When The Jealousy Game Ended

I was born emotionally detached, an island carved out of permafrost, until Conrad thawed me. He was the one who taught me that true love is ferocious and exclusive. The more jealous I was, the happier it made him. To feed that hunger, he would deliberately flirt with other women—young, pretty socialites, baristas, interns. I knew it was theater, so I played my part. I tracked his phone, showed up unannounced, and delivered sharp, territorial warnings to every girl who dared lean into his orbit. Afterwards, he would always quietly wire them a generous compensation check for playing their roles in our twisted little game. Until Cecilia came back from abroad. The moment she saw him, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth. I stepped in, executing my usual performance. I raised a hand and slapped her across the cheek, waiting for Conrad to laugh, pull me into his chest, and coax the manufactured fury out of me. Instead, he slapped a gold-embossed marriage certificate against my chest. "Who gave you permission to lay a hand on her?" His voice was ice. "Have I spoiled you so much you’ve forgotten your place?" I stared down at the document bearing his and Cecilia's names, the black-and-white ink searing my retinas. Only then did the reality strike me like physical blunt trauma: in all the years we had lived together, through every grand promise and every shared bed, he had never actually married me. I knew when I was beaten. I packed my bags and prepared to take our daughter and leave, but Conrad had us intercepted at the airport gate. His security team dragged us back like fugitives. Then he took Daisy from my arms and handed her to Cecilia. "When you learn how to behave," he told me, "you can see your daughter again." From that day on, he and Cecilia were inseparable, parading their domestic bliss in the city’s society pages while I swallowed my pride, living on my knees just to earn a single hour with my child. When he finally granted me permission to see Daisy, I found her burning up in her bedroom. She had been running a fever for three days, untouched, unnoticed, entirely neglected. Panic clawed up my throat. I scooped her limp, shivering body into my arms, desperate to get her to a hospital, when I heard Shepard, his executive assistant, speaking to him in the study just down the hall. "Sir, why didn't you just tell Ms. Grace that the marriage certificate was only a legal shield to help Ms. Cecilia break her family's arranged engagement? Ms. Grace hasn't fought back or caused a scene in weeks. What if... what if she doesn't love you anymore?" Conrad chuckled, a sound soaked in smug, unyielding vanity. "You don't get it. Grace is so thoroughly consumed by me, she’d play along with anything. Besides, seeing her brought so low, watching her crawl through the dirt just to beg for scraps of my affection... it’s intoxicating." I stood in the corridor, holding my burning daughter, felt the blood in my veins turn to sludge. Real love wasn't exclusive. To him, it was merely something you could grind beneath your heel whenever you wanted to feel like a god. If this was love, I wanted no part of it. ... "Mommy, it hurts... everything hurts..." Daisy whined against my collarbone, her cheeks blazing crimson, her tiny body radiating heat like a furnace. Conrad heard the rustle in the hallway and emerged from his study. The moment his eyes landed on me, his posture locked up. But then his gaze flickered to the bay windows, catching the faint reflection of camera lenses flashing through the wrought-iron gates outside, and his expression hardened back into cold detachment. He raised his voice, projecting for an invisible audience: "If you keep sneaking around eavesdropping, Grace, you won't see Daisy for three months." I knew he was staging a show for the tabloid press parked outside, but I could no longer tolerate him using our daughter as a stage prop. Desperate to test what little humanity he had left, I said, "Daisy has a fever. Take us to the hospital. Now." Once upon a time, even the mention of Daisy having a sniffle would reduce this man to frantic tears. Now, he merely sneered. "Stop using our child as a pathetic excuse for your jealousy." A hollow ringing filled my ears. I laughed at myself—at the sheer, pathetic absurdity of my lingering hope. Without another word, I turned and headed for the front door. Watching my retreating silhouette, something flickered behind Conrad’s eyes, a sudden, primal dread. On instinct, he snatched his car keys off the console and stepped forward to take Daisy from my arms. Suddenly, a sharp cry shattered the quiet from the kitchen. "Ah!" Conrad’s grip vanished instantly. He bolted toward the kitchen, abandoning his daughter mid-motion. Daisy slipped from his sudden release, and had Shepard not lunged forward to catch her, she would have cracked her skull on the hardwood floor. Shepard held the trembling child, looking at me with eyes full of pained hesitation. "Ms. Grace, you heard him just now... Mr. Conrad is only—" "Can you drive us to the emergency room, please?" I cut him off, my voice flat, deadened. Shepard nodded hurriedly. As we passed the open kitchen door, I saw Conrad cradling Cecilia’s hand, pressing an ice pack to her skin with infinite, trembling tenderness. That soft, frantic adoration had once belonged solely to me. Now, he was offering it to Cecilia over a patch of skin no larger than a peanut. Forgive my lack of insight, but I saw no secret agony in his face. I saw no performance. I tore my eyes away and followed Shepard out to the driveway. Just as I slid into the backseat and reached to pull the door shut, a violent hand grabbed my arm, yanking me out into the crisp air. "I have to take Cecilia to the ER," Conrad barked. "Her hands are insured for millions. She cannot have a scar on her fingers!" The force of his pull threw me off balance. My ankle twisted with a sickening pop, and I collapsed onto the gravel, dragging Daisy down with me. The edge of her forehead struck the raised brick border of the flowerbed. A dark, swollen lump rose almost instantly beneath her skin, blooming with broken capillaries. Terrified and in agony, she clutched my shirt, trying to cry, but the fever had stripped her of the breath to scream. "Daddy..." she whimpered, her voice a frail rasp. "It hurts..." Conrad froze as he helped Cecilia into the passenger seat of his SUV. He turned, his body tensing as if to rush toward his child. Cecilia let out a sharp, ragged gasp from inside the car. "God, Conrad, it burns so badly!" Seeing the tears spill down Cecilia's cheeks, Conrad abandoned us. He climbed into the driver’s seat, slamming the door, and rolled down the window just enough to bark at Shepard: "Call them a cab." Shepard’s brow knit tight with undisguised horror. "Sir, it takes half an hour to get a ride out to this estate. You could easily take Ms. Grace and Daisy with you—" "Watch your mouth," Conrad snapped, cutting him off. "My wife is sitting right here. Cecilia doesn’t need to share a vehicle with someone who belongs in the shadows." He stepped on the gas. The luxury SUV surged down the driveway, spitting gravel, and vanished past the security gates. From beginning to end, he never looked at our daughter. Not once. This was the man who used to boast that he lived only to serve his wife and worship his child. Now, my ankle was swelling into the size of an apple, and he didn't see it. Daisy’s blood was boiling with fever, and he didn't care. Her head was bruised and bleeding, and he drove away. Or perhaps he saw it all. It just didn't matter. Shepard hailed a private car and rode with us to the hospital. The emergency department was packed wall-to-wall. By the time we made it through the sliding doors, Daisy had begun to mumble incoherently, caught in the throes of febrile delirium. With tears burning my eyes, I begged the triage nurse to fast-track her. The nurse manager stepped forward, blocking my path. Her face was set in a sneer. "Mr. Conrad personally gave instructions. This hospital does not exist to cater to special privileges. We are no longer bending rules for certain people." This was the same head nurse who used to fawn over me every time I set foot in this building, smiling until her cheeks ached. Now, her gaze dripped with disgust, deliberately making sure I understood who the "certain people" were. Unable to watch Daisy suffer, Shepard stepped aside and dialed Conrad’s private line. He put the phone on speaker. Conrad’s voice came through, cold and metallic: "Follow hospital protocol." The line went dead. Shepard stood paralyzed, staring at the blank screen, his face burning with shame. "Ms. Grace, I'm... I'm so sorry..." I gave him a tired, hollow smile. "Don't apologize, Shepard. You did nothing wrong." The only person who owed me an apology was Conrad. I sat in the plastic chairs of the waiting room, holding Daisy tight against my chest for over thirty minutes, completely ignored. Only when her thermometer clicked at 104 degrees Fahrenheit did a nurse finally roll her eyes and push us into an examination room. I had just set Daisy on the paper-lined table when the attending physician’s phone began to chime. He answered. Whatever was said on the other end made him shoot straight up from his stool. "Understood, Mr. Conrad! I’m coming up immediately!" Without a single word of explanation to me, the doctor sprinted out the door. The nurse manager lingered by the jamb, leaning against it with folded arms, her lips curved in cruel amusement. "The actual Mrs. Conrad is upstairs in the burn unit. Her condition requires the team's undivided attention. I'm sure someone in your position can understand priorities, Ms. Grace?" This entire hospital was owned by the Conrad family foundation. I knew precisely why the doctor had vanished. In the past, if I so much as scraped my knee gardening, Conrad would summon every department head to fuss over me like I was dying. If Daisy skipped two bites of her dinner, he would have pediatric specialists running house calls. I didn't dignify the nurse with a reply. I wrapped Daisy back in her blanket, my jaw set, and prepared to transfer her to a city hospital across town. Heartbroken for the child, Shepard hurried to the medication dispensary, using his own credentials to beg for five milliliters of liquid acetaminophen. Just as I uncapped the syringe to get the medicine between Daisy's parched lips, the nurse manager snatched it straight out of my hand. "Every single milliliter in this facility must be accounted for on an active chart," she said coldly. "You aren't admitted here. You have no legal right to touch our medication." Shepard’s temper snapped. "Daisy is Conrad’s biological daughter! If her brain cooks from this fever, he will have your head on a spike—" The nurse manager let out a venomous laugh. "An illegitimate child born out of wedlock? You think the boss cares about that? If he gave a damn, he wouldn't have pulled every pediatrician upstairs to check a finger burn! If you don't want your kid to suffer, pick her up and get out. Stop humiliating yourself here." "Humiliating myself." Coming to the hospital built with money I had helped him manage for nearly a decade was now considered self-humiliation. Ignoring her smirk, I gathered my child in my arms and limped toward the glass exits on my throbbing ankle. Shepard chased after me, reaching out to carry Daisy. "Ms. Grace, please don't listen to her," he pleaded, his voice thick with guilt. "Mr. Conrad is just playing a role. It doesn't mean he stopped loving you..." I looked at him, my eyes dry, empty of tears. "He loves me? So he marries his childhood sweetheart, turns me into a mistress, and leaves me here to be degraded by his staff?" "It’s just a piece of paper," Shepard insisted, though his voice wavered. "He told me he’s filing for divorce in two months. You and Daisy are what matter to him—" Shepard's phone vibrated violently. It was Conrad. "Cecilia wants that artisan peach gelato from downtown," Conrad ordered flatly. "Go pick it up now." "Sir, Ms. Grace and Daisy need help—" "You work for me, Shepard, not the pediatrics ward," Conrad cut him off, ruthless and sharp. "If you want to switch careers, let me know, and I’ll have HR process your severance check by noon." "Sir—" The call was severed. Shepard stood frozen on the pavement. The words "you and Daisy are what matter to him" died forever in his throat. He turned, hurried into the commercial pharmacy on the corner, and bought a bottle of children's fever reducer out of his own pocket. "Ms. Grace, I..." "Go do your job, Shepard," I said gently. I didn't want an innocent man losing his livelihood over Conrad’s pettiness. I administered the syrup to Daisy on the curb, then hailed a yellow cab and gave the driver the address of the nearest public hospital. Halfway there, my phone buzzed. It was Conrad. His voice held no warmth, only irritation. "Fever is a standard part of childhood. Stop throwing tantrums and acting like the world is collapsing! Daisy gets all her dramatic nonsense from you—the moment she’s uncomfortable, she screams and refuses to eat. If Cecilia hadn’t burned herself trying to cook nourishing porridge for that stubborn kid, none of this would have happened! I revoked your VIP privileges at the hospital because Daisy needs to learn the world doesn't revolve around her." The world doesn't revolve around her. This from the man who used to call Daisy his queen, who swore on his life that he would spend every breath being our armor. I looked down at my daughter’s lips, cracked and bleeding from dehydration. The rage that had been coiling in my chest finally snapped. "So you knew she was sick," I whispered, the words shaking with venom. "You knew for three days, and you hid it from me? You let her cook in her own bed for seventy-two hours?" Conrad went quiet for a beat. When he spoke again, his voice was tight with defensive annoyance. "Every kid gets sick. Building immunity is natural. Toughen up." A short, bitter laugh tore out of my throat. "Conrad, whether this is an act, or an arrangement, or your genuine desire—Daisy and I are done playing." "What does that mean?" His tone dropped into a low, threatening growl. "Are you threatening to take my daughter away again?" He sounded outraged, as if I were the villain committing an unspeakable crime. Remembering what he had told Shepard—how intoxicating it was to watch me crawl in the dirt—the grief burned away, leaving behind pure, volcanic disgust. "What else should I do?" I screamed into the receiver. "Stay here and beg on my knees for you to love me? Conrad, what the hell do you think I am?" "Grace! You heard the truth! Why can't you just be sensible?" he yelled back. "You played along with my games for eight years! Why can’t you handle a different script for once?" Just like that, all the rage drained out of me. There was nothing left inside my chest. No anger, no sorrow, just a yawning, grey void. I suddenly realized that it didn't matter whether he was cruel by design or had simply never loved me at all. None of it mattered anymore. The cab pulled up to the emergency bay. Before I could pay the driver, Daisy’s limbs locked, and she began to violently convulse in my arms. The emergency physicians didn't even have time to yell at me for waiting so long; they snatched her from my arms and sprinted down the corridor into the resuscitation room. I stood staring at the flashing red "TRAUMA IN PROGRESS" sign, the hallway spinning violently around me. When a nurse stepped out with a critical condition waiver, demanding my signature because my daughter was in imminent danger of brain damage and respiratory failure, my vision went pitch black. I collapsed onto the linoleum. When I woke, a doctor was administering smelling salts, while a nurse dialed my emergency contact from my cracked phone. The number had been called a dozen times. No one answered. I lifted a trembling hand and pushed the phone down. "Stop calling," I whispered. "He won't pick up." He was the man who once walked out on a multimillion-dollar merger signing because I got a paper cut, letting his corporate partners call fifty times without glancing at the screen. Now, while our child suffocated in the ICU, he was busy buying gelato for another woman. His "performance" had never been for the public. It had always been designed to break me. My fingers shook violently as I signed the resuscitation consent form. The moment the pen touched the paper, my phone chimed on the tray. A text message from Conrad: "Stop throwing public hysterics and disturbing Cecilia’s rest. I sent the doctor back down to the ER." "Once Daisy’s fever breaks, bring her upstairs to apologize to Cecilia." I stared at the glowing pixels. There was no fury. No heartache. Just a quiet, chilling absurdity. By some miracle of medicine, the doctors brought Daisy back from the edge. The attending physician tore into me in the recovery ward: "Ten more minutes, and your little girl would be brain-dead. What kind of parents are you? Leaving a five-year-old in a high-grade fever for three days?" I bent my spine, taking every lash of his words, letting the guilt scour my soul. He was right. If I hadn't loved a monster, my daughter would never have walked into the mouth of hell. But I would not stay a fool. I would never let Conrad touch her life again. Once the fever broke, Daisy recovered her physical strength quickly, but the little girl who woke up was someone else entirely. Before this, bathed in unconditional love, she had been loud, curious, endlessly bright. Now, she clung to my sleeve, watching my every movement with wide, haunted eyes, terrified that if she blinked, I would evaporate. She didn't complain about her head. She didn't ask for ice cream, or toys, or cuddles. She was walking on eggshells around her own mother. I smoothed her hair, keeping my voice gentle. "Daisy, sweetie... did Ms. Cecilia hurt you?" Daisy flinched violently, her small hands instantly flying to cover her upper arms. "No! Mommy, she was nice to me. She was so good to me." Her eyes were wide with terror. It was the rehearsed denial of a battered child. Fighting the nausea rising in my throat, I pulled her gently into my lap, whispering reassurances, trying to pry the truth from her frightened little heart. But the sheer exhaustion claimed her, and she wept herself to sleep, her tiny fingers clenched in the fabric of my shirt like a vise. "Mommy, I'll be good," she whimpered into my chest right before she slipped under. "Please don't throw me away..." Tears spilled down my face. Then, as I carefully shifted her arm to pull up the blanket, her hospital gown slipped back. My breath stopped. Her tiny inner arms were peppered with small, discolored punctures. I called the pediatric nurse immediately. A full-body examination revealed over a hundred puncture wounds—hidden behind her ears, on the soles of her feet, beneath her armpits, between her thighs. Minutes later, a lab tech walked in, holding a fresh blood panel with a grim look. "Ms. Lennox, we found significant traces of pediatric sedatives in her bloodstream... At her age, regular administration of these drugs causes severe cognitive impairment and organ failure..." A high-pitched ringing consumed my ears. Daisy hadn't fallen ill from a random virus. She had been poisoned, tortured, and sedated into silence. Rage, pure and blinding, overtook every rational thought. I dialed Conrad's number. He let it ring out. I dialed 911 without hesitation. Then, I took high-resolution photos of every needle mark on my daughter’s flesh, attached the toxicology report, and sent them to Conrad's phone. "I called the police." Three seconds later, Conrad’s call tore through my screen. "Grace, are you out of your goddamn mind? You abuse our daughter, try to pin it on Cecilia, and now you file a false police report?" "I already explained to you—marrying Cecilia was just a temporary legal fiction! We're getting divorced as soon as the trust clears! How could you torture our own child just to manipulate me into coming home?" The words struck me with such force I couldn't breathe. I couldn't fathom how the man who had claimed to worship the ground I walked on could harbor such putrid thoughts. "Conrad... is that really who you think I am?" "Who else would do it?" he sneered. "You’ve always been emotionally dead inside! You have no empathy! It doesn’t surprise me one bit that you’d do something this sick!" A laugh bubbled up from my throat, raw and broken, spilling over into wet tears. I was cold? He had forgotten how he fell in love with me. He had chased me for two years because he saw me caring for stray animals behind our university dorms, declaring to the world that a woman who loved broken creatures had the purest heart on earth. To get close to me, he had sneezed through severe pet dander allergies just to pour kibble into bowls by my side. Now, I was a heartless sadist who poisoned her own flesh and blood. "I spoiled you too much," Conrad declared, his voice hard as slate. "I'm having my team take Daisy into protective custody. My daughter is my bottom line." "I won't press charges against you for filing a false report; I'll save you that humiliation. But until Cecilia and I sign our divorce papers, you and I are finished." He was right about one thing: we were finished. Daisy was my bottom line, too. I wiped the wetness from my cheeks. "Fine." The police arrived swiftly, took our statements, photographed the injuries, and issued summonses for Conrad and Cecilia. After entrusting Daisy to the head of pediatrics, I went down to the precinct to follow up on the investigation. The moment I stepped through the precinct doors, two officers grabbed my wrists, snapping cold steel handcuffs over my hands. "Grace Lennox, you are under arrest for felony child abuse, administration of dangerous substances, and filing a false emergency report. Do you have anything to say?" I struggled against the metal. "I am her mother! I was the one who brought her to the hospital!" A detective slammed a thick manila folder onto the interrogation desk. "The evidence is air-tight. You still want to lie?" I looked down at the documents. There were forged receipts of sedatives purchased under my name, doctored nanny cam footage showing me holding a syringe near Daisy's bed, and written statements signed by Conrad's household staff. I lifted my head, catching sight of Conrad standing near the observation glass. "You forged these?" He avoided my eyes, turning to the detective with an air of noble magnanimity. "Officer, drop the charges. The child survived. As her father, I decline to press charges." The detective frowned. "Child endangerment and fabricating emergency reports are state offenses. We cannot dismiss felony abuse charges based on personal discretion—unless you're telling us this evidence is fraudulent?" Faced with perjury and criminal charges of his own, Conrad went dead silent. Before they transferred me to county holding, he requested two minutes in the hallway. "Grace," he muttered, keeping his distance, "I’ll hire the best defense team in the state. I’ll make sure you do no more than sixty days." "By the time you're out, my divorce from Cecilia will be finalized. You won't need to hurt Daisy out of jealousy anymore." "The day you walk out, we’ll go straight to city hall. We’ll get married. Everything will go back to the way it was." Two months in a cell, while my daughter remained in the clutches of that psychopath? My knees hit the linoleum with a sickening thud. I knelt before him, looking up into his face. "I didn't hurt Daisy. It was Cecilia. Conrad, I swear to God, it was Cecilia!" "Just tell the truth. Tell them the files are fake. I won't sue you for framing me. Marry Cecilia, stay with her forever, do whatever you want—just don't leave Daisy with her!" Seeing me on my knees, Conrad’s eyes rimmed red. For a fraction of a second, I thought the phantom of the man who loved me had returned. Then he looked away, taking Cecilia's hand into his own. "Cecilia is pure and kind. She would never do something so monstrous." He turned and walked away, leading her out into the sunlight. Whether I had abused Daisy or not, the only witness who could clear me was my daughter. I petitioned the court to let Daisy testify, only to be informed that Conrad had already flown her out of the country on a private jet. I tried to hire independent legal counsel. Every firm in the city turned me away. One attorney finally took pity on me, leaning across his desk to whisper: "Ms. Lennox, no one in this town is going to ruin their career by defending a mistress against Conrad's legal powerhouse." On the day of the hearing, the judge handed down a sixty-day sentence. During those sixty days behind bars, Conrad never once visited. Only Shepard came, sneaking in during the fifth week. "Ms. Lennox, I can’t do much, but I swear Daisy isn't living with Cecilia. She’s with private tutors and nannies at the coastal lodge. You know my family’s situation... my mother's dialysis..." To risk his job just to sit across from me in a visitor's booth was already more grace than I had any right to ask of him. Knowing Daisy was away from Cecilia gave me the strength to endure the damp, cold nights in that cell. The morning of my release, Conrad was supposed to take Cecilia to the county clerk’s office to file their final dissolution papers. Instead, Cecilia collapsed on the marble floor of their penthouse, clutching her abdomen, screaming in agony. Swallowing his burning irritation, Conrad dragged her to the nearest hospital, barking orders into his headset for Shepard: "Pick up Grace at the gate. Drive her directly to the clerk’s office and tell her to wait for me." By the time Shepard arrived at the prison gates, I had already been discharged an hour earlier. I took a rideshare straight to Daisy’s private preschool, signed the withdrawal paperwork, took my daughter by the hand, and hailed a cab to the international terminal.