Prudence glared at me, loathing in every line of her face.
"Enough." Charles cut in. "Apologize to Prudence, and we'll pretend none of this ever happened."
I should have been used to how he always took her side.
Yet watching him stand up for Prudence, my heart still gave that faint, involuntary sting, like the prick of a needle.
"Charlie, my face hurts so much..."
Prudence cupped her cheek, her voice small and pitiful.
Charles frowned. "I'll make sure you get justice. There, now. Go pick out your gown. In three days you'll be my bride."
Something twisted sharply in my chest.
I remembered the days I'd huddled beside Charles in that basement, when he used to hold me around the waist and murmur, "One day I'll throw you a grand wedding, and make you the happiest bride in the world."
For all our years of marriage, I'd waited for the wedding he promised, sneaking looks at bridal gowns more times than I could count.
But later, he broke his word.
His bride had become someone else, and the promise was forgotten completely.
The moment Prudence left, Charles's face went cold, his gaze shadowed as he looked at me. "Can't you show a little sense? I'm doing this for our future too."
"Charles, there is no future." My voice came out hoarse and flat.
Something in him lurched without reason. He opened his mouth to ask what I meant, but Prudence's startled cry rang out from beyond the door.
His attention snapped away. He didn't believe I'd have anywhere decent to go if I left him.
So he simply turned and walked out.
Not long after he'd gone, three bodyguards forced their way in. Two of them dragged me up off the hospital bed.
The third tipped over a bucket, and out spilled ice, mounds of it, breathing cold into the air.
Something clicked into place, and I shouted, "What are you doing? Charles and I are already divorced. There's nothing between us. You can't treat me like this!"
The bodyguard pinning me down sneered. "It's all on Mr. Sanchez's orders. He said you needed a lesson, so you'd face reality and accept his arrangements like a good girl."
My knees slammed down onto the shards and ice, and the raw pain drove my brows together hard.
The burning sting in my knees was quickly numbed away by the cold.
Three hours later, I couldn't feel my knees at all. I struggled to rise, but they held me down without mercy, and I knelt two hours more.
In the end I couldn't take it, and I passed out.
When I woke again, I was one day away from leaving Charles for good.
My face was bloodless as I pulled out my phone and requested an expedited divorce certificate.
The reply came quickly.
【Rush order processed. Your certificate will be ready at three this afternoon.】
I gripped the phone, unable to tell whether there was more joy or more grief in me.
Ten years of true devotion, and in the end all I got was a body full of ailments, and a lost child.
I couldn't even win my child the justice he deserved.
At three o'clock, I stood at the door of the county clerk's office right on time. Certificate in hand, I placed a next-day delivery order for Charles's copy, addressed to the site of his wedding.
A Bentley pulled up in front of me. The door opened, and the butler bowed to me with the utmost respect. "Young mistress, welcome home."
I got into the car and gazed out the window.
Waiting at a red light, I saw, in a car across the way, Charles locked in a passionate kiss with Prudence.
That man who had always been so reserved and level-headed, who had never once been willing to show me too much affection in public, was now kissing her deeply behind a half-lowered window.
I drew my eyes away and rolled up the window.
The car started again, merging into the flow of traffic.
From this day on, Charles and I were nothing to each other.
The road ahead was long, and we would never meet again.
