Chapter 2

The guest room was freezing. Or maybe it was just her. Estella stood in the center of the room, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering violently. The silence of the penthouse was deafening. Down the hall, she could hear the faint murmur of the television. They were watching TV. Like nothing had happened. Like she didn't exist.

She glanced down at her wrist. An angry red mark was already beginning to blister, a physical brand of the night's betrayal. Strangely, she felt nothing.

She needed to hear a voice. A real voice. Someone who would tell her this was a nightmare.

She grabbed her phone from her clutch with trembling fingers. She dialed the number she had known by heart since she was a child. It rang. And rang. And rang.

Finally, a click. "Estella? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Brenda Lowe's voice was thick with sleep, but there was an edge to it. An annoyance that made Estella's stomach clench.

"Mom," Estella gasped. The tears she had been holding back broke free, choking her. "Mom, I need you. Conrad... he... he's with Jana."

There was a long pause. Not the shocked gasp Estella expected. Not the horrified denial. Just a heavy, suffocating silence that stretched across the phone line.

"Mom? Did you hear me? He was kissing her. In our bedroom. On our anniversary."

"I heard you," Brenda said. Her voice was different now. Clear. Awake. And completely devoid of sympathy. "Estella, you're a grown woman. Stop crying and pull yourself together."

Estella froze, the tears stopping abruptly in her throat. "What?"

"This hysterics routine is unbecoming," Brenda sighed, the sound crackling through the speaker. "I've known about Conrad and Jana for years."

The floor seemed to drop out from under Estella. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, the mattress squeaking in the quiet room. "You... you knew?"

"Of course I knew," Brenda snapped, her tone impatient. "Jana and Conrad are meant to be together. You were always just the interim. The placeholder until Jana finished her degree and established her career."

"A placeholder," Estella repeated, the word tasting like ash in her mouth. "You let me marry him. You let me waste ten years of my life-"

"You didn't waste anything," Brenda interrupted, her voice sharp. "You fulfilled your duty to this family. The Lowes needed the Nieves connection, and you provided it. You should be proud of that."

"Proud?" Estella's voice rose, the shock morphing into a hot, sickening anger in her chest. "He's cheating on me with my sister, and you're telling me to be proud?"

"I'm telling you to be realistic," Brenda said coldly. "What did you expect, Estella? You're not exactly exciting. You don't have Jana's drive or her looks. You clean house and you cook. That's not a wife, that's a domestic."

Estella flinched as if she had been slapped. She could almost feel the sting on her cheek. "How can you say that to me?"

"Someone has to," Brenda retorted. "Doug needs Conrad's financial support for his business. Jana needs this marriage to secure her social standing. The family needs this, Estella. Don't be selfish."

"Selfish?" Estella whispered. She thought of all the holidays she had missed, the meals she had cooked, the money she had given Doug without question. She had bled for this family, and they were calling her selfish.

"I want you to sign the papers quietly," Brenda commanded. "No drama, no lawsuits. Just take whatever he gives you and walk away with dignity."

"Dignity?" Estella let out a laugh that sounded hollow and brittle. "You want me to walk away with nothing after ten years?"

"You have no skills, Estella," Brenda said, her voice dripping with condescension. "You haven't worked a day in your life. You should be grateful he's giving you anything at all. Now, I have to go. Don't call here again crying. It's unseemly."

The line went dead.

Estella stared at the black screen of her phone. The reflection staring back at her was a stranger. Pale. Hollow-eyed. A fool.

She had called her mother looking for a lifeline, and her mother had pushed her head underwater.

The tears stopped, not because the sadness was gone, but because it had been flash-frozen by a cold so absolute it burned. Grief was a luxury, she realized, a feeling reserved for when you lose something of value. And her family, she now understood, had never truly been hers to begin with. A strange calm settled over her. The shaking stopped. The tears dried up, leaving a salty, tight feeling on her skin. The grief was gone. In its place was a block of ice, solid and heavy, sitting right in the center of her chest.

She stood up and walked to the mirror above the dresser. The woman in the reflection looked broken, but Estella felt something else entirely. She felt awake.

She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to beg. She wasn't going to walk away with nothing.

"Fine," she whispered to the empty room. "If I have no family, then I have nothing to lose."