Chapter 8
She lay naked on top of me, eerily calm. "Jasmine, do you know how much I've envied you since college?"
"I envied your privileged background, your perfect family."
"I envied your educated parents, the province you were born in."
"Do you have any idea how hard I worked in middle and high school just to get into the same university as you?"
"Your grades wouldn’t even get you into a community college in my province. But because of your family, your personality, you were always the golden girl everyone adored."
"I’m just as pretty as you. My personality isn’t worse than yours. I worked ten times harder."
"But after all that effort, I ended up with a personal trainer boyfriend."
"While you got a trust fund baby who worships you, loves you, tolerates you—who actually understands you!"
"Why does someone from his world love you so much?"
"Why does every good thing in life just fall into your lap?"
"And now, even after everything I’ve done—"
"You still flaunt it in my face, talking about how your husband will apologize? Why?"
"My life is already ruined."
"No matter what I do, I’ll never have the happiness you have."
"So the only thing left is to drag you down with me."
"Don’t worry—even if you bite my hand to shreds, I won’t let go. If the police come, even better. Let them see you surrounded by these lowlives—"
Epilogue
Turns out, I really am the golden girl.
At the most critical moment, one of the men actually fought Derek.
Rumor was, he’d just come to pay for sex.
But when it turned into a "conspiracy to rape," he refused to participate.
Not only did he back out—
He physically stopped the others from touching me, terrified of being implicated if things escalated.
During the struggle, a neighbor knocked on the door. The man’s loud protests froze the others in place.
Then the police arrived.
Every one of them was arrested. My husband held me so tightly I could barely breathe.
That strong, composed man broke down sobbing when he saw me. He kept saying how terrified he’d been, how he’d feared the worst.
He swore it didn’t matter what had happened—he’d love me no matter what. We could move cities, start over.
I was still dazed.
The police hadn’t even told him I hadn’t been assaulted yet.
And there he was, pouring his heart out all over again.