Chapter 4

They had barely stepped out of the courthouse when I saw Ryder take the card right out of Stacy's hand.

After that, Stacy started posting payment screenshots every single day.

Ryder sent her fifty-two dollars, she posted it.

Thirteen dollars and fourteen cents, she posted that too.

It was like she was terrified I might miss them, so she even screenshotted the transfers and sent them straight to me to show off.

【See? My husband treats me so well.】

I just found it funny.

【That fifteen-thousand-dollar card of yours, you handed it to him, didn't you.】

【Fifty-two a day. It'd take eight years to add up to fifteen grand.】

【Are you making a lump-sum deposit and pulling it back out in dribs and drabs?】

Stacy was beside herself.

【This is Ryder's own money. He's just holding my fifteen thousand for me, he hasn't touched it at all!】

I gave a cold laugh. He'd better be.

Little by little, Stacy's posts started thinning out.

The street food, the clubs, all of it vanished.

There were no more of Ryder's transfers, either.

On TikTok, my feed served me a clip of Ryder drinking and messing around with a whole crowd of guys and girls.

No Stacy.

Ryder was pressed up tight against one girl, all over her.

I recognized her at a glance. She was the same girl Ryder had brawled over in my last life. Gigi.

Stacy put up a new post.

【A little homewrecker never understands what boundaries mean!】

Maybe she was afraid I'd enjoy the show, because that one disappeared fast.

Early the next morning, she posted a new one.

The photo was breakfast pudding and fried dough sticks.

【My husband was out all night and still remembered to bring me breakfast. It's so nice to be loved.】

I looked at the cilantro floating on top of the pudding and laughed out loud.

Stacy didn't eat cilantro. I remembered that. Garry remembered that.

Whenever we bought food for her, we always said the same thing: no cilantro.

Now here she was, tasting love in a bowl of pudding buried in cilantro.

Well. People's tastes always change.

I supposed that after a stretch with someone like Garry, tall and rich and good-looking, you'd bound to want to try a street thug just to see how the other half tasted.

Garry and Sally were getting engaged.

I went with them to pick out rings, and outside the mall I saw Ryder with his arm around Gigi.

Gigi had a BV bag hanging off her arm.

Ryder pinched her cheek. "You booked a room and hit me for a two-thousand-dollar bag. How many times do I have to sleep with you before I break even?"

Gigi giggled and kissed him on the cheek.

Garry frowned.

"Godmother, do you want to step in?"

My voice didn't so much as ripple.

"Stacy chose this road herself. She can carry it herself."

We were about to go when a familiar voice reached my ears.

"You shameless little slut, who told you to seduce my boyfriend!"

"Take a good look at yourself. Are you even worth it?"

I turned and saw Stacy jumping out of a taxi.

In my last life it had been this same day. She'd had her hair set in loose, lazy waves, wearing a custom Dior suit, coming to pick out an engagement ring.

Back then she'd taken a liking to a ring worth two hundred sixty thousand, and Garry hadn't so much as blinked before swiping his card for it.

The woman here now was another thing entirely, hair everywhere, cursing, like some screeching harpy.

Her eyes were red and bulging, and she swung her fists as she charged at Gigi.

Ryder shoved Gigi behind him and kicked Stacy away.

"The hell are you throwing a fit for? You lay one finger on her, I dare you."

"I've told you we're done a hundred times over. You keep clinging to me anyway. Got no shame at all?"

"Go home, pack your crap, and get lost!"

Ryder's kick knocked Stacy to the ground. She scrambled up, teeth bared, and threw a punch at him.

Ryder raised his hand to slap her. Stacy jerked her head aside, and her gaze swept across to where we were standing.

Her fist froze in midair, and Ryder's palm landed hard across her face.