Ficorpio
Chapter 1
There was an unwritten rule in our circle.
If one person in a marriage strayed, the other was silently allowed to keep someone on the side too.
I used to think love was cleaner than that. I used to think a relationship survived on devotion alone.
Until Adrian’s little lover came to my door.
Sienna Frost stood in front of me, her face pale, her hands clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white. It took her a long time to gather enough courage to speak.
“I know this is rude,” she said softly, “and I know I have no right to say it, but Adrian and I are truly in love.”
She lowered her lashes, every word trembling with fragile sincerity.
“I know what I’m doing is shameful. I know you must hate me. But I also know you’re different from the other women in your world. You don’t care about those ugly rules. If you’re willing to let him go, I can leave with him. We won’t take a cent from you.”
The speech was so familiar I almost laughed.
Then I really did.
Sienna looked up, startled by the sound.
“Did Adrian never tell you?” I asked. “The house he lives in, the car he drives, the clothes on his back—every bit of it came from me.”
Her lips parted. The wounded, noble look on her face cracked.
I leaned back and watched the realization move through her eyes.
“In other words,” I said, “if I divorce him, everything he owns—and everything you think you’ll gain by choosing him—gets taken back. So tell me, Sienna. Are you still brave enough to choose your love?”
By the time Adrian came home, Sienna had repeated my words to him with red-rimmed eyes.
He strode straight toward me, his expression colder than I had ever seen it.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Before I could answer, he took Sienna’s hand and held it tightly, as if I were the one who had wronged them both.
“Claire, Sienna isn’t like the people in your circle,” he said. “Don’t insult her with money.”
I stared at his unfamiliar face for a moment and forced down the discomfort rising in my chest.
Then I smiled.
“And if I insist on insulting her?”
His gaze dropped to my stomach.
I followed his line of sight, and only then did I realize what he was thinking.
Because I was carrying his child, because everyone assumed that child would become the Bennett heir, Adrian believed I would never truly cast him out. He thought I would swallow the humiliation, preserve the marriage, and let him keep his pure little love on the side.
How ridiculous.
Back then, Adrian had been only a broke college student. Clear-eyed, stubborn, and nothing like the greedy men who circled me for money.
Every time I tried to define what we had in practical terms, he would insist on asking me whether I loved him.
Only after I answered would he smile and hand me some small, clumsy gift he had made himself.
Once, he came back with his palms scraped bloody from kneeling on cold church steps, just to bring me a cheap blessing charm he said would keep me safe.
At the time, I had believed that was love.
Chapter 2
That year, Adrian Sterling had climbed thousands of icy church steps for me, just to bring back a blessing charm.
I could still remember his bruised forehead and the raw, scraped skin on his knees. Back then, I couldn’t understand why he would be so good to me.
After all, in those days, I hadn’t given him much money yet.
He had said, “Because I love you, Claire. I just want you to be safe.”
From then on, he would make small gifts for me whenever he could.
Maybe I had been moved by that clumsy, sincere devotion. Maybe I had wanted to answer him with something equally earnest. I told him about my fears, my weaknesses, and the ugliest, most vulnerable parts of myself.
On the day we first got together, he gave me a notebook that looked old before it had even been used.
He said, “Everything in here is mine. I wrote every page for you. Every word is my heart.”
“Since you’ve chosen me, you can’t lose me. If one day you stop loving me, I’ll write one more page. When this whole notebook is full, I’ll leave you. I won’t bother you anymore.”
At the time, I only thought his seriousness was sweet. I thought it was his awkward way of responding to my feelings.
I promised him I would never throw away something that held his heart.
So many years had passed since then.
The boy who had once pretended to be grown-up had learned how to lie.
I turned through the notebook.
Not a single page was missing.
I walked over, pulled open the drawer, and took out that old diary.
So the boy who once said he belonged to me had become someone else’s lover without even tearing out a page.
The evidence in the diary was too obvious. Adrian hadn’t even bothered to hide it properly. Or perhaps he had been so sure I would never look.
Maybe he truly believed this diary no longer belonged to me.
Maybe, to him, it had already become something he wrote for himself—and for her.
I sat on the sofa and read it from beginning to end.
The words that had once made my heart ache with tenderness had been worn down by time. They had lost their old glow, stripped bare until all that remained was a kind of pale, ridiculous cruelty.
But when he wrote about Sienna Frost, his language became vivid again.
He wrote that she wanted to become her own person, not someone trapped by the world. He called her a beautiful little fox who should be treasured, not a wild thing left to be beaten down by the rain.
I thought about it carefully.
Sienna’s silhouette did resemble mine when I was younger.
Adrian hadn’t called me beautiful in a very long time.
Over the past ten years, he had grown quieter and quieter with me.
Chapter 3
Whenever I saw the distance in his eyes, I told myself we had simply been together too long. I thought familiarity had dulled the sweetness. I thought marriage had worn down the bright edges of love.
It turned out love hadn’t faded at all.
It had merely been given to someone else.
That woman was indeed young and pretty.
Looking at her was like seeing myself more than ten years ago, back when Adrian was still chasing after me—soft, bright, and full of the kind of youth money couldn’t buy.
But love and money had never been evenly matched.
And if I could spend money on men, why couldn’t I spend it on women too?
So this was the kind of tasteless thing Adrian liked now.
I gave a faint smile.
I called Mia Harper.
“The young actors you mentioned last time,” I said. “Introduce me.”
A laugh came through the receiver. “What’s this? I thought you planned to spend the rest of your life guarding that little prince of yours.”
“Everyone in our circle knows Adrian Sterling depends on me,” I said lightly. “And he may not be as willing to stay dependent as everyone thinks.”
In the past, whenever my friends teased me about Adrian, I always said that people changed. I told them he had been good to me when we were younger, that all these years had to count for something.
For him, I had never kept anyone else.
Mia’s voice softened with curiosity. “Why the sudden enlightenment?”
“I’m just bored,” I said. “Maybe it’s time for something new.”
She gave a low whistle. “All right. Tomorrow night, then. I’ll arrange it. You can take your time choosing.”
“Good.”
After hanging up, I called my private stylist and had her put together a fresh look for me—new makeup, a new dress, the kind of polish I used to reserve for business dinners and anniversary dates.
The next evening, I went to the appointment.
Inside a private suite at the Grandview Hotel stood eight young men, all handsome in different ways.
Mia was already there. When she saw me, she raised her glass and grinned. “Claire, pick whoever you like. I promise the quality is guaranteed. If these aren’t enough, I can have another batch flown in.”
The moment she finished speaking, the young men surrounded me, all warm smiles and careful compliments.
“Ms. Bennett, you look incredible tonight.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
“You must be tired. Please sit.”
To be honest, the feeling was… not bad.
I had been adored before, but always in the same way—Adrian’s way. Restrained, wounded, full of debts I had once mistaken for devotion. This kind of attention was blatant, bright, uncomplicated. They wanted money, opportunity, favor. At least they were honest about it.
After a while, I pushed away the hand offering me champagne and smiled. “Excuse me.”
I went to the ladies’ room.
On the way back, I passed a private room with its door left slightly ajar. Women’s voices drifted out, lazy with alcohol and gossip.