Chapter 1

After I slapped my husband's precious favorite, I was banished to a desolate wilderness retreat in the mountains to reflect on my mistakes for three whole months.

The first thing Julian did when he picked me up was pin me roughly against the car window.

Just as he was about to push inside me, the privacy partition between the front and back seats rolled down without warning.

His executive assistant, Vivian, turned around. Her voice was as calm and clinical as if she were reading off an itinerary. "Mr. Hayes, should we use the ultra-thin tonight, or should Mrs. Hayes take the morning-after pill?"

"You've been separated for three months. For safety reasons, I recommend a condom."

My entire body froze, my forehead knocking hard against the freezing glass.

Julian naturally took the foil wrapper she handed him. He even let out a soft chuckle of approval. "You really do think of everything."

Vivian gave him a mildly reproachful pout. "Mr. Hayes, Mrs. Hayes is right here."

I quietly gathered my disheveled clothes around myself, moving like an emotionless machine.

In the five years we had been married, there had always been a third person in our relationship.

The entire company treated me like a running joke. Behind closed doors, an office rumor made the rounds about the two of them:

"Julian really has the best of both worlds—she handles his business by day, and handles him by night."

I dug my nails deep into my palms. Inside my coat pocket, my fingers brushed against the divorce agreement I had already drawn up.

It was just as well.

I didn't want any of this anymore anyway.

"Shall we continue?" Julian's hand slid under my clothes, carrying the chill of early winter.

Goosebumps broke out across my flesh. I shoved him away with all my strength. "No. I'm not in the mood."

Julian pulled his hand back, his brow knitting into a tight scowl.

"It's been three months and you're still throwing a tantrum? I've explained it to you a thousand times. Vivian was my mother's dying wish. Everything she does is strictly by the protocol."

A sharp pain seized my chest, and my fists clenched tight.

Since the very first year of our marriage, we had had this exact fight over Vivian hundreds of times.

She wasn't just a regular secretary. She was an "exclusive handler" handpicked and trained by my late mother-in-law to micromanage every single aspect of Julian's life for the rest of his days.

From billion-dollar boardroom negotiations to the exact fabric and color of his underwear, she had the authority to dictate every tiny detail.

And now, she was even deciding which condom he should wear.

I looked up at his face—still striking, yet completely unrecognizable. A bitter, absurd question burst from my lips:

"What's next? Is Vivian going to roll the condom onto you with her own hands?"

Julian's expression darkened instantly, his jaw tightening into a rigid line.

"Samantha, do you always have to be this venomous? She is just carrying out my mother's instructions!"

"Carrying them out all the way into our bed?" I sneered, turning my face toward the window. I felt like if I looked at him for one more second, my heart would shatter into pieces right there.

Seeing that I had refused, Vivian quietly slipped the opened wrapper back into her designer purse.

A dry laugh escaped my throat.

"What? Pinching pennies over a single condom? Saving it for the two of you next time?"

Vivian's eyes welled with tears on cue.

She didn't look at me. Instead, she turned to Julian, her voice soft and full of wounded innocence.

"Mr. Hayes, I only... wanted to avoid unnecessary waste. The life management protocol clearly states that we must eliminate all frivolous consumption."

I wanted to laugh at the sheer absurdity, but tears rushed to my eyes first.

"You call that waste? Great, why don't you two finish what he started? That way nothing goes to waste, right?"

"Samantha!" Julian grabbed my arm and yanked me back against the leather seat, his eyes flashing with fury. He looked at me as if I were a raving lunatic. "You're getting completely out of hand!"

The tears finally spilled over.

During those endless, freezing nights in the mountain wilderness, curled up in an empty cabin just trying to survive, I had asked myself countless times: how did my life end up like this?

At first, I wondered if I was just being overly jealous.

Until Vivian showed up at our newlywed home with a thick binder labeled "Life Optimization Protocol," casually moved into the guest room, and began strictly scheduling our intimate moments.

She even logged and analyzed the duration of each session to check if it met the "optimal standard." That was when I completely fell apart.

The night I lost it, I smashed everything in the living room. All I got in return was an exhausted sigh from him:

"Stop acting crazy. She's just optimizing my life according to the plan."

And the result of that "optimization"? One freezing night while I was in Norway chasing the Northern Lights, my phone buzzed with a smart-home notification: [Third intimate check-in of the week completed.]

While I was doing charity work in an impoverished remote village, a headline popped up on my feed:

Julian Hayes had dropped twelve million dollars at an auction for a pigeon-blood ruby—simply because Vivian's "Annual Incentive Plan" listed a desire for a piece of high jewelry.

Six months ago, we got into a horrific car crash on the way to the airport. The impact shattered the windshield, and warm blood blurred my vision.

Through the blinding pain, I felt Julian holding me, trembling. His terror had felt so real.

Then, Vivian's cool, clinical voice cut through the stench of blood. She checked her tablet and announced:

"Mr. Hayes, according to today's schedule, we must reach the private terminal within twenty-two minutes to meet Mr. Vance. The rules cannot be broken. This is the top-priority directive set by your mother."

I desperately tried to grab his sleeve, but my bloody fingers only grazed the cold metal of his cufflink.

He looked at me, a violent storm of guilt and hesitation raging in his eyes. In the end, he gently peeled my fingers off him, one by one.

"Be a good girl, Sam," he said, his voice raspy. "I'll handle the meeting and come right back. I promise."

He walked away with Vivian.

I lay alone on the glass-strewn asphalt until a kind stranger called 911.

Under the harsh, blinding white lights of the trauma bay, as I stared up into that endless void, the last ember of warmth in my heart finally died.