Chapter 3

She quickly integrated herself into our lives, helping me tend to the garden, learning to cook my signature dishes, and watching the hearth whenever I stepped out.

She was always smiling, always busy, and always showing up at the perfect moment.

"You're so good to me, Cecilia. I'd feel terrible doing nothing," she would say, linking her arm through mine with the sweet smile of a docile kitten.

Ryan started getting incredibly busy around that time.

Council meetings, shooting new films, and endless mandatory networking events kept him out late, and he sometimes returned carrying scents unfamiliar to me.

"Selena mentioned she got an audition," he suddenly told me one day. "I want to help buy out her contract."

"Buy out her contract?"

"Her current agency is exploiting her. She can't get any decent roles, and they take a massive cut of her earnings. I want to get her out and enroll her in acting classes."

He looked entirely earnest when he spoke.

In Selena, he saw a reflection of his younger self.

I simply said, "Okay."

When I agreed, I had no idea it would completely ruin my life.

The shifts happened gradually.

At first, it was just the little things.

Ryan began bringing up Selena's name around the house.

"Selena's audition went great today."

"Selena mentioned she's craving the grilled fish from that spot uptown."

"Selena's acting has improved so much; she just needs a breakthrough opportunity."

There was an eagerness in his voice I had never heard before.

An eagerness that used to belong solely to me.

Then came the gifts.

Selena gifted me a Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra bracelet and gave Ryan a tie.

"My first paycheck! I bought gifts for you and Ryan!" she beamed, her eyes crinkling into sweet crescents.

Ryan wore that tie on numerous occasions.

And then, the late nights.

He started failing to come home with increasing frequency.

"Council business."

"Last-minute reshoots on set."

"Dinner with the investors."

The excuses were endless, each one sounding perfectly reasonable.

Then insomnia took over.

At two in the morning, I sat alone in the sprawling living room, staring blankly at a table full of cold dishes.

The candles burned down, the frosting on the cake deflated, and my phone screen flashed and faded repeatedly.

No texts, no calls, absolutely nothing.

My close friend Freya Bennett sent me a text.

[Cecilia, I just spotted Ryan and Selena at the Moonshadow Estate.]

[They... look incredibly close.]

I stared at the message for an eternity, until the screen went dark on its own.

Then I pulled up the booking confirmation Ryan had forwarded to me—

Moonshadow Estate, Honeymoon Suite, tonight.

The timestamp showed eleven o'clock last night.

Setting my phone down, I forced myself to finish the cake on the table, bite by bite.

I had made that mousse cake from scratch; it used to be his absolute favorite.

The cake was incredibly sweet.

So sweet it tasted bitter.

They walked in together the next morning.

Ryan was in his black overcoat, while Selena was bundled up in his scarf as they strolled in side by side.

There was a deep crimson mark on her neck.

A hickey.

I should have screamed.

I should have lunged forward and torn them apart.

Yet, I did nothing.

I just sat on the couch, motionless, like a hollow puppet stripped of its soul.

"Cecilia," Ryan's voice sounded like it was echoing from miles away.

I looked up at him.

The face once etched into my very heart now looked entirely foreign.

"Let me explain..."

"Explain what?" My voice was so dead calm it terrified even me. "Explain why you spent the night in a honeymoon suite? Or whose mark that is on her neck?"

Selena suddenly dropped to her knees with a loud thud.

"Cecilia, please don't blame Ryan! It was me... I seduced him... If you want to hit or curse anyone, do it to me!"

Watching her weep on the floor, putting on a pathetic show, I found it utterly laughable.

"Selena," I looked down at her, "do you honestly think shedding a few tears on your knees makes all of this just vanish?"

"Cecilia."

"Don't you get started."

I stood up and headed straight for the door.

"Cecilia, where are you going?" Ryan caught my arm.

I shrugged off his grip.

"I'm going to expose what you two did to everyone."

His expression instantly soured.

"Are you trying to ruin her career?"

"Ruin her?" I let out a dry laugh. "She destroyed my home. Why shouldn't I ruin her?"

"Can you just calm down for a second?"

"I am calm." I locked eyes with him. "Ryan, I have never been more lucid in my entire life."

That night, he confiscated my phone.

"Once Selena wraps up this film," he said, "I'll have her move out. Until then, you're not going anywhere."

He took away my phone.

The door codes were changed, the garden walls were raised, and even the knives in the kitchen were locked away.

I was imprisoned in the very estate I once called home, like a bird with its wings clipped.

At first, I went completely hysterical.

I smashed the living room vases, shredded our photos on the wall, and tore his clothes out of the closet, trampling them onto the floor.

He just stood by the door, watching the chaos without saying a word.

Only when the storm cleared did he finally speak. "Are you done throwing a tantrum?"

I didn't answer.

He had the servants clean up the wreckage in the living room, and the next day, a fresh bouquet of roses appeared in my bedroom vase.

Tulips, cosmos, orchids, daffodils... He rotated them daily, making sure every single day brought something different.

"Do you like today's flowers?" he would ask, his tone as tender as if nothing had ever happened.

I ignored him.

Unfazed, he kept changing the flowers and checking in on me day after day.

He would bring me warm milk before bed, drape a blanket over my shoulders when I stared blankly out the window, and gently hold my hand whenever I woke from a nightmare.

"Cecilia," he whispered into the dark, "do you... still have feelings for me?"

I didn't answer.

But during that period, I genuinely started to waver.

I thought back to our ten years of companionship.

I reasoned that maybe he had just lost his way.

Maybe he would come back to me.

Three months later, I sat in the living room waiting for him to come home.

The table was set with his favorite dishes under the soft glow of candlelight, and a warm fire crackled in the hearth.

I wanted to tell him: I'm done fighting, let's fix this.