He Kicked Me Into the Deep for Another Woman's Smile

My fiancé handcrafted a diamond ring to propose underwater, on a deep-sea dive.

The moment we submerged, he shut off my air tank and kicked me toward the trench.

The water closed over me and every nerve remembered—the river, the ice, the drowning I'd survived to save him years ago. My whole body locked.

I thrashed in blind panic, clawing toward the surface:

"Gregory… help me, I'm cramping—"

He never looked back. He swam toward the yacht and placed the velvet ring box into the hands of the woman on deck.

"Mr. Delgado, I can't believe you actually got her back for me."

"You won the bet. Tonight this yacht—and I—am all yours."

Gregory pulled her into his arms.

"She threw cold water on you at the office yesterday. This is what she deserves."

I sank into the dark.

So the half-life I'd traded to save him—that was all it ever was.

A wager, to make another woman smile.

But when the propeller had finished with me and they dragged what was left from the water,

why couldn't he even hold on to that engagement ring?

——

The last thing I felt before everything went dark was cold.

Then something strange pulled my soul free of my body.

I drifted up through the surface and settled onto the yacht's deck, where jazz played softly under bright lights.

Joan Pruitt stood there in a barely-there bikini, her phone angled for the livestream.

"Greg, wasn't that a teensy bit much? The water she splashed on me yesterday barely even counted."

Delgado Corp's newest big-money signing—their marine-sports brand ambassador.

Young and reckless, like a mermaid born to own the deep.

It was exactly that fearlessness, that raw vitality, that had drawn Gregory in.

Year by year, my gloom and frailty had worn him down—the wreckage a near-drowning leaves behind.

He tilted Joan's chin up with an indulgent squeeze.

"She splashed you, so she can stay out there and swallow the ocean."

"She needs a lesson. Walking around with 'fiancée' stamped on her forehead like it makes her untouchable."

I hovered right in front of him, screaming uselessly into his face.

He knew about the aquaphobia. He knew my limbs would seize the second I went under.

And yesterday at the office, it was Joan who had deliberately knocked a cup of scalding coffee onto the design drafts I'd pulled all-nighters to finish.

I'd only thrown a cup of room-temperature water at her in the heat of the moment.

He wouldn't even listen to my side.

Instead, out here in open water, he'd shut off my air tank with his own hands—all to make it up to her.

Joan's words set the livestream chat on fire.

【His actual girlfriend bullying our Joanie at the office? Disgusting.】

【That's what you get for being a clingy little pick-me. Let her sit in the water and think about what she did.】

【Joanie kiss Mr. Delgado RIGHT NOW and let the old hag in the ocean choke on it!】

Joan watched the gifts flooding her screen and tugged at the hem of Gregory's shirt, all sweetness.

"Greg, she's been in the water for a while now. She'll be okay, right? If someone actually dies, I'd be so scared…"

Gregory let out a cold laugh. Something close to raw disgust passed through his eyes.

"Her personal best for holding her breath is three minutes. She's probably clinging to the ladder under the hull right now, playing dead."

"Forget her. Today's your twenty-fourth birthday."

"Unless she suffers a little, she'll never get how she's been making your life hell at work. I'm collecting every last bit of it today."

My soul trembled, beyond my control.

I was already dead. What more did he want me to suffer?

"Captain!"