Chapter 1

After the company went under.

Ursula Summers fell into depression, and after she was saved from cutting her wrists a second time.

She sobbed until she broke and said to me, "Tony, I'm the one dragging you down, making you carry all this debt with me! Please, just let me die!"

I looked at Ursula, my chest aching so badly I could hardly breathe.

To help Ursula find her footing again.

I brought out a magic lamp and told her the lamp granted three wishes. Once a wish was made, it would come true.

Ursula half believed me. "First wish. I want the company back from the dead!"

And later, the company really did come back from the dead, its resources even greater than before.

Ursula's face lit up with delight. "Second wish. I want the old Summers mansion back!"

And later, the old mansion really did return to our hands.

Ursula held the lamp against her chest and said to me, "Tony, the third wish, I want to think it through carefully! I want to make sure I never regret it!"

I was glad to see the change in her, ready to tell Ursula the truth about the lamp.

But I walked in on Ursula on a video call with her first love.

"Tony James isn't worthy of who I am anymore."

"So," she smiled, "third wish. I want a rise in power and wealth, and I want to trade out my husband."

1

"Ursula."

On the screen.

Ursula's first love, Arthur Gray, leaned in close to the camera, lips curving into a smile.

"Isn't this a little wrong, though?"

He looked at Ursula.

"Your husband lived in a basement with you, stayed by your side through the whole climb back up. Yes, it was all your own luck, all your own ability, but your husband was still the one who walked through it with you. At a time like this, if you bring up divorce, won't it hurt your career?"

Every word of Arthur's seemingly innocent worry was framed as concern for Ursula, only making her more certain.

"I'll admit these past few years weren't easy for my husband. He carried tens of millions in debt with me, climbed back up with me. During the worst of my illness, he was the only one willing to care for me without ever taking off his clothes to rest. But that's exactly it. In my husband I only ever see my own weakness, my own worthlessness."

"Every time I get close to him, I remember how I used self-harm, how I hurt myself to find release, and I never imagined I wasn't meant to die at all, that I could get help from the divine, get the lamp."

"And now."

Ursula leaned back against her chair.

"I have wealth, name, and standing. I have only one wish left, my only wish, and it's that I don't want to open my eyes and see my husband. Seeing my husband is like seeing my own filthy self, seeing the coward, the failure I used to be."

Ursula sighed.

"Do you understand what I mean?"

In the study.

For a few seconds, silence.

I watched Arthur's eyes go red, as if he were fighting hard to hold it in and still couldn't stop the tears, and he called to her, "Sunny, you still have me."

His eyes were red.

"Back then, if I'd been at your side, I'd have been willing to walk through those days with you too. Sunny, you deserve the best."

Back then.

Ursula signed a wager agreement, lost until she had nothing left, lost until the debt collectors chased her to the end of an alley and she nearly lost her life. I was the one who charged into that alley with a kitchen knife, swinging at anyone in my way like a madman, using my own life to save Ursula's.

At the time.

Ursula looked at me, cut and bleeding all over, and cried as she held me tight.

"Tony James!"

"For the rest of my life! I will never wrong you!"

And later.

Ursula was diagnosed with depression, learned to hurt herself, learned to cut her wrists, learned to try to end her life, learned to beg me through her tears to let her die.

"Tony, I really can't take it anymore!"

"I can't take waking up every day only to be cursed at by debt collectors, treated like a rat everyone wants dead!"

"Please!"

"Please, let me go!"

"Just let me have some peace!"

My heart ached to the point of despair, and I finally reached out to Grandma Abbott, whom I hadn't seen in years, and begged her to give Ursula a chance.

Grandma always said feelings were all fake, that my mother had been deceived and lost her life over it, and yet Grandma still doted on me.

Grandma brought out that lamp and said to me, "This magic lamp grants three wishes. If she can pass the test, if she spends all three wishes on you, I'll accept her as my grandson's wife! I'll announce that you're the sole heir of the James family! I'll let you bring her home to the Jamess!"

"Before that," Grandma set the condition, "you are not to tell her your true identity!"

I swore I was certain.

Ursula was no traitor to my heart. She wouldn't let me down.

And now my cheek burned, and faster than any slap came the truth of my own heart being trampled by Ursula.

"I'll leave my husband a way out. I'll leave him enough wealth to live out the rest of his days, and I'll leave him the old mansion so he never wants for anything again," Ursula said, her voice calm. "That way I won't owe him anything either."

A chill went through me, and the way I'd been preparing to tell Ursula the truth felt like a joke. I found Grandma on my messages and told her.

[Grandma.]

[I lost.]

[I'm willing to take everything back from Ursula.]