Chapter 4

Asher's face went darker than the bottom of a burnt pan.

"Elaine, do you really have to be like this?"

His voice carried undisguised anger and disgust.

"We just registered the marriage, and you're already asking me about the house?"

"Yes."

I nodded, smiling with perfect innocence.

"What else? Should I wait until the divorce to bring it up?"

"You—"

He was too furious to speak, his chest heaving.

A few people nearby glanced our way, and in the end he cared too much about appearances to lose it. He forced the anger back down.

"The house gets transferred this afternoon."

He ground the words out through his teeth.

"There. Are you satisfied now?"

"Satisfied."

I hooked my arm through his, smiling like a flower in full bloom.

"Let's go home, husband."

That word, husband, made his whole body stiffen.

His eyes came to my face, tangled and searching, as if he were trying to read something out of me.

But I gave him nothing.

I was only a naive, greedy patient, drunk on the joy of being a newlywed.

That afternoon we went to the county property records office.

The paperwork went through without a hitch.

When the clerk placed the deed with my name printed on it into my hands, I saw the corner of Asher's mouth twitch, and he couldn't stop it.

I knew he was aching over it.

This place was worth thirty million.

And just like that, it was mine.

On the way home the air in the car was suffocating.

Asher said nothing, and drove fast.

I knew his patience had hit its limit.

Sure enough, the moment we stepped through the door, he couldn't keep the act up any longer.

He shoved me against the wall, his bloodshot eyes fixed on me.

"Elaine, what exactly are you trying to do?"

"When did you turn into this? So materialistic, so impossible to deal with!"

His grip was crushing, his fingers grinding into my wrist until it hurt.

"I'm impossible to deal with?"

I started to laugh, even as the tears fell on their own.

"Asher, put your hand on your heart and ask yourself. Which one of us is really impossible to deal with?"

"It's you! You're the one who told me you loved me while you were registering a marriage with another woman!"

"You're the one who coaxed me to take my pills while you prayed for me to get better fast, so I'd get out of the way for you and your true love!"

"You're the one who treated me like a fool, like a madwoman, someone you could toy with and lie to as you pleased!"

I threw every drop of the grievance and rage I'd been holding in for days into that shout, until there was nothing left in me.

Asher's expression went from shock, to panic, and finally to ashen white.

He let go of my hand and stepped back, staring at me like he didn't know who I was.

"You... you know everything?"

His voice was shaking.

"That's right. I know everything."

I wiped away the tears and closed in on him, step by step.

"At the elevators on the lower level of the downtown financial center mall. I heard all of it."

"Asher, do you think I'm hilarious?"

"Spun around in circles like a clown, by the two of you?"

He opened his mouth, wanting to explain something.

"Elaine, it isn't like that, just listen to me—"

"Explain?"

I cut him off and pulled the two marriage certificates out of my bag.

One was mine and his.

The other was his and Eliana's.

That one I'd paid a private detective to get.

I flung the certificate that belonged to him and Eliana straight into his face.

"You want to explain this?"

"Explain when the two of you went behind my back?"

"Explain how you enjoyed my trust while treating me like the stone in your way?"

"Asher, you've committed bigamy. Do you understand that?"

He stared at the glaring red certificate on the floor, dumbstruck.

He probably never once imagined I could know it all this thoroughly.

"No... it's not possible..."

He mumbled to himself. "How could you..."

"How could I know?"

I gave a cold laugh.

"There's no wall in this world the wind can't get through."

"Asher, this whole show. Aren't you tired of acting it out?"

"Standing guard over a mental patient you never loved at all, fussing over her every day. Doesn't that make you feel so noble?"

"Doesn't it make you feel like some kind of savior?"

Every word I said was a knife, driving hard into his heart.

The color drained clean out of his face, his lips trembling, unable to force out a single word.

Outside the door, a key suddenly turned in the lock.