Chapter 6

Clara's POV

I raised my hand to slap him, but Jeremy leaned back effortlessly, dodging the blow.

Watching me tremble with rage, he actually laughed. "I know what you're after. You just want your own money so you don't have to depend on me, right? Fine. I'll give you a chance."

I pulled my hand back, staring at him with cold detachment.

Jeremy leaned casually against the bed rail, hands shoved into his slacks, his tone infuriatingly leisurely. "A major client's daughter is getting married. She wants an exclusive, one-of-a-kind lipstick shade, and she specifically requested you to formulate it. If you pull it off, that condo on the east side? I'll transfer the title entirely to your name."

My fingertips twitched.

I had seen that condo on the east side before. The lighting was gorgeous, and the balcony caught the warm afternoon sun.

Years ago, I had mentioned to Jeremy that once I saved enough money, I wanted to buy a small place of my own, somewhere I could retreat to whenever we had a falling out.

That place had always been my mental safety net. With it, the day I walked away, I wouldn't have to leave empty-handed.

My job was gone. I needed somewhere to land.

"Fine. I'll do it."

Jeremy clearly hadn't expected me to agree so quickly. He reached out to pat my head, but I leaned away, avoiding his touch.

"Good girl."

For the next twelve days, my hospital bed became my laboratory.

My fever hadn't completely broken, leaving my head spinning with dizziness, and my left ear remained muffled and dull.

Batches of lab samples from the factory arrived at my room one after another. Sitting propped up in bed under natural daylight, I swatched them directly onto my lips, wiped them off, and tweaked the formulation for the next round.

The client wanted a delicate, sweet pink infused with micro-shimmer—the exact aesthetic young girls obsessed over, the complete opposite of the muted, high-fashion tones I usually developed.

Swatching so many formulas stripped the moisture completely from my lips, leaving them cracked, peeling, and screaming with pain at the slightest touch. I coated them in heavy balm, took a thirty-minute break, and went right back to work.

One night, the testing stretched well past midnight. My lips split open, bleeding. The moment the pigment hit the raw tear, the stinging brought tears straight to my eyes. I dabbed it with a tissue and reached for the next tube.

I counted down the days in my head. Once this formula was finished, I would have a home of my own. No one would ever have the power to throw me out again.

Twelve days. Over forty formulation revisions. More than fifty ruined test tubes. My lips were so swollen that even drinking water felt like fire. But finally, I nailed the exact shade the client wanted: a soft, petal pink kissed with refined gold shimmer.

The day of the handover, Jeremy came to visit.

I handed him the final sample, my lips visibly swollen, my voice raspy. "The shade is done. About the condo..."

Jeremy took the lipstick, completely ignoring my question.

Suddenly, he pulled a tissue from the box, reached over, clamped his hand over my mouth, and violently wiped away the fresh swatch I had just applied.

The rough paper dragged against my raw, swollen lips, sending a searing shock of pain through my face.

He tossed the stained tissue into the trash can. "Now that you're done, quit obsessing over this crap. This shade doesn't suit you anyway. A woman your age shouldn't be wasting her energy on things like this."

He looked me up and down, adding with a smirk, "Besides, who else would want you except me?"

The condo wasn't mentioned again. Not a single word.

I sat on the hospital bed, staring straight through him.

Twelve days of grueling effort. Over fifty ruined sample tubes. Deep, bleeding cracks across my lips. In his eyes, all of it was worth nothing more than a used tissue.

He had never intended to give me that property. What he wanted was to prove that even burning with a fever, I would still work for him like a dog—and once it was over, I was supposed to thank him for giving me the opportunity.

Arguing with him would only lead back to his suffocating control. I knew this bill had to be settled somewhere he had no voice.

Unsettled by my silence, Jeremy muttered a few generic words telling me to rest up and walked out.

The second the door clicked shut, I dialed my attorney. "There are a few things I need to document."

Over the years, eighty-three custom shades had been commercialized under the company name. Which shade sold how many units in which year, and the exact royalties owed to me—I rattled off every single detail to my lawyer, entirely from memory.

On top of that, I had photographed and timestamped every single one of the forty-plus formula iterations I had created over the past twelve days.

I included Jeremy's private interference with my employer that got me wrongfully terminated.

"All of this is evidence," I said coldly. "I want everything he owes me back, with interest."

Hanging up, I instinctively licked my cracked lips, wincing at the sharp sting. But for the first time in years, my heart felt completely anchored.