“I can’t divorce right now.”
“You mean you won’t.” She folded her arms, the bitter disbelief tightening her throat. “What’s the plan then? Keep me hidden while you parade around with Marina? She can’t marry you yet because she’s got modeling dreams, so I stay the backup wife in the shadows?”
He flinched, but said nothing.
Her voice dropped to a mocking whisper. “I see. Marina becomes the fantasy, and I stay the legally convenient nobody.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I?” she snapped. “Because the last time I checked, I was still only good enough to be your assistant. That’s all I ever was to you—wasn’t it?”
“Don’t twist this, Lily.”
“Oh, I’m not twisting anything,” she said with a bitter laugh. “You just said it all. Marina gets the lights, the camera, the attention. And I? I get a desk and a broken heart.”
David stepped closer, his face unreadable. “If you can’t meet your father’s condition, you’ll lose your mother’s mementos will be gone. I’m the only reason they didn’t throw it already.”
Lily froze.
That...… it was the last thing her mother left her. Her only link to the woman who once shielded her from this cruel world.
She looked away, breathing hard. The memory returned—her father and stepmother shoving her out of the house at seventeen, trying to sell her off to a filthy old businessman when she was too broke even to eat. No friends. No support. Just betrayal.
David had given her a job then, a shred of hope. But now, he was no different from the people who’d once tried to break her.
She took a shaky breath. "I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. I’ll find my own way. I always have."
But she hated how her chest still clenched at the sound of his voice, how a part of her still hurt.
David’s voice cut through her thoughts. "If you want a divorce, it’ll cost you thirty million dollars. Then you’ll have to pay me thirty million dollars to break the contract.”
Lily’s heart stopped. “What?”
“You heard me,” he said coolly. “That’s the termination clause. You want out? Fine. But business is business.”
“Thirty million?” she hissed. “You’re insane.”
He raised a brow. “I’m practical. Everything I do is to protect my interests.”
“You bastard!” she shrieked, lunging at him.
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