Chapter 4

Yasmine's POV

Brianna, Natasha’s best friend and a notorious gossip columnist, was standing at the entrance.

She wasn't alone. She was holding her phone up, the red "LIVE" icon flashing on the screen. Behind her were three other socialites, all looking at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of their heels.

"Is the great Yasmine Blackwood actually pawning her old bags?"

Brianna laughed, stepping closer. The camera lens was inches from my face.

"Guys, are you seeing this? Zachary’s 'beloved' wife is broke! She’s selling off last season’s trash just to buy lunch!"

"Get that camera out of my face," I said, my voice low and dangerous.

"Or what?" Brianna sneered. "You'll hit me? You're nothing without Zachary's credit card, Yasmine. And we all know he cut you off."

The clerk looked nervous. "Miss, please, no recording in the store."

"Shut up," Brianna snapped at the clerk. She turned back to me, her eyes gleaming with malice.

"Natasha told me everything, you know. She told me how you refuse to sign the divorce papers. How you're clinging to him like a leech."

She reached out and grabbed the handle of the Birkin bag on the counter.

"Is this the bag he gave you? God, it smells like desperation."

"Let go," I warned.

"Make me."

Brianna yanked the bag.

I pulled back.

A sudden, violent spike of pain shot through my brain.

It was blinding.

My vision went white. The floor seemed to tilt aggressively to the left.

I stumbled, my grip on the bag slipping.

Drip.

A warm, wet sensation slid from my nose.

I instinctively put a hand to my face.

When I pulled it away, my fingers were stained with bright, crimson blood.

A second drop fell.

Splat.

Right onto the pristine white leather of the Birkin bag.

"Ew!" Brianna shrieked, jumping back. "Oh my god! Did you see that?"

She pointed the camera at the blood-stained bag.

"She's a drug addict! Look at her! She's bleeding out! That's why she needs the money, isn't it? You're a junkie!"

The room spun.

I grabbed the counter for support, my knuckles turning white.

I couldn't let them know.

I couldn't let them see the tumor killing me.

"It's just... dry air," I choked out, grabbing a tissue from the counter and pressing it hard against my nose.

"Liar!" Brianna yelled, playing to her livestream audience. "She's sick! She's disgusting! Zachary should have thrown you out years ago!"

"Who exactly should I have thrown out?"

The temperature in the shop instantly dropped twenty degrees.

A deep, terrifyingly cold voice echoed from the doorway.

Brianna froze. Her smug smile vanished instantly.

Zachary walked in.

He didn't look at me.

His pitch-black eyes were locked on Brianna.

"M-Mr. Blackwood!" Brianna stammered, lowering her phone. "I was just... we were just exposing—"

"Exposing what?"

Zachary took a step forward. He towered over her.

"Exposing that you are harassing my wife?"

"She was selling your gifts!" Brianna cried, trying to salvage the situation. "She's broke! She's embarrassing you!"

Zachary glanced at the bag on the counter.

He saw the bloodstain on the white leather.

His jaw tightened. A muscle in his cheek ticked.

He walked over to the counter, pulled out a black Amex card, and slammed it down.

"Wrap the bag up," he ordered the terrified clerk. "And everything else in this store. I'm buying the building."

The clerk's jaw dropped. "Yes, sir! Right away, sir!"

Zachary turned back to Brianna.

"You have five seconds to get out of my sight," he said, his voice deceptively calm.

"If I ever see your face near my wife again, I will buy your father's company and burn it to the ground just to watch you cry."

Brianna turned pale. She didn't say a word. She turned and ran out of the store, her friends scrambling after her.

Silence descended.

I was still pressing the tissue to my nose. The bleeding hadn't stopped.

My legs were shaking.

Zachary turned to me.

"Are you happy now?" He hissed, stepping into my personal space.

He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. He ignored the blood on my face completely.

"You just had to make a scene, didn't you? You had to drag my name through the mud."

"I needed money," I whispered, my voice muffled by the tissue.

"For what?" Zachary scoffed. "More pills to numb yourself? Or are you just trying to get my attention?"

He released my chin with a shove.

"You are pathetic, Yasmine. Selling a bag? Do you have no pride left?"

I looked at him.

My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold hand.

Pride?

He talked to me about pride?

A bitter laugh bubbled up in my throat, but it came out as a cough.

He had no idea.

Four years ago. The darkest night of our lives.

Zachary was sitting in a holding cell, facing twenty years for corporate fraud he didn't commit.

He needed a two-million-dollar settlement fee to make the charges disappear.

We had nothing. We were eating instant noodles and sharing a twin bed.

I didn't sell a bag back then.

I sold my life.

I had gone to his accusers. I knelt on the floor.

I signed a contract admitting that I was the one who forged the documents.

I agreed to take the fall. I agreed to disappear from the corporate world forever.

And in exchange, they dropped the charges against him.

I remembered walking into that jail cell to break up with him.

I had to make him hate me. It was the only way he would let me go.

"I'm leaving you, Zachary," I had told him, holding back tears that felt like acid. "I found a rich man. I can't be with a convict."

I destroyed his heart to save his life.

I created the monster standing in front of me today.

"I don't have pride, Zachary," I said finally, lowering the bloody tissue.

My eyes were dead.

"I sold my pride a long time ago. You just never noticed the price tag."

Zachary stared at me.

For a second, confusion flickered in his dark eyes.

But then the walls slammed back up.

He walked out of the store without looking back.

I stood there, clutching the counter, as the darkness at the edge of my vision began to close in again.

But there was one last thing I needed to do before I die.

I desperately needed my father's bracelet back.