Chapter 4

Back at the apartment, I called Linda over to help me haul out the rest of what I'd packed. Boxes filled the living room, stacked chest-high.

We made trip after trip down to the dumpsters outside. By the time we finished, the apartment looked hollowed out. Stripped.

Linda stood in the middle of it, shaking her head.

"Two months ago, you were dragging me out for drinks because he'd finally said yes. And now—" She let the sentence hang. "I honestly thought when you said the wedding was off, you were joking."

"I watched you chase this guy half your life. What the hell happened? Why are you actually letting go?"

Something about the fact that I was leaving made me want to tell her. I told her everything—every single thing that had happened in the past month. Isobel. The baby. All of it.

Linda swore loudly when I finished.

"You bent over backwards for that asshole for twenty years, and he knocks up another woman before your wedding? And he expected you to sign off on it? What the actual hell is wrong with him?"

I looked down, swallowing the bitterness.

"He said Isobel saved his life. Said he owed her this."

Linda's face twisted with fury.

"Nina. You saved his life. You're his life debt. How the hell does he justify this?"

I didn't answer.