Chapter 1

I was burning up with a fever of 103.6°F, and my boyfriend, Alex Carter, went out to get me some hot chicken soup.

He left me alone in the emergency room hallway, hooked up to an IV drip.

I remembered last year, when he had appendicitis, I stayed by his side in the hospital for three days and nights.

But now, when it was my turn to be stuck in that hospital bed, he was gone in a flash.

Half an hour went by and the soup never showed up, but his tablet ended up telling on him.

The group chat with his buddies popped up on video, and there he was, grinning from ear to ear.

He had a beer in one hand and chips in the other, not a care in the world.

One of his friends joked, "Your wife's burning up with a fever, and here you are, living it up."

He drawled, "Wife? Please, she's just a free maid.

"Have you ever seen a maid who pays her boss's mortgage?"

Everyone in the room cracked up, and I heard it all loud and clear.

I turned off the screen, yanked the IV needle out of the back of my hand, and let the blood drip down.

I pulled out my phone and replied to the acceptance letter from the Paris School of Fine Jewelry.

Then I canceled the automatic payments for his mortgage account.

*****

Blood beaded from the back of my hand and dripped onto the emergency room floor.

I slapped a band-aid over the needle mark, not even thinking about it.

I unplugged the charger and stuffed the tablet into my tote bag.

I wrapped my coat tighter around me and flagged down a cab at the hospital entrance.

The driver glanced at me and asked, "Where to?"

"Maple Grove Residence," I said.

That was the place Alex and I had lived together for five years.

It was also the home where I paid seven thousand dollars every month for the mortgage.

I opened the front door.

Alex's sneakers were lying in the entryway.

Dirty shirts and stinky socks were piled up on the couch.

A few empty beer cans were scattered across the coffee table.

I didn't bother to clean up like I always did.

Instead, I headed straight for the bedroom.

I pulled out a black suitcase.

I dug out my passport, other documents, bank cards, and all those jewelry designs I'd slaved over late into the night these past years, and stuffed them all into the suitcase.

Alex put down the down payment for the house.

The house was registered in his name.

Back then we stretched ourselves thin to buy this 1.7 million dollar place with a huge mortgage, and it was on the verge of foreclosure.

I took over the monthly mortgage payments of over seven thousand dollars, and I kept paying for four years.

The winter before last.

His company wasn't getting any business.

We were stuck in a freezing basement for four months.

We lived on nothing but plain pasta boiled in water every single day.

When he got a fever, I went out in the middle of the night and walked three miles to the pharmacy to get him fever medicine.

After he took the medicine, his eyes were red as he held my hand.

"Lily, when I get rich, I'll give you everything I have, even my life."

Now he had money.

He could keep his life to himself.

My life had become the material he used to entertain his buddies at dinner.

My phone buzzed.

It was a calendar pop-up.

[Alex Carter's mortgage payment due on 15th.]

I logged into my mobile banking app.

I went into the scheduled transfers and canceled the automatic payment for Alex Carter's mortgage.

A notification popped up on the screen:

[You've successfully canceled this payment.]

There were still three days left until the 15th.

For the past four years, Alex never even bothered to check the balance on the mortgage account.

He only cared about partying with his friends.

I opened my inbox again.

The first unread email at the top was from the Paris School of Fine Jewelry.

[Ms. Lily Evans, your portfolio displays extraordinary talent. You have been specially admitted to our school. Please complete your registration by the 20th.]

I poured an entire year of my life into that portfolio.

Alex barely glanced at it and only had one thing to say.

He said, "What's the point of drawing all this? Which brand here would ever hire someone like you, with no connections?

"Why not just settle for being a junior designer, or better yet, quit and stay home to do the laundry and cook? I'll support you."

He had no idea that, besides my meager day job, I was grinding every night, hustling anonymous freelance gigs for overseas jewelry brands.

Those gigs were the only reason I could carry the seven thousand dollar mortgage and all the other bills at home.

And when he claimed he was supporting me, he was really just burning through the money I busted my ass to earn.

I opened the reply box.

I typed a quick message.

[I accept the offer. I'll be in Paris on Monday.]

I checked Alex's shared location.

He was still hanging out at Nightfall Bar.

That bar was twenty miles from the ER.

It had been four hours since my fever started.

Four hours to buy a bowl of chicken soup, and it was a joke.

I turned and walked into the study.

I dug out a thick expense notebook.

It was packed with all the bills and spending from the past few years.

It included utilities, building fees, car insurance, Alex's designer suits he liked to flaunt and the monthly allowance for his parents.

Every single payment came out of my money.

To everyone else, he was always the young, successful business man.

But with me, he was always acting like he was struggling financially, constantly claiming he was strapped for cash.

I pulled out a lighter.

I burned the notebook in the sink, watching the flames devour the pages.

I turned on the faucet and watched the ashes swirl away down the drain.

On the desk sat a blue velvet box.

Inside were a pair of plain wedding bands.

He'd bought them last month.

He spent two hundred dollars on them.

He said there was no need to make a big deal out of the wedding, because what counted was the sentiment behind it.

But on the same day, he dropped ten thousand dollars on a watch for his business partner.

His said, "Hey, you gotta look good when you're doing business."

I picked up the box and tossed it straight into the trash.

Then I wiped the computer clean.

It was two in the morning.

I slid the suitcase under the bed.

I poured myself a cup of warm water.

I swallowed a fever reducer.

I closed my eyes.

A few more nights in that bed, and then I would be out of there for good.