She tried to breathe. Tried to stay composed. But inside her, everything was boiling.
"Ruby," Seron said calmly, shamelessly, as he adjusted his clothes as if nothing had happened. "You should be home."
The words struck harder than a slap.
Beside him, Acacia smoothed down her dress without urgency, her movements careless, almost practiced. She didn't look embarrassed. She didn't look guilty. She stood there as if she belonged, like she knew exactly where she fit in Seron's life.
Ruby swallowed hard. "Since when?" she managed to ask.
Her voice barely held. A lump rose painfully in her throat, tears burning behind her eyes. If it were just her and Seron, she would have let herself break. But Acacia was there watching, daring her to become the nagging wife, the woman who chased affection where it no longer existed.
She had to be strong. Even as pain clawed through her chest.
Seron sighed, rubbing his forehead as if she were the inconvenience. "It's not what you think," he said quickly. "I mean…this means nothing. It's just sex. We missed each other. We were only… You know… getting closure."
Closure.
Ruby stared at him, disbelief freezing her expression.
Seeing her silence, his face hardened. Annoyance flashed across his eyes. "You should be happy," he added sharply. "At least now we don't have to force ourselves to make love. This just reminded me of everything I've been missing."
Each word carved deeper. Ruby stood there, numb, clutching the report against her chest like it was the only thing keeping her upright. She felt small. Lost. Like a child abandoned in the middle of a storm, trying desperately not to cry.
She refused to let the tears fall. But her heart. Her heart was already shattered.
"You know you were just my replacement," Acacia said coolly. "Why are you acting so surprised now?" The words landed like a final blow.
Even with her hair disheveled and her makeup slightly ruined, Acacia carried herself like a woman walking a runway, her chin lifted, shoulders back, confidence dripping from every movement. She looked expensive. Untouchable. Like someone who had always belonged in Seron's world.
It made Ruby painfully aware of herself. As if all these years, she had been competing with a shadow she could never defeat. Now the shadow had returned. And Ruby was no longer needed.
Seron's gaze hardened as it fell on her. Ruby's fingers tightened around the report in her hands, the paper crumpling slightly under her grip.
"You know Acacia is my first love," Seron said bluntly. "Now she'll give me a baby." The words should have destroyed her. Instead, Ruby felt… empty.
The betrayal was too heavy, too cruel to fully process. Somewhere deep inside, something finally gave up. She almost laughed at herself at how excited she had been, how she had imagined telling him the news, how her hand had instinctively gone to her still-flat belly only hours ago.
What was I thinking? He was never going to love me the way he loved her.
"Let's continue this at my hotel," Acacia said lazily, looping her arm around Seron's. "I want you all to myself tonight." It wasn't enough that she had taken him. She wanted to humiliate Ruby, too. To stand there and watch her beg.
But Ruby was done begging. Everything she had ever felt for Seron, every sacrifice, every tear, every year she had endured quietly drained away. She blinked once, and when she looked up again, every emotion was gone.
Her face turned blank. Indifferent.
"I won't stand in your way anymore," Ruby said calmly. The words stunned Seron. He stared at her, unsettled. He knew how deeply Ruby loved him, how she had always clung to him no matter what. This wasn't the reaction he expected.
Acacia rolled her eyes, irritated. She had thought Ruby would cry. Plead. Break. She had expected control.
"Good," Acacia said with a cruel smile. "Because I'm taking your husband with me tonight. And fuck him all night when I'am done with him, I'll send him back to you, that is if he still wants to return to your dull little life."
The words sliced straight through Ruby. The walls she had built around her heart cracked, then collapsed completely. Seron didn't stop her. He didn't correct Acacia. He even hesitates.
"She's telling the truth," he said coldly. "So just go home and keep playing the perfect Mrs. Byron. Acacia is the one I love." His voice held no warmth. No regret. And painfully, Ruby realized she had grown used to that emptiness.
Seron scoffed, eyes narrowing. "What now? Are you going to cry and make a scene?" he continued mercilessly. "After all the time I spent in your bed, you couldn't even give me a child. Not even a miscarriage. Acacia will do what you never could." The blame hit her like a slap.
Ruby blinked, stunned, her mind spinning in disbelief. For a fleeting moment, she considered telling him the truth about the report still crumpled in her hand, about the life growing quietly inside her.
Maybe it would change everything. But then she saw it clearly. She wasn't his wife in this story. She was the obstacle. The outsider in their love story.
And suddenly, she felt sick to her core."No," Ruby said quietly, her voice steady despite the storm raging inside her. "Not today. I won't take this anymore, Seron. I'm done."
Seron laughed bitterly. "Good. Then go home and stay there as my obedient wife," he said. "You know your family depends on this marriage. Your father's debts, his failing company without me, what do you have?"
It was true. Her father's gambling had dragged them to the edge of ruin. This marriage had helped her father's company, an alliance, a lifeline for him. But Ruby had reached her limit. For the first time in seven years, fear no longer controlled her.
She stood there hurt, yes, but no longer broken enough to stay.
The last flicker of light in Ruby's heart went out. She made her decision quietly, firmly. She would make it easy for him.
"I want a divorce, Seron Byron," Ruby said, her voice calm but laced with steel. "I won't take this disrespect anymore."
Seron froze for the briefest second, caught off guard by her words. He had never expected her to ask for a divorce after seven years of devotion, after everything she had sacrificed, after the love she had poured into him.
He didn't answer immediately. He didn't need to. There was something about Ruby, he admitted to himself, that had kept him tethered all those years. But now, Acacia was back, the woman who had been his first love, the one who had given everything for him. She was the one he truly valued. Ruby could never compete.
"Stop throwing tantrums," he said finally, his tone sharp and practiced. "Go home. Call your father before you make a decision you and your whole family will regret."
Without another word, he turned, taking Acacia by the arm, and they disappeared into the car. The engine hummed, the headlights flashed, and Ruby was left alone in the cold, her heart hollow, her body trembling from the weight of betrayal.
Then she felt it.
Something wet on her thigh. At first, she thought it was just her imagination. But when it began to drip down to the floor, catching the light from the car, she realized the truth.
It was blood.
The report slipped from her hands as the world tilted around her. And in that moment, Ruby understood the depth of the pain, the utter finality of her breaking point.
She was standing in the wreckage of her marriage, and nothing would ever feel the same again. In just one day, she lost everything, and even her angel left her.