Chapter 1

We drove back from the bridal boutique with my dress in the back seat.

Nicholas reached over and smoothed my hair the way he always did — easy, automatic, like breathing.

Then he said it.

"You know how it is with girls her age. Too stubborn to give anything without a ring first." He smiled at the windshield. "I chased her for almost six months. Yesterday I finally got what I was after."

I went cold from the hands outward.

"Right where you're sitting, actually." His voice was indulgent, fond, replaying something. "She put up a bit of a fight at first, then melted completely."

I followed his gaze to the windshield.

Two handprints in the condensation. One large. One small. Overlapping.

Something lurched up my throat.

I gripped the seat belt until my fingers went white.

He cupped my bloodless face in one hand, genuinely puzzled. "Why are you crying? You're still my wife."

His eyes were full of the same warmth they always were.

As if he hadn't just finished telling me he'd legally married someone else.

As if the woman whose perfume still lingered in his car wasn't a stranger.

The disconnect was so complete it made the world tilt.

I couldn't breathe.

He sighed — patient, like someone soothing an unreasonable child. "I know this is hard. But she's sensitive, and if I'd gone through with our wedding she would have cried all day. She's different from other girls. She's pure. She only wanted commitment, and after six months I owe her that. You've always been the understanding one. You get it, right?"

Six months.

We had spent six months planning our wedding.

He had meticulously arranged every detail I'd asked for — the venue, the flowers, the invitations. While somewhere I couldn't see, he had been spending equal energy on someone else.

I curled my frozen fingers into my palm and closed my eyes.

"Since you've married someone else," I said, "let's be done."

He stared. Then he laughed — light, dismissive. "Stop being dramatic."

"You were eighteen when you came to me. You lost two pregnancies for me." His tone was matter-of-fact. "Who out there is going to want you if you leave?"

I looked at him.

My chest felt like something red-hot had been dragged across it.

Ten years. We had lived under a bridge. Shared a single cup of instant noodles. There had been nights we drank water to feel full because there was nothing else.

Because we had no money. No contraception. No options.

In the middle of winter, I had done what I had to do to end both pregnancies. Alone. In the cold. I had cried until I had nothing left and lost them both.

Nicholas had knelt at my bedside and driven a knife into his own stomach. Twice. Bleeding hands pressed over my eyes, voice shaking against my ear:

"Peyton, I will give you everything. I swear on my life. If I ever betray you, may I never know a moment's peace."

The promise had weight. I had lived by it for a decade.

And now here he was, undone by a girl he'd known for six months.

I didn't understand how someone who had loved me that much could simply rot.

His phone rang. A specific ringtone — one I'd heard many times late at night, always explained away as a client.

I'd believed him. Every time.

I understood now how foolish that was.

He didn't answer immediately. His voice was calm, the tone he used to manage a mild inconvenience. "Don't pick a fight with something I do on the side. We have ten years. Are you really throwing that away over one document?"

"You're not young anymore, Peyton. No family, no job, just me. Push this any further and it stops being worth it."

He pulled over. "Get a cab home. I need to go pick her up. Think about what I said."

The car door shut. Like a slap.

I watched his taillights disappear.

Then I bent over at the side of the road and retched until there was nothing left, crying the whole time.

Nicholas was wrong about one thing. A man doesn't marry something he uses for entertainment.

That certificate — the one I'd waited ten years for and never received.

Real love doesn't disappear. It just finds someone new to land on.

I stared at the grey sky, chest hollow and whistling with wind.

Then I picked up my phone and made a call I'd been holding off on for a very long time.