Grace stepped out of the private elevator into the penthouse that was supposed to become “their” home in five days, a bottle of champagne chilled in one hand and a blindfold in the other—her silly, playful surprise for the man she was going to marry. The marble floor was cold beneath her heels, the city glittering thirty-eight floors below like scattered diamonds she had once believed were hers to keep. She was smiling, heart racing with nervous excitement, when the first sound hit her.

A low, guttural moan. Wet skin slapping against skin. Then a broken, desperate “Fuck—right there, Ethan, harder—”

Her smile died.

The champagne bottle slipped from her numb fingers and exploded across the Italian marble in a froth of gold. Grace walked forward on legs that didn’t feel like her own, heels clicking like gunshots, until she reached the archway of the main bedroom.

Ethan was naked on the bed that still had her bridal magazine open on the duvet. His back arched, muscles rippling under sweat-slick skin as the man beneath him—some pretty blond thing with salon-tanned abs—gripped Ethan’s hips and thrust up into him with brutal, animal rhythm. The air reeked of sex: musk and lube and betrayal.

“God, yes—fill me up, baby,” the stranger gasped, voice cracking on a high whine as Ethan slammed down, taking every inch, head thrown back in raw ecstasy. Their bodies moved like they had done this a thousand times—because they had. Grace could see it in the way Ethan’s thighs trembled, the way his cock leaked against the stranger’s stomach, untouched and harder than she had ever made him.

She must have made a sound—a choked, dying animal noise—because Ethan’s head snapped around. For one frozen second, his eyes met hers, pupils blown wide with lust, lips swollen and parted, and then recognition crashed over his face like cold water.

“Grace—”

“You bastard,” she whispered.

The blond twisted to look at her, smirking even as Ethan’s cock was still buried inside him. “Oh. The beard’s here.”

Grace’s hand flew to her mouth, but it was too late—the sob tore out anyway. Ethan pulled out with a wet, obscene sound, scrambling for a sheet that did nothing to hide the glistening lube on his thighs or the way his erection bobbed, angry-red and unsatisfied.

“Grace, wait—”

“Wait?” Her voice cracked like the champagne bottle. “Five days, Ethan. Five days until I walked down an aisle in a dress I let your mother choose, and you’re—” She gestured wildly at the bed, at the stranger now lounging like a satisfied cat. “You’re fucking him in our bed?”

Ethan’s face twisted—guilt, yes, but something colder underneath. “I never wanted you,” he said, flat and cruel. “Not like that. Never like that. This marriage was a merger, Grace. You were the perfect prop—sweet, beautiful, obedient. Daddy’s little princess to keep the investors happy while I—” He glanced at the blond, something tender and real flashing across his face that Grace had never been allowed to see. “While I lived my life.”

The words punched the air from her lungs. She had spent two years believing the brushed-off kisses, the sex that always ended too quickly with apologies and headaches, the way he flinched when she tried to touch him. All of it clicked into place with sickening clarity.

The blond laughed, low and mocking. “Poor little rich girl. Did you actually think he came when he was inside you? He was thinking of me, sweetheart. Always me.”

Rage flared white-hot. Grace lunged, palm swinging for that smug face, but Ethan moved faster. His hand clamped around her wrist hard enough to bruise, and then he shoved—hard. She flew backward, heels skidding on the wet marble, crashing to the floor with a bone-jarring thud that knocked the breath from her.

“Don’t you dare touch him,” Ethan snarled, standing over her like a stranger, protective and feral.

The diamond on her left hand caught the chandelier light—three carats of lies. Grace stared at it, then ripped it off and hurled it at his face. It struck his cheekbone with a satisfying crack before clattering to the floor.

“I hope he fucks you raw every night for the rest of your miserable life,” she spat, voice shaking with tears and fury. “And I hope you choke on it.”

She scrambled up, chest heaving, and ran.

The elevator took too long; she took the stairs instead, forty flights down, lungs burning, tears blinding her until she burst into the underground garage and collapsed against her car. For a long time, she just sat there, forehead pressed to the steering wheel, ugly sobs ripping out of her until there was nothing left but a hollow, echoing ache.

Then the ache changed.

It twisted lower, darker—became something hot and ugly and needy between her thighs. She hated herself for it, but the image was burned into her retinas: Ethan lost in pleasure he had never given her, moaning like a whore for someone else. She had spent years starving in that relationship, begging for scraps of desire that never came. Now she wanted to be devoured and wanted to be punished. Wanted someone—anyone—to grab her by the throat and fuck the memory of Ethan right out of her body until she couldn’t remember her own name.

Her hands shook as she drove to the nearest twenty-four-hour pharmacy, mascara streaking her cheeks like war paint. She bought the cheapest whiskey they had—something that tasted like gasoline and regret—and twisted the cap off in the parking lot, swallowing until her throat burned and the world tilted.

The need was a living thing now, clawing at her skin. She needed to feel wanted so badly it hurt. Needed hands that bruised, a mouth that bit, a cock that didn’t ask permission—just took until she shattered.

She remembered the interview tomorrow morning—three hours away in a city where no one knew her name. A real job. A real chance. Escape.

But tonight—

Tonight, she would burn Ethan out of her like a fever.

Grace slammed the car into drive, tires screeching as she peeled out into the night, half a bottle of whiskey sloshing in the passenger seat and one single, reckless thought pounding through her blood:

Find the darkest bar in the next hotel she saw, walk in wearing the tightest dress she owned, and let the first man who looked at her like prey ruin her completely.

She deserved it.

And for the first time in years, Grace smiled—sharp, broken, and starving.