Chapter 1
On the night of my birthday party, my husband, Edward Hudson, made a point of spending the night with his secretary and never came home.
I knew he hated me for getting drunk that night and ending up pregnant with someone else's child.
But the truth was, it wasn't someone else. It was him who stumbled into my room, drunk out of his mind.
No matter how many times I tried to explain, he refused to believe the baby was his.
I thought that once the baby was born, I'd do a paternity test and he'd finally see the truth.
But three months later, while trying to save him, I lost the baby, and with it, my ability to ever have another child.
Instead of showing any gratitude, he laughed and said, "Serves you right. A woman like you doesn't deserve to be a mother anyway."
What he didn't know was that I hadn't just lost my child and my future as a mother.
I was about to lose my life, too.
*****
I looked at the table packed with dishes—every single one of them was Edward's favorite—and let out a long breath.
This was supposed to be my birthday dinner.
Edward hadn't come home at all last night.
I sat alone in the living room until sunrise, reheating the food over and over again.
The clock hands crawled from eight at night to eight in the morning, and with every minute that passed, whatever hope I had left disappeared.
I finally stood up, ready to dump everything in the trash.
But the moment I straightened, my vision went dark. I collapsed before I even knew what was happening.
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital room.
Edward had been texting someone, smiling at his screen, but the second he heard movement, his face shifted like he'd been forced into a role he hated.
He snapped, "Cut it out. Faking sick won't get you any sympathy from me. I hope this is the last time you pull something like this."
He dropped the takeout box he'd brought—now cold and soggy—onto the bedside table.
A second later, his phone started ringing with a ringtone he'd set just for her.
A sugary-sweet voice filled the room. "Eddie, I burned my hand."
The woman on the other end sounded like she was pouting.
Edward didn't even glance at me. He stood up right away.
He said, "I told you not to cook by yourself. See? You hurt yourself again."
His tone was so gentle it barely sounded like him.
He used to talk to me like that, too.
My eyes stung, and my fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.
Edward added, "What do you want to eat? I'll bring something back for you. You're allergic to seafood, right?"
His voice faded as he walked out.
I looked down at the takeout box he'd tossed aside. Inside was an onion steak.
A tear fell straight into it.
He remembered Bella's seafood allergy.
He forgot mine.
Bella Wright was his secretary.
I'd assumed she would come and go like all the women before her.
But I was wrong.
It had already been close to a year.
I opened her Instagram. It didn't take long to find her newest post.
The picture showed a table covered with dishes—maybe thirty or forty different plates.
Everything was beautifully arranged, stacked like something out of an over-the-top food show.
Her caption sounded playfully coy: [He said he didn't know what I liked, so he told the chef to make one of everything. Love can be such a sweet problem.]
She wanted me to see it. And the location tag made it worse—she was posting from my home.
A sharp pain twisted through my chest.
My stomach churned like it was flipping upside down.
I tapped "like", dropped my phone on the bed, and forced myself to get discharged.
*****
When I got home, the first thing I saw was clothes strewn across the floor.
Heat shot straight to my head.
I was about to storm in and confront the two of them when my Labrador limped toward me on three legs, tail wagging weakly.
That was when I saw it: a long, ugly gash on his back.
The blood had dried into a dark crust, and the wound looked like something sharp—a high heel—had been driven into him.
I froze, then scooped him up in a panic, tears blurring my eyes. "Lucky, what happened to you? Just hang on, I'll take you to the vet—"
I didn't even finish before a sharp voice cut me off. "Why are you crying?"
Edward walked out of the bedroom with Bella in his arms, both of them half-dressed.
Bella hid behind him like some frightened little dove. "I only kicked the dog because it tried to bite me. I got scared, that's all."
My eyes burned with anger, and for a second, I wanted nothing more than to claw that smug look off her face.
I snapped, "Lucky's always been gentle. He would never—"
"Shut up." Edward glared at me like I had ruined his fun.
His voice was sharp with annoyance. "He's just a damn animal. If he dies, that's his own fault. If you want to cry, go cry outside."
Bang!
The master bedroom door slammed shut right in my face.
Perfect. Just perfect.
He had disappeared all night, and now he was openly bringing another woman home.
Edward, did you really decide I no longer exist?