My husband went bankrupt, so to buy him a decent anniversary gift,
I'd been working behind his back as a hotel reviewer.
Then the suite next door opened and out came my husband and his mistress, clothes half undone.
I lowered my head. Neither of them recognized me behind my mask.
“Babe, why are you leaving so fast? I haven't even had my fill yet.”
“The hag at home is dumb enough to work three jobs a day for me, fainting so many times I've lost count. Of course she's going to keep tabs on me.”
He handed over a diamond-studded black card. The girl took it and laughed：
“You've got her earning fifty bucks a day and she still follows you around like a lost puppy?”
I stood frozen, and then I heard him laugh too：
“I just wanted to see how low a woman could go.”
“I've had my fun. Might be time to come clean.”
1
I pushed open the hotel room door and slipped past them without a sound.
My chest felt like it had been ripped open, cold air flooding straight through me.
The pain folded me in half, tears pouring before I could stop them.
Three years. I'd gone from a woman who wanted for nothing to a stray dog, hands and feet covered in calluses and burst blisters from work, tanned so dark I looked like a different person entirely.
All of it for Jim Gilbert.
And reality had just slapped me across the face.
When I finished and stepped out, a housekeeper cleaning the room next door was complaining：“Condoms all over the floor. Jesus, is that a riding crop snapped clean in half?”
My eyes were swollen shut from crying. I stared at the window and thought about jumping.
But I wasn't the one who deserved to die.
Back at the run-down rental, I found a surprise waiting. That girl was there, chatting with Jim.
She sat in my spot, arm curled around his, her lips nearly brushing his cheek.
Jim flinched when he saw me, and shoved her away.
“Why are you back so soon? I thought you had three straight days of work.”
“Mia, let me introduce you. This is Valerie Summers, a distant cousin.”
I stood there and listened to him spin his story. I didn't feel like saying a single word.
I turned toward the bedroom and found it filled with Valerie's things.
Everything I owned had been dumped into the trash can in the corner.
Seeing every last thing I'd bought with my own sweat and blood ruined, rage burned through me and I stormed back out.
“Who did this?”
Valerie pressed a hand to her mouth in mock surprise：
“Oh, those were yours? I thought it was all junk.”
My hand flew up to slap her, but Jim caught my wrist from behind and locked it in place.
His eyes were dark and unreadable. Valerie's smug look drove into the softest part of my heart like a needle.
“We're done.”
Jim's face went cold：
“I'm the Gilbert heir. A few girls on the side comes with the territory.”
“Look at you. You don't know how to dress. Valerie's the one I can actually take somewhere.”
Headlights screaming toward me—a boy throwing himself in front of me—that image shattered, and every shard cut straight through my chest.
“You saved my life. I gave you three years. Jim Gilbert, we're even.”
I turned to leave, but he pulled me hard against him. My stomach turned, and no matter how I fought, I couldn't break free.
“Your father's bypass surgery is coming up, isn't it? Mia, for your own good, don't leave me.”
There it was. A naked threat.
I stayed.
Day after day I endured Valerie's torment. She smashed the bracelet my mother left me, the only thing I had of hers, into pieces. She used my toothbrush to scrub the toilet when I wasn't looking.
Three days later, a light bulb blew. Jim wasn't home. I dragged a chair over and changed it myself—the kind of thing my hands knew how to do without thinking anymore.
