The private after-party was held in the hotel’s exclusive penthouse lounge, where the lighting was dim, warm, and heavy with the hum of bass.
My feet ached pleasantly from hours in high heels, but surrounded by the soft glow of city lights, I felt completely weightless.
Oliver guided me onto the small, crowded dance floor, his arms sliding seamlessly around my waist.
I rested my hands on his shoulders, sinking into his warmth as we swayed to the slow, heavy rhythm of the music.
“Tired, my love?” he whispered against my temple, his breath warm against my skin.
“A little,” I murmured, looking up into his clear, blue eyes.
“But I don’t want the night to end.” He smiled, a gentle, tender expression that made my heart flutter just as it had on our very first date.
“Stay right here.
I’ll get us a glass of water, or maybe a nightcap to finish the evening.” I watched him walk over to the private bar.
Even from behind, he moved with an easy, magnetic confidence.
Moments later, he returned, handing me a crystal tumbler filled with a dark, amber liquid and a slice of orange.
“To us,” Oliver said softly, touching his glass to mine with a faint clink.
“To our first year, and the rest of our lives.” I took a long sip.
The drink was sweet, slightly bitter, and went down warm.
Within minutes, a strange, heavy fog began to roll into the back of my mind.
The low hum of the lounge sounded muffled, as if I were under water.
My eyelids grew impossibly heavy, and my balance faltered slightly as I took a step toward the couch.
“Oliver…” I mumbled, my tongue feeling thick and clumsy.
“I think…
the champagne caught up to me.” “I’ve got you,” his voice was instantly there, calm and steady.
Before my knees could buckle, Oliver’s strong arm was around my waist, supporting my full weight.
He smoothly excused us from the small group of guests nearby, guiding me toward the private elevator reserved for the presidential suites.
By the time the elevator doors slid shut, the room was spinning.
I leaned my forehead against his chest, my senses dulled, every limb feeling heavy and detached.
I felt him stroke my hair, his touch as tender as ever.
“Shh, you’re fine,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head.
“Just a little too much excitement.
I’ll take care of you.” The journey to the suite was a blur of soft carpets, muffled hallway lights, and the click of an electronic lock.
I barely remembered my shoes coming off or the heavy silk dress being carefully unzipped.
Oliver lifted me onto the plush, king-sized bed, pulling the crisp white duvet up to my shoulders.
He leaned over, brushing a stray lock of hair away from my face, his features soft in the dim glow of the bedside lamp.
“Sleep, Gabriella,” he murmured softly, pressing a lingering kiss to my forehead.
“You’ve had a long night.” I tried to say thank you, to reach out and pull him down beside me, but the heavy darkness swallowed me whole, dropping me into a deep, dreamless sleep.
——— A dry, metallic bitterness coated my tongue, clinging to the back of my throat like ash.
I groaned, my eyelids feeling like lead as I forced them open.
The room was bathed in the pale, blue light of pre-dawn.
My skull vibrated with a dull, rhythmic hammer, a blinding ache throbbing right behind my temples.
I rolled over, reaching instinctively across the cold silk sheets for Oliver.
His side of the bed was empty.
Unpressed.
Cold.
“Oliver?” my voice came out as a raspy, cracked whisper.
No answer.
Only the low, steady hum of the suite’s central air conditioning.
My throat felt like sandpaper.
Needing water, I dragged myself upright, the room tilting dangerously for a disorienting second.
I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress, resting my head in my hands until the vertigo settled.
It didn’t make sense.
I had only had one glass of champagne and that single nightcap Oliver gave me—how was my head pounding this viciously?
Shakily standing up, my bare feet sank into the plush carpet as I navigated the dim room toward the wet bar.
I poured a glass of still water, my hand trembling so badly the crystal rattled against the pitcher.
I downed it in desperate gulps, but the bitter, chemical aftertaste lingering on my palate wouldn’t wash away.
As I put the glass down, a faint flicker of light caught my eye.
It was coming from the far corner of the master bedroom—from the heavy oak connecting door.
I froze.
My brow furrowed in confusion.
When Oliver booked the presidential suite, the hotel had assured us the connecting door to the adjacent executive suite would be deadbolted from both sides for total privacy.
We hadn’t booked two suites.
It should have been locked tight.
Yet, the door stood ajar by a fraction of an inch, spilling a narrow ribbon of warm, yellow light onto the floorboards.
And through the crack, low, muffled voices drifted into the quiet room.
My limbs felt like lead, every muscle fighting against the heavy, unnatural fog clouding my mind.
Why can’t I move?
What was in that drink?
Each step toward the connecting door was a battle against my own uncooperative body.
My pulse thudded violently in my ears, a frantic, warning rhythm that drowned out the throbbing ache in my skull.
The strip of yellow light expanded as I dragged my bare feet across the carpet, my fingers brushing the cold wood of the frame to keep my balance.
The muffled noises from the other side sharpened, shedding all ambiguity.
“Fuck, you’re so fucking good…” The voice was unmistakable.
Rich, low, and breathless.
It was the same voice that had whispered vows in a candlelit cathedral, the same voice that had promised me forever over a restored vintage timepiece just two nights ago.
No.
No, I’m hallucinating.
I’m dreaming.
“Right there, baby…
yes…” A woman’s high-pitched, breathless groan answered him, slick and wet, followed by the wet rhythm of skin striking skin.
Please, God, let me be asleep.
Wake up.
Just wake up, Gaby.
The air sliding under the ajar door didn’t smell like the white orchids and crisp linen of our suite.
It hit the back of my throat like poison—thick with the acrid, heavy reek of cheap weed, stale sweat, and the unmistakable, metallic musk of bodies tangled in the dark.
My hand trembled violently as I pushed the door open another fraction of an inch, peeking through the crack.
The heavy, sweet stench of marijuana hit me first—thick, acrid smoke hanging in the warm air, coating my throat with a wave of nausea.
But the smell was nothing compared to the sight that tore my world down to its foundations.
My pulse hammering a frantic, deafening rhythm against my eardrums.
“Fuck, you’re so fucking good—take it, take every inch—” There was no romance here.
No candlelight.
Just the harsh, fluorescent glare of the hotel maintenance lights cutting across the mattress.
Oliver’s back was slick with sweat, muscles corded and heaving as he drove into her with a raw, ugly mechanical rhythm that sounded nothing like the gentle man who had kissed my forehead an hour ago.
Oliver wasn’t alone.
He was stripped bare, his body entangled in a tangled mesh of limbs and tangled sheets with three other people.
“Right there!
Fuck, yes—harder, you bastard!” And right beneath him, her fingers clawed into his back as she arched into his rhythm, was Sienna.
Her hair tangled in a greasy mess against the pillows.
A man I didn’t know had his cock in Sienna’s mouth, thick and wet, her lips stretched around him while she moaned through it.
Another woman—dark hair, was on her knees beside the bed, her mouth on Oliver’s balls, one hand working the stranger’s thigh.
Limbs everywhere.
Sheets twisted under hips and knees.
A sheen of sweat on every back.
The fluorescent maintenance light made it all crude and bright.
Sienna.
The woman who had straightened my veil on my wedding day.
The friend who, just hours ago, had touched the necklace on my throat and called my life a fairytale.
Sienna pulled off the cock in her mouth with a wet pop and laughed—that bright, musical giggle I had trusted for years—now dripping with a lazy, venomous cruelty.
“God, you’re amazing,” Sienna gasped out, her head rolling back against the pillows, her golden dress discarded on the floor like trash.
Oliver let out a low, guttural laugh, pressing his mouth against Sienna’s exposed neck—the exact same spot he had kissed mine earlier that evening.
“Told you she’d be out cold,” he murmured against Sienna’s skin, his hands moving with practiced, shameless familiarity over her body.
“That extra dose in her glass buys us all night.” He drugged me.
The realization hit me like a physical blow, knocking the air clean out of my lungs.
My mind reeled, spinning out of control as the golden illusion of my life shattered into millions of jagged, unfixable pieces.
The attentive husband.
The protective partner.
The fairytale marriage.
It was all a hollow, disgusting lie.
I stood frozen in the shadows, my hand pressed against my mouth to choke back a sob, watching the man I loved lose himself in the lawless, degrading frenzy of the room.
“You are such a bad husband, Oliver,” Sienna giggled, her voice dripping with lazy, intoxicated malice.
Oliver didn’t even pause his rhythm.
He let out a harsh, breathless scoff that sounded nothing like the polished, gentle man I had loved for two years.
“I’m protecting her,” Oliver shot back, his tone casual, almost dismissive.
“Gabriella doesn’t have the guts for this kind of lifestyle.
She’s so fucking obedient and boring.
Perfect to show off on a red carpet, but in real life?
Zero edge.
She’d cry if she saw half of what goes on in this city.” Sienna threw her head back and laughed, a cruel, ringing sound that sliced right through my chest.
“Obedient and boring.
God, if only her Vogue fans knew.” … Obedient.
Boring.
… The words echoed in my mind, louder than the throbbing ache in my skull.
Three years.
Three years of moulding myself into your idea of the perfect, supportive wife.
Three years of playing your sweet, gentle muse.
Everything I had built my life upon was reduced to a joke between my husband and my best friend while I lay drugged in the next room.
A wave of cold, violently intense nausea rolled over me.
My chest cracked wide open.
The drug in my veins suddenly felt less like a heavy fog and more like liquid ice, freezing my blood, my breath, and every single memory I had ever built on the lie of his love.
As Sienna shifted, the motion caught the door, nudging it open just an inch further.
The faint creak cut through the heavy air.
Oliver turned his head toward the crack.
His eyes met my wide, terrified gaze standing frozen in the dark.
His expression instantly froze.
The smug, predatory satisfaction vanished, replaced by a sudden, jagged flash of panic.
“Fuck—” Oliver gasped, abruptly backing away from Sienna and scrambling to pull the silk sheet over his waist.
“Gaby?” Sienna barely bothered to cover herself, leaning back against the headboard with a slow, smug smirk spreading across her lips.
She looked at my pale, trembling form in the doorway, completely unbothered by the exposure.
“Gaby, wait—it’s not—you’re not supposed to be awake,” Oliver stammered, his usual smooth, controlling demeanor crumbling into frantic excuses as he tried to untangle himself from the bed.
“Listen to me, you’re confused, the drink—” “Oh, don’t be such a prude, Oliver,” Sienna interrupted smoothly, resting her chin in her hand, her eyes locked on me with a sickening, playful glint.
“She’s awake now.
Why not invite her in?
Don’t be shy, Gaby.
Come join us.
It’s much more fun than playing house.” A wave of intense, overwhelming bile rose in my throat.
The air felt toxic, thick with weed, sweat, and betrayal.
I couldn’t speak.
I couldn’t breathe.
Turning on my bare heels, I stumbled backward into the dark master bedroom.
“Gaby!
Stop!
Get back here!” Oliver’s commanding voice barked behind me, the heavy thud of his feet hitting the floor echoing as he gave chase.
Panic flooded my system, overriding the fog in my limbs.
I sprinted toward the main entrance of the suite, yanked open the heavy door, and bolted out into the cold, empty corridor, running as fast as my legs could carry me away from the nightmare.