"She's out there running wild, and you're just going to look the other way?"
Otis said nothing.
It was Jemima who snapped, slamming her glass down on the table.
"At the end of the day, you still have feelings for Debbie."
"For that old woman!"
"If you love her so much, what are you even doing with me?!"
She whipped around to leave.
Only then did Otis move. He caught her wrist, pulled her onto his lap, and laughed—a low, lazy sound.
"Why would I have feelings for her?"
He leaned back, perfectly at ease.
"Debbie hasn't actually done anything. Those men she's been seeing? They're just props. Tools to get a rise out of me."
"I know her better than she knows herself. She has lines she won't cross."
"The day she actually does something like that, she stops being Debbie."
Laughter rippled through the private room.
Jemima still wasn't convinced.
"Just because you say so doesn't make it true."
"Do you have surveillance or something? How would you even know?!"
Her voice pitched into a petulant whine, and Otis chuckled, amused. He set his phone on the table.
"See for yourself."
On his phone—
Every single chat log. Ten men. Every message I'd ever exchanged with them. And the videos—every date, captured frame by frame, stored in a folder on his device. Not a second missing.
Otis's voice was flat. Almost bored. But the chill of it seeped into my bones.
"Women."
"All that jealousy and posturing—it gets tedious. Debbie wanted to play games, so I gave her playmates."
"Sure."
"At first, she genuinely wanted someone who understood her. Someone who saw how hard she had it. But the moment any of them actually tried to touch her—"
He tapped one of the videos.
It was my third boyfriend. He'd leaned in to kiss me. I'd pushed him away, my face apologetic but firm: "I'm sorry. I just... can't."
Then I'd said the words.
"Let's break up."
Otis gestured at the screen.
"That's Debbie."
"Traditional to her core. Morality above everything."
"She's not capable of crossing that line. This whole thing was just to make me angry."
He opened WeChat next. Tapped on a conversation—my seventh boyfriend, reporting in.
"Mr. Sanchez, just as you predicted. The moment I suggested getting a room, Mrs. Sanchez looked at me like I was disgusting. Said I only wanted one thing. She ended it on the spot."
"Sir."
"Do you want me to keep pursuing her?"
I remembered him.
We'd shared so much—painting, art, even a love for silly anime. A month and a half of what felt like genuine connection. Then he'd suggested we get a hotel room.
His hand had landed on my shoulder, fingers starting to slip beneath my collar—and my body had reacted before my mind could. I'd thrown up right there. Ended things immediately.
That night.
I'd stumbled back to the villa, still shaking, only to find Otis waiting in the living room.
He'd watched me with that half-smile of his—the one that drank in every ounce of my humiliation. Shame burned through me, but beneath it was something uglier: hatred for myself, for still being unable to take that final step. I'd broken down sobbing.
And then Otis had pulled me into his arms.
"Debbie."
"Still want to keep playing?"
The perfume clinging to him wasn't mine.
I'd looked up and seen the red marks on his neck. The lipstick smeared on his collar. My stomach had lurched, and I'd vomited—right onto him.
Disgust had twisted his features. He'd stripped off his jacket and thrown it at my feet.
"Debbie."
"How long are you going to keep this up?!"
"Yes, I cheated."
"But haven't I given you everything you wanted?! You went from being a nobody—some village girl with nothing—to Mrs. Sanchez. Everyone envies you. Everyone says you hit the jackpot. What more could you possibly want?!"
I stared up at him, towering above me.
