Timothy Harris stood with his arms crossed, watching with cold detachment.
The bodyguards pinned my shoulders down.
"This is the family discipline we agreed upon when you married in. Do you accept it?"
I clenched my teeth so hard my tongue bled at the root.
Russ walked in from outside just then. He glanced over at the commotion, then looked away with complete indifference.
"Keep it down while you're disciplining her. I need to rest."
Sapphire let out a cold laugh but withdrew her hand. "Not worried about your wife anymore?"
"Last time I used the whip, you threw yourself in front of her like your life depended on it."
"How things change."
The Harris family had rules. When a man strayed, the family didn't punish him—they punished his wife.
Minor offenses meant copying family precepts. Serious ones meant the lash.
When Russ's affair with that young model came to light, my mother-in-law had whipped me once before.
That time, Russ heard the commotion and rushed home.
Just before her whip came down, he'd thrown himself between us.
"Mom, it's my fault. I won't mess around anymore. Don't hit my wife."
"Hit me instead."
He'd dropped to his knees and taken the lashes meant for me.
That was the first time Sapphire ever looked at me with any respect.
"I know my son better than anyone. He seems devoted, but he's fickle at heart."
"The fact that you've managed him this well—that's no small feat."
From then on, I finally had a place in this family.
But now—
I closed my eyes and swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat.
"Please continue, Mother."
"I'll keep quiet."
The remaining eighteen lashes shredded what was left of my dignity—and the so-called true love I'd foolishly believed in.
A dull ache spread through my lower abdomen. Before the final blow could land, I crumpled to the floor.
Russ emerged from his room and looked down at me, his gaze ice-cold. "The moment I come out, you collapse?"
"Save the act. Chloe likes pink, and there haven't been any good pink diamonds lately—so I took this one a while back."
He held up a ring. A pink diamond.
The same one he'd used to propose to me.
His friends had told me he'd flown to South Africa to select the stone himself, then apprenticed under a master jeweler just to cut and polish it with his own hands.
He'd told me he would only ever make a ring for the love of his life.
I looked away after a single second. "It was always yours. Do what you want with it."
He walked off without a backward glance.
I let my eyes fall shut. The last lash came down. The pain in my abdomen sharpened. Then Graham Whitaker's horrified voice cut through the haze.
"Sir! Ma'am! The young madam is bleeding!"
Sapphire's shock was instant. She scrambled to call the family doctor.
I stayed conscious through all of it—watching the doctor rush in and out—until he approached with a needle to preserve the pregnancy.
I blocked his hand.
Sapphire's brow furrowed with displeasure. "What are you doing? I didn't know you were pregnant. If you refuse the injection now, are you blaming me?"
I shook my head. "It's the baby or me. You can only have one."
"I'll carry this child for the Harris family. But I won't stay here any longer."
It took Sapphire only a heartbeat to understand.
Something unreadable flickered in her eyes.
"You don't love Russ anymore?"
Even the deepest love wears thin eventually.
I didn't answer directly.
"I will give birth to this child and sever all ties with it completely. The baby will belong to the Harris family alone. All I want is a divorce."
Sapphire agreed.
She asked what else I wanted.
I had only two conditions.
"Don't suppress the news about Russ wanting a divorce or his affair. And don't tell him I'm pregnant."
