Chapter 3

Joey didn’t even notice anything was wrong.

He walked up and opened a beautifully packaged cake. “You love sweets, don’t you? I bought it for you. I was going to bring it to the prison, but you got out early.”

He put it in front of me.

It was a cake that looked… picked over. Little dents and pits everywhere—places where fruit had been dug out, someone had already helped themselves.

I flicked my eyes over it, then dropped my gaze back to my phone.

He didn’t expect my coldness. His brows knit with impatience. “Rory, what’s your problem? I brought this from all the way here. What are you throwing a fit about now? Are you ever done?”

“Anything someone else has touched—I don’t want it,” I said flatly. “It’s dirty.”

As I spoke, his phone chimed.

He glanced down, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile he couldn’t hide.

I didn’t need to guess who it was.

When he looked up again, his expression was deliberately calm, but there was excitement in his eyes.

“Fine, fine. I’ll go buy you a new one. You’ve been in prison for five years, and you come home just to give me a cold face. I really owe you, huh?”

He turned to leave.

My lower abdomen ached. I needed painkillers from the pharmacy.

So I stood up to put on my shoes and followed him out. Joey’s eyes narrowed with a trace of anger, and I said in a low voice, “You’re going to buy something anyway. Drop me at the pharmacy. I need medicine.”

He bristled like a cornered animal.

“I’m buying a cake and you’re following me? What is your problem?” He sounded furious.

I understood why.

When we first got together, I would ask him questions again and again out of concern whenever he went out at night.

But this time I only sighed. “There’s a pharmacy one street over from the villa. Just drop me there. I have no interest in stalking you.”

The moment I got in the car, I watched him hurriedly place an order on his phone—for a strawberry cake.

It was ironic.

His disguise was never clever.

But I was the one who kept telling myself not to overthink.

I even believed him about Sansa’s failed surgery.

Sansa had been so young—barely awakened her wolf—when Joey and that woman took her heart.

At the pharmacy, I got out immediately.

But in Joey’s eyes, I saw a flicker of surprise.

When he spoke again, the earlier rage was gone. “Wait here. I’ll come pick you up after you’re done.”

Before I could answer, the car sped off.

I bought my medicine and waited outside for two hours.

My body went stiff with cold. He never showed.

Before I could call a taxi, thunder cracked—and the rain came down in sheets, soaking me through in seconds.

Even after the painkillers, the stabbing in my belly didn’t ease.

I forced myself to move faster, ran into a supermarket, and bought an umbrella.

Too late.

My knees buckled and I crouched, curling into myself on the floor. My vision blurred, my consciousness slipping.

But I thought of Sansa.

I dragged myself upright, flagged down a car, and paid extra to get home.

The moment I got back, I dried off, took medicine.

Then the front door slammed.

Joey stormed in. “You came back and didn’t tell me? Do you know how many circles I drove in this storm? I looked for you for two hours! Are you playing with me?”

My hand froze.

I turned my eyes to him, cold. “If you want me to contact you, you should start by removing me from your blacklist.”

His mouth tightened. He swallowed his rage, walked into the living room, and dumped a rain-soaked cake in front of me.

“It was late. This was all that was left.”

My gaze landed on the matcha cake.

I’d lost interest in his clumsy lies, one after another.

My phone was open to Instagram. Betty had just posted a story: a photo of a strawberry cake.

Caption: A blessing from my gold-tier boss earlier, and my lover’s company now.

I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t have the strength to even lift my lips.

It didn’t matter.

He was going to pay.