Chapter 1
I stood backstage at Dylan Reed's sold-out academic award ceremony and held out the divorce papers.
The hickey on my neck was one I had drawn on myself, bold and provocative enough to turn heads.
Dylan was the youngest doctoral advisor in the city and widely regarded as untouchable in academic circles.
He had just delivered a career-defining lecture, and his eyes behind those gold-rimmed glasses were as cool and detached as ever, as if the mark on my neck didn't exist.
He took the papers without a word, and his gaze swept briefly over the name "Lucy Hart" before he turned away.
He locked the lounge door behind him.
He unfastened the cufflinks at his wrists with slow, deliberate precision, then removed the gold-rimmed glasses that had always made him look so composed and civilized. He tossed them onto the table without a second glance.
The light shifted, and for the first time, I saw the raw, barely restrained intensity in his eyes with terrifying clarity.
He walked toward me, step by step, and unbuckled his belt.
The metal clasp rang out, sharp and dangerous.
"You did this yourself?" Dylan let out a quiet laugh and pressed his fingertip against the red mark on my neck. His voice was soft, almost tender, but it sent a chill straight down my spine.
"The color's too light," he murmured, "and it's in the wrong spot."
He tilted my chin up and leaned in close enough that his breath grazed my skin. "Let me show you what a real one looks like, Lucy."
*****
The air conditioning in the backstage lounge was cranked up too high.
I gripped the thin divorce agreement in my hands, and my palms were slick with cold sweat.
Dylan was on stage, basking in his moment of glory.
He was the youngest tenured physics professor in the country, and he had just received the most prestigious award in his field for a groundbreaking theoretical study.
Under the spotlight, he wore a perfectly tailored black suit buttoned all the way to the top. He looked refined and untouchable.
Behind those gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes were always calm and unreadable, like a frozen sea beneath a sheet of ice.
He sure cleaned up well for the cameras.
I stared at the man on the broadcast screen and let out a silent, bitter laugh.
Three years of marriage, and he treated me with less warmth than he showed the instruments in his lab.
Sex happened once a week, every Saturday. The time, the position, and the location were all programmed like clockwork.
No kisses. No holding each other. Just a mechanical routine of going through the motions.
There were times I honestly wondered if he was running some experiment on me, logging biometric data on the human body under controlled physical activity.
But today, this dead-end marriage was finally going to be over.
Applause erupted through the auditorium, and he gave a slight bow before stepping off the stage.
I took a deep breath and walked toward him.
I smiled and kept my voice light. "Professor Reed, congratulations."
His assistants and students greeted me one by one. "Hello, Mrs. Reed."
Dylan's gaze settled on me for a brief moment, and he gave me a slight nod. Distant, as always.
He asked, "Something you need?"
I held up the envelope in my hand and said, "Yeah, there's something personal I'd like to talk to you about."
He glanced at it but said nothing, then turned and walked straight toward his private lounge.
I followed him inside.
The moment the door closed, the noise from outside disappeared completely.
I dropped the act. I pulled the divorce papers from the envelope and slapped them down on the vanity table in front of him.
I looked him dead in the eye and said, "Dylan, I want a divorce."
His fingers paused on his cufflink for just a second before he went right back to undoing it, as if I had said something as mundane as "nice weather today."
He didn't even look at the papers. His eyes moved to my neck instead.
Right there, just above my collarbone, sat the fake hickey I had painted on before leaving the house, using lipstick and eyeshadow.
It was bold, red, and impossible to miss.
I wanted a reaction from him. Anger, accusations, anything.
I stared him down, searching that permanently frozen face for a single crack.
But I got nothing.
He just studied the mark in silence, his gaze cool and clinical, like he was appraising a flaw in a painting.
After a solid thirty seconds of dead silence, he finally spoke.
His voice was perfectly even, impossible to read. "Lucy, is this supposed to be your bargaining chip for the divorce?"
A bargaining chip? No. This was the last straw after three years of a hollow marriage.
I forced a bitter smile, and my voice came out sharper than it had ever been.
"So what if it is? Dylan, I'm done. I'm done with you and your perfect composure that never cracks, and I'm done lying next to you in bed like we're both already dead."
He took one slow step toward me, and his tall frame swallowed me in shadow. "So you found someone else," he said quietly. "Someone who doesn't make you feel like a corpse?"
I backed away until my spine pressed flat against the cold wall.
I lifted my chin and nearly shouted at him. "Yes! He's a thousand times better than you. He's passionate and wild, and he actually holds me and kisses me instead of treating it like some chore."
The lie was so convincing that even I almost believed it.
All I wanted was to push him, to crack that flawless shell of his wide open.
He finally reacted, but it wasn't anger. It was a soft, quiet laugh.
The sound rumbled low in his throat, laced with something cold and amused.
Then I heard it. A single click that sent a chill crawling across my scalp.
He had locked the door behind him.
Dread seized my chest like a fist closing around my heart. What was he going to do?
He removed his glasses deliberately and tossed them onto the table.
Without the barrier of the lenses, the darkness in his eyes surged forward, unrestrained, like a volcano that had been dormant for centuries, finally finding its release.
He moved toward me step by step, his long fingers unfastening the top button of his shirt, then the second.
His hand came to rest on the metal clasp of his belt.
A sharp click echoed through the room.
My heart skipped a beat.
He stopped in front of me, and his cool fingertip pressed lightly against the red mark on my neck. He asked in a low voice, "Did you paint this on?"
My entire body went rigid.
How did he know?
He leaned in close, his breath hot against my ear, and his voice came out soft but cruel. "The color's too light, and the placement is all wrong."
He grazed his lips along the curve of my ear and whispered, "A real hickey wouldn't be this neat. And it would hurt."
My mind went completely blank.
He caught my earlobe between his teeth, biting down gently, and murmured each word against my skin. "Lucy, let me show you what a real mark is supposed to look like."