“Don't look at me like that. Lucinda is practically my little sister. You just married into the Gilbert family. As the elder, you should be spoiling her.”
“It's just a bet. It's not like you're losing a limb. Besides, you're Mrs. Gilbert now.”
Someone couldn't hold it in any longer：“Stuart, you still haven't told her.”
“Your marriage certificate with Marcella is fake.”
I whipped my head toward Stuart. He didn't even flinch, just let out a sigh.
“Stuart, what does he……mean by that?”
My voice came out shaking, barely holding together. The thing I feared most was that the three years I'd given him would end in nothing but a lie.
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
He was slouched back, his tone dripping with contempt.
“Marcella, you're a woman from the countryside. I don't care how talented you are at your job. Your background will never be good enough for me.”
“The Gilberts are old money. You were never in my league. But I didn't want to hurt your feelings, so I kept you around for a while. A pretty little bird in a gilded cage.”
One of his buddies pointed at Lucinda：“His real wife is right here! The Gilberts and the Hardings are about to merge families. That's why Stuart let her mess with you!”
My mind went blank. I'd guessed the beginning of this story, but I never saw the ending coming.
It meant that Stuart had been playing me the entire time.
He used me to win his fight for legitimacy, to secure his seat as the Gilbert heir, and now that he had it, he was throwing me away.
I screamed at him：“Is that true?”
The contempt smeared across his face cut into me like glass.
“Yes.”
Whatever hope I had left for him shattered in that single syllable.
I lowered my head and laughed, a bitter, broken sound. I was laughing at how deep his deception ran, and laughing at myself for being stupid enough to believe a man like him.
I reached for my phone to call my people, to tell them to get here faster, but Lucinda lunged in and snatched it out of my hand.
“Nuh-uh, you don't get to call for help until the half hour is up!”
“Come on, homewrecker. I'm being generous here.”
“Look, I'm letting you be Stuart's little side piece for now. The least you can do is return the favor.”
“Girls like you always end up passed around sooner or later anyway!”
If I could have gotten a robe on, I would have stood up and ripped her mouth apart.
When she saw how dark my expression was, she only smiled wider, sweet as poison.
“Oh please, a mistress with an attitude?”
“Go ahead, get angrier! The madder you get, the faster those bubbles disappear.”
“The boys are dying to see what's underneath.”
The room erupted in laughter.
And I could do nothing. I clenched my fists and pressed my body tighter into the water, curling in on myself.
Two more cockroaches dropped into the tub. I screamed before I could stop myself, and the men crowding around me only got more excited.
My voice was raw when I begged Stuart one last time：“Stuart, I'm asking you for the last time. Make them leave. Bring me a robe.”
Because I was terrified of cockroaches. He knew. He knew they were the one thing in this world I couldn't bear.
When I was a child, the power struggle within my family had been savage.
My stepmother, afraid I'd come out on top, locked me in a room crawling with cockroaches and left me there to die.
There had been bones in that room. The stench of rot. The memory was seared into me forever.
I had told Stuart that secret once, trusted him with it. And he had handed my weakness straight to Lucinda.
He ignored my plea. He stood there and watched while Lucinda kept tormenting me.
“What are you so upset about? Being my mistress is more than a girl like you deserves. And now you can't even sacrifice a little?”
“Holy shit, we can almost see!”
The men erupted into a frenzy. My eyes burned red, blazing with something no longer human.
