Chapter 9: Goodbye, My Dignity

Only after his footsteps faded did I realize my whole body was trembling. The elevator dinged in the distance, taking him down and away from the life we’d built on the fortieth floor.

I remembered fifteen years ago, when he raised his hand and swore at our wedding reception: “Honey, I definitely won’t make you regret marrying me.” The band was playing “At Last,” and he’d pulled me close, whispering in my ear.

“If I betray Rachel, may I swallow ten thousand needles.” Drunk on champagne and love, his bow tie undone, looking at me like I’d hung the moon.

Fifteen years had ground that oath to dust. And yet somehow, I was the one choking on the shards.

Yet the suffering of those ten thousand needles manifested in me first.

I clutched my chest, curling up in pain. The silk sheets that had felt like luxury now felt like a shroud.

I made up my mind—since there’s no love left, I’d let go. I’d call my lawyer in the morning. Henderson would know what to do.

My phone suddenly lit up with trending news, the notification bright in the dark:

[Starlet Ashley Monroe Gives Birth Late at Night, Harrison Industries CEO and Mrs. Harrison Senior Spotted in Hospital Room]

I enlarged the photo. Ashley Monroe’s face, still wearing an oxygen mask, was full of surprise and triumph. Michael Harrison’s profile looked at her tenderly, while my mother-in-law held the baby with a loving expression—the same woman who’d never once looked at me that way in fifteen years.

The next moment, two unfamiliar messages came in:

[Sister, watching your own husband have a child with another woman must be killing you, right?]

[Mom said her grandson can’t bear the title of illegitimate child, so you should know when to step aside, shouldn’t you?]

All my attention focused on the word “Mom.”

Back then, my mother-in-law was always dissatisfied because Michael insisted on marrying me. “She’s new money,” she’d hissed at the rehearsal dinner, thinking I couldn’t hear. “Her father made his fortune in tech. No breeding, no class.” After marriage, she wouldn’t let me call her Mom. “Mrs. Harrison will do,” she’d said coldly at our first family dinner.

She never showed me a kind face. Not when I renovated their library with first editions. Not when I organized charity galas that raised millions. Not when I stood by Michael through his father’s heart surgery.

It was Michael who knelt in his parents’ foyer, begging bitterly for a day and night on imported Italian marble.

He’d said, “If the Harrison family can’t accept Rachel, I’ll change my surname to Miller.”

He would’ve left the Harrison family for me. He’d meant it then—or at least I thought he had.

Only then did Mother finally compromise. “Fine,” she’d said. “But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

But now, Ashley Monroe called her Mom, making my fifteen years of effort look like a joke. All those hostile Sunday dinners, backhanded compliments, all that work to earn a place I’d never be given.

But as the city lights flickered outside, I realized—letting go was only the beginning.