Ficorpio
Chapter 1
For ten years I’d been a kept woman, and for three years I’d been his dutiful wife. In the end, I still got torn apart and fed to stray dogs.
After Ethan Sterling was diagnosed with cancer, I spent three years wiping him down, emptying bedpans, and swallowing every humiliation while I took care of him. What did I get for it? He left everything he owned to his first love, Vivienne Ashford.
My villa was taken back. My clothes were stripped away. Left old and worn out, I survived by picking through trash until I was finally torn to pieces in a dog’s mouth.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Ethan asked me whether I loved him or his money.
I smiled at him, soft and sweet. “Of course I love you.”
He was satisfied. But the next day, I came straight to his office with the kept-lover agreement in hand.
This time, I wanted money. Not love. And definitely not that deadly marriage.
Ethan’s face went cold in an instant. His fingers pinched the agreement as his voice turned sharp with open mockery. “Didn’t you just say you loved me? And now you’re here asking for money?”
He had always been like this, testing me over and over, dangling that cheap little claim that I couldn’t live without him so I’d mistake it for devotion.
Last life, I’d been fooled by that illusion for thirteen years.
The day he was diagnosed, he hadn’t called Vivienne Ashford, the woman he had loved for his whole life. Instead, he handed me everything that should have gone to her: the wedding, the ring, even the antique necklace his mother had left behind.
I thought I’d finally fought my way out. I thought I had gone from kept woman to wife.
I hadn’t known it was all just Vivienne’s “suggestion,” a bribe he used to buy my care while he was sick.
Married to Ethan, life only got harder.
When he wasn’t ill, his tea had to be exactly 60 degrees. His bath water could not go over 45. The bedding had to be changed every single day. And if a stranger touched something, he wouldn’t touch it at all.
I’d spent ten years as his kept woman and ten years as his unpaid maid.
After he fell sick, he only got worse.
If I wiped his body a little too hard, he would shove me to the floor and curse, “Useless! I’ve kept you this long, and you can’t even do this right!”
After chemo, whenever he felt miserable, scalding water and loud slaps became his favorite way to lash out.
More than once, I wanted to run.
But every time I looked at his skin and bones, every time I heard a doctor say that a seriously ill patient getting irritable was normal, I softened again.
Because back then, I really did love him.
Chapter 2
Three years of restraint had only earned me his final words, words that went straight for the heart: “I don’t love you. I married you because I listened to Vivienne. The marriage is yours. The assets aren’t.”
At the memory, that suffocating tightness came back to my chest. My eyes burned, and tears gathered without my permission. The hand holding my bag trembled slightly.
Ethan saw it and looked even more annoyed. “Again with the crying? I keep you around to make me happy, not to stand there looking like you’re mourning someone.”
Then, as though he were doing me a favor, he added, “Since you love me so much, I’ll pay your yearly support fee monthly. One hundred thousand dollars a month.”
In my last life, I had agreed without hesitation because I wanted to prove my sincerity. But he only paid for three months, then never brought it up again. I was too stupid to ask, thinking that if I never mentioned money, I might still win his heart.
Now that I thought about it, in the eyes of a businessman like him, I was nothing more than merchandise he could delay payment on.
I swallowed the hatred boiling in my chest, stepped forward, rose onto my toes, and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. My voice came out exactly as wounded as I wanted it to. “Baby, my brother is still waiting for his medical bills to save his life. Without that money, he won’t make it.”
“Husband, can’t you just stop splitting it up? Give it to me all at once. As long as the contract is still in effect, I’ll treat you one hundred percent well.”
Two tears slid from the corners of my eyes and landed perfectly on the back of his hand.
Ethan stared at my face for a long moment, and in the end, he still gave in to that carefully dressed-up weakness.
He pulled a check from the drawer, wrote out $800,000 in a quick, sharp hand, and flicked it down in front of me.
I looked at that thin sheet of paper and let a trace of mockery curve my lips where no one could see it.
The total support payment was one million dollars. According to the agreement, eighty percent was due at the start of the year and twenty percent at the end. He remembered every detail perfectly and followed it with the precision of a machine.
Back then, I’d actually been fooled by those “rules” into thinking he had feelings for me.
I forced down the stabbing pain in my chest, took the check, and put on a face full of gratitude and hesitation. Even as I left, I made a solemn promise. “Husband, once my brother gets better, I’ll never ask you for money again.”
After that, I walked out of his office with exaggerated heaviness, though my steps were so light I almost floated.
First step complete: I had secured startup money.
Chapter 3
Next, it was time for me to collect my debt.
I deposited the full million into my bank account that same day.
In my past life, I really had become Ethan Sterling’s kept woman because my younger brother was supposedly suffering from a blood disease. Whenever I had money, I handed it straight to my mother so she could pay for his treatment.
But after Ethan died and I lost everything, the mother and brother who had once spoken to me with sweet words and warm smiles turned on me without hesitation. They looked at me coldly and said they could not afford the shame, and that they would never acknowledge a daughter who had once been a kept woman.
Then they threw me out of the house.
That was when I learned the truth: my brother’s illness had long since been cured. For years, he had been pretending to be sick just to squeeze as much money out of me as possible.
Thinking about how miserably I had died in my previous life, that same suffocating pain rose in my chest again. But at least all of that was over now.
This time, my brother could forget about getting another cent from me for treatment.
As for my real parents, I was done with them too.
And Ethan Sterling…
Didn’t he love Vivienne Ashford, that precious first love of his, so much?
Fine. I’d help him.
I’d help him chase Vivienne Ashford. I’d help him propose to her.
Then I’d let him walk into marriage with the woman he loved most, all while dragging along a cancer-ravaged body.
As for Ethan Sterling’s inheritance, every last cent of it would belong to me in this life.
After I finally thought it through, my chest still ached, but my mood was much better.
I went to the supermarket and bought the dishes Ethan Sterling liked best, then picked up a bottle of the red wine he preferred.
The moment I got home, I called Ethan’s personal physician and pushed back his checkup.
In my previous life, it was at that checkup seven days later that he found out he had cancer. After that, he married me.
This time, of course, I was going to let him discover it only after he had married Vivienne Ashford.
Once everything was arranged, I started cooking. I even washed Ethan’s socks and underwear by hand.
I had timed his return carefully so he would catch me in the middle of it, looking every inch the dutiful woman.
Sure enough, just as my hands were still covered in suds, Ethan came home.
At the sound of the door opening, I hurried over. “Honey, you’re home.”
Ethan looked at me, sweaty from all my work, and nodded in satisfaction. “Wash your hands. Put some food on my plate.”
Then he loosened his tie, took off his suit jacket, and sat down at the dining table.