Elaine Miller could hardly believe her eyes.

Wasn't Marcellus Spencer supposed to be obsessed with Morgan Rose? Wasn't Morgan the only woman he ever wanted? So why was he being so brutal to her?

Marcellus seemed to read the confusion on her face. He lowered her to the ground and gripped her hands tightly. "Elaine, it wasn't until you were gone that I realized I’d made a mistake."

"I admit, when we first married, I didn't care for you. I only had eyes for Morgan. But after seven years, and with the three children you gave me, I realized I’d fallen for you. I was just too damn proud to admit it."

He looked at her, his grip tightening. "Being good to Morgan was just a habit. Once I found out what she’d done to you, any old flame I felt for her burned out. Elaine, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Please, just forgive me. Come home."

Elaine felt a surge of cold, bitter laughter. She stared at him, her eyes as vacant as a winter grave. "Morgan is a monster; she deserves whatever fate finds her. But Marcellus, don’t you dare act like you’re innocent."

"If you hadn't been drugging me behind my back for the last seven years, do you think I would have been so broken?"

Marcellus flinched. The color drained from his face. "You… how did you find out?"

Elaine’s voice rose, trembling with long-repressed fury. "I heard you and Morgan talking that night. Your ‘great love story’ was a stage play, and I was the prop you threw into the fire. You even… you killed my parents!"

"I was the one you hated, not them! They never did a single thing to cross you! Why? Why would you do that to them?!"

Marcellus staggered back two steps, his composure shattered. He couldn't meet her gaze.

The Miller family had treated him with nothing but kindness. They would always say, ‘Elaine is young and difficult, sorry for the trouble she’s causing you. We know you love Miss Rose; don’t worry, we’ll make sure Elaine stays in line.’

But he had ruined them anyway.

Perhaps ‘ruined’ was too soft a word. He had simply engineered a minor ‘accounting error’ in the Miller family business. He never expected that single maneuver to be the final straw that drove them both to leap from the rooftop.

He had married Elaine out of a sense of suffocating guilt, hoping to bury his secret under a mountain of household amenities and empty gestures. For seven years, he had walked on eggshells, terrified that if she ever found out the truth, the fragile tether holding their life together would snap.

"Nothing to say?"

Elaine sneered, turning her face away from him. "Marcellus, you owe me a debt you could never repay in ten lifetimes. If you have even a shred of affection left for me, let me go."

"A life where we never see each other again—that is the only ending I want."

Marcellus reacted as if she’d struck him. His eyes darkened, a flash of something feral surfacing. "Impossible!"

"I spent years tearing this city apart to find you. I am never letting you go again."