few years weren't easy for her, following me, carrying millions in debt, staying while I rebuilt everything. During the worst of my illness, she was the only one who'd care for me without ever leaving my side. But that's exactly the problem. Every time I look at my wife, I see my own weakness, my own worthlessness."

"Every time I get close to her, I think of how I tried to escape by hurting myself, by cutting myself, when in truth I wasn't meant to die at all. I was meant to get help from the gods. I was meant to get the lamp."

"Now." Sid leaned back against his chair.

"I have wealth, reputation, and standing. I have only one wish left, my one and only wish. I don't want to open my eyes and see my wife. Seeing her is like seeing the filthy version of myself, the coward, the failure."

Sid sighed.

"Do you understand what I mean?"

In the study.

A few seconds of silence.

I watched Mavis's eyes go red, as if she was fighting hard to hold it in and still couldn't stop the tears, calling to him: "Sid, you still have me."

Her eyes reddened.

"Back then, if I'd been by your side, I would have gladly stayed with you through those days too. Sid, you deserve the best."

Back then.

Sid signed that gambling contract, lost everything down to the last cent, got chased by debt collectors to the end of an alley and nearly lost his life. I was the one who ran into that alley with a kitchen knife, swinging at anyone in my way like a madwoman, and traded my life to save his.

Back then.

Sid looked at me, covered in wounds, and cried as he crushed me against him.

"Cassandra!"

"As long as I live! I will never wrong you!"

And later.

Sid was diagnosed with depression, and he learned to hurt himself, learned to slit his wrists, learned to attempt suicide, learned to beg me through his tears to let him die.

"Cassie, I really can't take it anymore!"

"I can't take waking up every day to debt collectors screaming at me, being treated like a rat everyone wants dead!"

"I'm begging you!"

"Please, just let me go!"

"Let me have some peace!"

The ache pushed me all the way to despair, and I finally reached out to my grandmother, whom I hadn't seen in years, and begged her to give Sid a chance.

Grandma Abbott always said men were no good, that my own mother had lost her life to a man's lies, and still she loved me.

Grandma brought out that lamp and said to me: "This magic lamp grants three wishes. If he can pass the test, if all three wishes are spent on you, then I'll accept this grandson-in-law! I'll announce that you're the sole heir of the Dudley family! And you can bring him home to us!"

"Until then," Grandma added, "you are not to tell him your real identity!"

I promised her with everything I had.

Sid was no faithless man. He would never let me down.

Now my face burned, and faster than any slap came the truth: my heart had been trampled by the man I loved.

"I'll leave my wife a way out. I'll give her enough wealth to live out the rest of her life, and I'll leave her the old estate, so she'll never want for anything as long as she lives," Sid said, his voice unhurried. "That way, I won't really owe her anything."

Cold spread through my chest. The way I'd been preparing to confess the truth to Sid now felt like a joke. I found Grandma's messages and told her.

【Grandma.】

【I lost.】

【I'm willing to take back everything from Sid.】