Cold Secrets

At my wedding, the massive screen suddenly displayed photos of me in bed with Dominic Black's sworn enemy. Before I could react, Dominic had already handled the chaos with chilling efficiency, then calmly walked me through the rest of the ceremony as if nothing had happened. When the banquet finally ended and I tried to explain, I found him pinning my stepsister to our marriage bed, taking her with savage abandon. My screams and tears earned me nothing but his dismissive reply: "What's this? A slut like you putting on a devoted wife act for me?" After that night, Dominic showered Megan Carter with affection—mansions, jewelry, gifts beyond counting. They paraded their love everywhere, turning me, Mrs. Black, into the laughingstock of Capital City. For three years I fought to win him back. It took a doctor handing me miscarriage papers to finally wake me up. If love was already dead, why was I still clinging to its corpse? —— As the doctor delivered the news, nurses' voices drifted in from the hallway, dripping with envy: "Mr. Black loves Ms. Carter so much! She just had a little scare, and he walked away from a billion-dollar contract without blinking—stayed by her side the whole time. Her room is overflowing with gifts and supplements. I just saw him spoon-feeding her porridge himself!" "That's so sweet! This is what real love looks like when a man has power. But wait—isn't Mr. Black married?" "Oh, you mean that notorious slut? She cheated before the wedding. Damaged goods. Mr. Black's just too kind, letting her keep the title. As if someone like her deserves to be called Mrs. Black." Slut. The word dragged me back to my wedding night, when Dominic had spat it at me with the same contempt. I'd walked into the bedroom still wearing my gown, words of explanation ready on my lips—and froze. Two pale bodies tangled on our marriage bed. The moment I recognized Dominic and Megan, something inside me snapped. I grabbed everything within reach and hurled it at them, screaming. Dominic shielded her with his body. Dressed her with gentle hands. Called a car and sent her away with tender care. Only then did he look at me. I was shattered, sobbing, demanding to know why. He flicked ash from his cigarette, utterly unmoved. "Mia Carter, the devoted-wife act really doesn't suit a slut like you." I cried until I retched. "Dominic, you can't do this to me! And why her of all people?" "You know—you know—it was Megan and her mistress mother who drove my mom to suicide!" Something flickered in his eyes. Then they went red. His foot slammed into the table, sending it crashing. "Mia, so you do know how that feels?" "I put you on a fucking pedestal. All these years, I held back—never touched you before the wedding no matter how badly I wanted to, terrified of scaring you. And you turned around and crawled into bed with Julian Cortez?" "What the hell am I to you?" The photo. Of course. The day before the wedding, Julian and I had both been drugged. We woke up in the same bed. I'd gotten examined immediately. Between the test results and both our memories before blacking out, we'd confirmed nothing happened. I'd planned to explain everything to Dominic after the ceremony. I never imagined someone would display that damning photo at the wedding itself. The pain crushed my chest. All I could do was sob out the truth: "I don't know why Julian and I were set up, but nothing happened between us! Nothing!" Dominic's laugh was ice. "Mia. Do you really think I'd believe you?" I looked up at him, tears streaming. "If you don't believe me—then why go through with the wedding? Why marry me at all?" ________________ $#{2|Chapter 2}$# Dominic's hand clamped down on the back of my neck, his grip bruising. Every trace of love had vanished from his eyes. "Revenge, of course." His voice was ice. "You like being ridden, don't you? Then I'll make sure you spend the rest of your life as a living widow." "Mia." He leaned in close, his breath hot against my ear. "I want your remaining years to hurt a hundred—no, a thousand times more than what I'm feeling right now." The next day, he boarded a flight to the Maldives with Megan. Our honeymoon. Our destination. Dominic had always hated being photographed. But for her, he hired a professional travel photographer. Hundreds of couple shots—him gazing at her on white sand beaches, her draped against him at sunset—all uploaded to her social media for the world to see. By then, my scandal had spread across Capital City like wildfire. Desperate slut. Insatiable whore. The comments were endless. Meanwhile, Dominic became the noble husband who'd been betrayed yet still took responsibility. And Megan? She was celebrated as the brave woman who'd endured public scorn for true love. Their fans flooded my phone with death threats. Funeral wreaths arrived at my door. Someone photoshopped my face onto escort advertisements, images so vile I couldn't look at them twice. While I drowned, Dominic took Megan to every place I'd ever dreamed of visiting with him. Every single one. And still—still—I couldn't let go. How could I? In this entire world, after my mother, he was the only person who had ever truly loved me. The only one who'd been good to me. I was eighteen when my father brought Megan and her mother home. One month later, at my birthday dinner, my mother pressed a blessing charm into my palm. Her hands were warm. Her smile was soft. Then she walked to the rooftop and stepped off the edge. Her diary told me everything. Pages and pages of deliberate humiliation. Megan and her mother's calculated cruelty, their whispered campaigns to break her. I brought the evidence to my father. Megan cried. Her mother cried harder. I was thrown out that same night. That winter was brutal. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones and never quite leaves. I was hours away from sleeping on the streets when Dominic found me. He'd searched the entire city. He pulled me into his arms so tightly I couldn't breathe, his voice caught between fury and anguish. "Why didn't you come to me?" "Mia." He tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Remember this. Even if the whole world abandons you, I want you. I will always want you." After that, Dominic poured everything he had into taking care of me. He brought me to his elite prep school, a world of trust-fund heirs and designer uniforms where I stuck out like a stain on silk. Everyone waited for me to fail. To crumble. To prove I didn't belong. At the opening ceremony, Dominic took the stage as the top student representative. He was supposed to give an academic speech. Instead, he looked directly into the crowd and said: "Mia Carter is my life. Touch her, and you touch me." The whispers stopped after that. He cooked for me every single day—balanced meals, proper nutrition, determined to put weight on my too-thin frame. Whenever the luxury houses released their seasonal collections, he had everything sent to the house before I could even browse the catalogs. Once, after a trip to Disneyland, I mentioned offhandedly how magical it would be to live in a castle like the fairies did. He bought land. Built me an estate. A secret sanctuary, just for me. Everyone in Capital City's elite circles knew how Dominic Black treated me. It wasn't a secret—it was legend. He made me bright again. Confident. Even a little spoiled, in ways I'd never imagined possible after everything I'd lost. On the nights when the grief crept back—when I woke gasping from nightmares of my mother's fall, terrified that Dominic would leave me too—he would hold me through every sob, every irrational accusation, and repeat the same words with unwavering patience: "Never worry, Mia. Unless I'm dead, I will never stop loving you." How was I supposed to let go of that man? So when he returned from the Maldives with Megan, I swallowed my pride. I begged. I dug out my medical records from the hospital—proof that I'd been drugged, proof that I was innocent—and brought them to him. He wouldn't even look at them. "Fabricated evidence," he said, his lip curling. "Is there anything you won't do?" ________________ $#{3|Chapter 3}$# I was out of options. All I could do was dig out the photographs documenting our past—the love letters where we'd poured out our hearts, the gifts and keepsakes that held meaning only for the two of us. But every item I pulled out, Dominic burned. Eventually, I grew desperate enough to put on lingerie and try to seduce him—anything to make the man who was supposed to be my husband stay home for just one night. Dominic did pause. For the first time in ages, he moved toward me. But just as his lips were about to meet mine, he gripped my chin and smiled—a cruel, mocking twist of his mouth. "Mia, you really are this pathetic, aren't you?" "Too bad I have standards. I don't touch dirty things." The next day, he brought Megan to a charity auction. My intimate photos—the ones I'd sent only to him—had been printed out and placed on the auction block. When I was dragged into the venue, the first thing I saw was my own image splashed across the massive screen. Dominic watched the color drain from my face, his smile wide and vicious. "Like it, wife? Happy first anniversary." Laughter rippled through the crowd. Dozens of leering gazes crawled over my skin. Megan draped herself against Dominic's chest, her delicate frame pressed into his arms as she giggled at me. "With my sister's notorious reputation, Dominic, this gift really does suit her perfectly!" "Though, ever since you and I got together, you haven't touched her once, have you? Someone with her... appetites... no wonder she's throwing herself at you." "I'm not a petty woman. She's still technically your wife, after all. Maybe you should satisfy her sometime?" She pouted, tracing a finger down his chest. "You wear me out every night—I can barely keep up with how insatiable you are..." At her words, Dominic's gaze landed on me. The desire I'd once prayed to see had curdled into pure disgust. "Touch her? I'd rather not catch something." He turned and nuzzled Megan's nose. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I only want someone pure like you. Once the auction money comes through, I'll buy you that bag you wanted, hmm?" Watching them wrapped around each other, I closed my eyes. Tears spilled down my cheeks, and despair—black and absolute—finally pulled me under. My voice came out slow. Steady. Final. "Dominic. Let's get a divorce." He glanced at me sideways. Then he laughed. "Mia, what makes you think you have the right to ask me for a divorce?" He rose, looming over me to drink in my anguish. His thumb brushed across my cheek, wiping away a tear with mock tenderness. "Did you forget what I told you? I'm going to make you suffer for the rest of your life. And this?" He gestured around us. "This is just the beginning." "As long as I don't sign, you'll never be free of this marriage." To punish my disobedience, Dominic moved Megan into our home. The living room. The kitchen. The bathroom. The storage closet. Anywhere I'd been, I'd find them the next morning—used tissues and condom wrappers scattered across the floor. I stopped sleeping. Entire nights passed with my eyes fixed on the ceiling. I saw doctors. I swallowed antidepressants, following their instructions to the letter. Then one day, Megan barged into my room, tablet in hand. "Mia, after all these years, you're still this useless?" "Watching you live like a dog every day... even I'm starting to feel sorry for you." "Fine. I'll be generous and let you die with some clarity." Her smile sharpened. "That night—when you and Julian were drugged? That was me." She turned the tablet toward me. On the screen, surveillance footage played in crisp detail: Megan, tipping white powder into my glass. ________________ $#{4|Chapter 4}$# My first instinct was to snatch the tablet and rush to show Dominic the evidence. But when he saw the surveillance footage, his eyes turned cold as ice. "Megan was right. To cover up your filthy affair, you really would frame her for it." The AI-generated watermark at the end of the video destroyed me completely. Megan threw herself into Dominic's arms, sobbing. He stroked her hair, comforting her, while his lips curled into a sneer aimed at me. "Like mother, like daughter. Your mother must have been the same—couldn't keep her legs closed, cheated on your father, then killed herself out of guilt when she was about to be caught." "First you tried to pin your mother's sins on Megan's mother. Now you're pulling the same trick on Megan herself." His voice dripped with contempt. "Did you really think I'd keep falling for your manipulations?" I stared at him, unable to process what I was hearing. The deepest, most guarded wound in my soul—and for Megan's sake, he'd turned it into a blade without a moment's hesitation. My hand flew up to slap him, but Dominic caught my wrist and hurled me to the floor like garbage. "Without my indulgence, Mia, do you really think you have the right to bare your claws at me?" Megan rushed over, pretending to help me up. But as she leaned close, her whisper was pure venom. "You're just as stupid as your dead mother. Yes, I did it—but did you really think I'd hand you the evidence on a silver platter?" "Your mother couldn't beat mine. And you'll never beat me." Tears streamed down my face, numb and endless. Somewhere in the middle of crying, I started to laugh. I lunged for the scissors on the nearby table and drove them toward Megan. Dominic kicked them from my hand. His expression twisted with horror and disgust. "Have you gone completely insane?" He swept Megan into his arms and summoned every top medical specialist in the city to treat her scratch. Then he moved her into my hidden estate. My condition deteriorated rapidly. I swallowed antidepressants by the handful. My hair began falling out in clumps. My memory fractured, pieces slipping away like water through cracks. To survive, I forced myself to stop thinking about Dominic. I locked myself in my room and buried myself in restoring ancient manuscripts, one crumbling page at a time. I'd discovered this work by accident after the wedding—a way to escape the pain. Back then, I never imagined it would become my lifeline, the very thing that would help me finally leave Dominic. I stopped following news about Dominic and Megan. But as Capital City's power couple, their stories found me anyway. Today, Dominic bought Megan a private island. Tomorrow, they'd appear at some ribbon-cutting ceremony, her arm threaded through his. Megan had seamlessly stepped into the role of Mrs. Black. Meanwhile, I had been erased from existence—forgotten, as if I'd never been real at all. At least I'd grown numb enough that the days somehow kept passing. Six months slipped by. Then one night, Dominic came home. He was drunk—completely wrecked. The moment he walked through the door, his mouth crashed into mine. I kicked. I clawed. I fought. But he was a man unhinged, deaf to everything, and he took what he wanted. The next morning, I woke to a bucket of ice water. Dominic stood at the bedside, revulsion pouring off him. "You're disgusting." "Crawling into my bed while I was drunk—is that how you used to seduce men?" He called in a professional cleaning crew to sanitize the entire master bedroom. Halfway through, he decided it wasn't enough and had the whole room gutted and rebuilt. I watched in silence. I didn't bother explaining anymore. Dominic would never believe me anyway. ________________ $#{5|Chapter 5}$# It wasn't until my follow-up appointment that I discovered, completely by accident, that I was pregnant. When the faint, steady rhythm of my baby's heartbeat filled the ultrasound room, tears I thought had long since dried up spilled down my cheeks again, beyond my control. I had no one left in this world. Not a single family member. Not a single person who loved me. But this child—this child made me greedy. I wanted to keep it. I didn't dare let Dominic find out. I was terrified he'd force me to terminate the pregnancy. Before I could figure out what to do, disaster struck. During my second prenatal checkup, a fire broke out in the hospital. As I fled, I saw Dominic carrying Megan out of another OB-GYN room. The moment our eyes met, I was shoved by the stampeding crowd and lost my balance, crashing to the ground. Panicked feet trampled over me, one after another. Crimson blood pooled beneath me, spreading across the floor in an instant. I screamed for help, terrified. Dominic's gaze lingered on me for barely a second—then he turned away, Megan still in his arms, and never looked back. I lay there in agony, frozen. So this is where we are now. I pulled myself out of the memory. My pillow was already soaked with tears. My hand drifted to my stomach, still aching with a dull, phantom pain. I apologized in silence. I'm sorry, baby. Mommy couldn't protect you. And your father... he really, truly doesn't love me anymore. I should have let go a long time ago. Just then, a courier arrived with a delivery to my hospital room. It was an official appointment letter from the Federal Heritage Administration. When I'd returned the restored manuscripts to the museum, Dr. Catherine Blackwood had been astonished by my work. She'd immediately recommended me to her contacts higher up. They had already promised: the moment I confirmed my acceptance, the government would automatically dissolve my marriage. After completing my discharge paperwork, I walked out through the hospital's main entrance. Dominic's Maybach was parked right outside. He stood with one hand braced against the top of the car door, carefully helping Megan inside. His eyes swept over me. A cold, dismissive smirk tugged at his lips. Then he slid into the car and signaled the driver to leave. The moment his car pulled away, the vehicle the Administration had sent for me arrived, as if on cue. I climbed in. The car made a U-turn and headed straight for the airport.