"Joy Harding, the devoted-wife act really doesn't suit a slut like you."
I cried until I retched. "Sebastian, you can't do this to me! And why her of all people?"
"You know—you know—it was Narelle and her mistress mother who drove my mom to suicide!"
Something flickered in his eyes. Then they went red.
His foot slammed into the table, sending it crashing.
"Joy, so you do know how that feels?"
"I put you on a fucking pedestal. All these years, I held back—never touched you before the wedding no matter how badly I wanted to, terrified of scaring you. And you turned around and crawled into bed with Hubert Sanchez?"
"What the hell am I to you?"
The photo. Of course.
The day before the wedding, Hubert and I had both been drugged. We woke up in the same bed.
I'd gotten examined immediately. Between the test results and both our memories before blacking out, we'd confirmed nothing happened.
I'd planned to explain everything to Sebastian after the ceremony. I never imagined someone would display that damning photo at the wedding itself.
The pain crushed my chest. All I could do was sob out the truth:
"I don't know why Hubert and I were set up, but nothing happened between us! Nothing!"
Sebastian's laugh was ice.
"Joy. Do you really think I'd believe you?"
I looked up at him, tears streaming.
"If you don't believe me—then why go through with the wedding? Why marry me at all?"
Sebastian's hand clamped down on the back of my neck, his grip bruising. Every trace of love had vanished from his eyes.
"Revenge, of course." His voice was ice. "You like being ridden, don't you? Then I'll make sure you spend the rest of your life as a living widow."
"Joy." He leaned in close, his breath hot against my ear. "I want your remaining years to hurt a hundred—no, a thousand times more than what I'm feeling right now."
The next day, he boarded a flight to the Maldives with Narelle.
Our honeymoon. Our destination.
Sebastian had always hated being photographed. But for her, he hired a professional travel photographer. Hundreds of couple shots—him gazing at her on white sand beaches, her draped against him at sunset—all uploaded to her social media for the world to see.
By then, my scandal had spread across Capital City like wildfire.