Six years after Anthony Henson died in a car accident because of me, I was still unmarried at thirty.

My elders were anxious. My friends urged me to move on. Even in my dreams, he begged me to keep going.

So I agreed to a blind date. On Memorial Day, I went to say goodbye to him one last time.

But the moment I stepped out of the cemetery, a post popped up on my feed.

Sixth anniversary! My husband just bought me another luxury condo!

I stared at the photo, trembling from head to toe, my scalp prickling with ice.

In the picture, the man I had buried with my own hands was pressing his cheek tenderly against the top of another woman's head.

I followed the address and knocked on the door. The instant our eyes met, I froze where I stood.

The woman was Victoria Mason. The same secretary Anthony Henson had fired six years ago for having an affair with him.

——

Victoria's face flickered with panic.

"Nora Whitfield..."

She tried to slam the door shut, but I braced my hand against it.

Just then, voices drifted from the elevator lobby. Anthony's friends, talking among themselves.

"Anthony's been married six whole years, and that girl is still drowning in grief over his death. She's thirty now and hasn't married anyone."

"I heard she finally agreed to a blind date a while back. Guess she's ready to let go."

"I'm just saying, what Anthony pulled was brutal. Back then, the only reason he sped onto that overpass was because Victoria sent him an explicit photo and he lost his mind. But he let Nora believe he'd been rushing to celebrate her birthday."

"She tried to kill herself more than once because of the guilt."

"Well, at least she agreed to the blind date. She'll probably be married soon enough."

"Keep it down. Don't let Anthony hear..."

They rounded the corner and met my eyes. Every voice died at once.

John Dickerson, Anthony's oldest friend, couldn't hold my gaze.

"Nora, what are you doing here..."

From inside the apartment came a voice I knew better than my own heartbeat.

"Babe, are John and the guys here yet?"

That familiar voice punched through me. My breath seized. My heart nearly stopped.

I spun around. Anthony Henson stood there, holding a bouquet of neatly trimmed flowers, whole and alive and untouched by death.

When he saw me, his body went rigid. Something shattered behind his eyes.

I looked past him to the banner stretched across the living room wall. A bitter smile twisted my lips, and I read it aloud, word by word.

"'To my beloved wife. Happy sixth anniversary.'"

"You've been doing just fine, haven't you, Anthony."

Anthony pulled Victoria behind him on instinct, shielding her. His expression tightened with something close to shame.

Everyone else stood frozen. The silence was suffocating.

Six years ago, Anthony had raced onto an overpass in a downpour to make it to my birthday before midnight. His car went off the bridge and into the ocean.

By the time I got there, he was nothing but an urn.

The guilt consumed me. The grief ate me alive. Over and over, I told myself: if I hadn't made such a fuss about his affair, he never would have been out there trying to make it up to me.

The day he was buried, I clung to his headstone and cried until I blacked out.

In the years that followed, I missed him so badly I couldn't sleep. I'd go to the cemetery alone and sit there until dawn.

At my lowest, I tried to end my life right there at his grave. A groundskeeper found me in time. That was the only reason I survived.

Never, not once, did I imagine that all of it had been a scheme. That he'd shed his old life like a snake sheds its skin and walked away clean.

I picked up a framed photo from the table. Two people standing shoulder to shoulder beneath the northern lights. My eyes burned so fiercely the pain lanced straight through my chest.

"Nice wedding photos. Iceland?"

Back when Anthony and I were engaged, Victoria had been his secretary, involved in every detail of the planning.

Once, while I was agonizing over where to shoot our wedding photos, she had offered a careful suggestion.

"I think Iceland would be perfect. Every aurora only appears once and never again. It symbolizes something truly one of a kind."

Anthony had smiled at that and said it was a wonderful idea.

But not long after, I found a lipstick in his car that didn't belong to me.

I followed the trail of clues until I uncovered its owner: Victoria Mason.

I insisted on calling off the engagement. He responded by standing on the ledge of an eighteen-story building.

"Nora, if you call off this engagement, I'll jump."

My heart caved instantly. I gave him a chance to end things with her cleanly.

He erased every trace. Fired Victoria. Went to every length to make it up to me.

He even died in an accident because of me.

Or so I'd believed. Because now he was standing right in front of me, alive and breathing, with a home built alongside the very woman he'd sworn was out of his life for good.

A bitter laugh scraped out of my throat. I grabbed the framed wedding photo and hurled it to the ground.

Glass exploded across the floor. Victoria shrieked, clutching her face where a shard had sliced her skin.

"Nora, could you stop acting like a lunatic?!"

Anthony's eyes went red. He was screaming at me.

I let out a hollow, self-mocking laugh. My voice was raw, scraping like sandpaper.

"I'm the lunatic? You're right. I am!"

"For six years after you died, I lived like one every single day!"

Anthony's chest heaved violently, his eyes bloodshot, his tone thick with accusation.

"Back then, I was ready to die. You're the one who wouldn't let me!"

"I did everything you asked! But you refused to let it go. You kept holding it over my head, tormenting me!"

"Do you have any idea how exhausting it was to live like that?"

My palm cracked across his face. The impact jolted through my wrist, and tears spilled before I could stop them.

"Anthony Henson, you were the one who cheated! You were the one who lied to me!"

"How dare you stand there and say I tormented you? That you had it hard?"

Victoria dropped to her knees in front of me, eyes glistening with tears.

"Nora, please stop fighting. This is all my fault."

"I'm the shameless one. I'm the disgusting one. I'm the one who seduced Anthony."

"He kept every promise he made to you. I was the one who wouldn't let go."

"I'll divorce him right away."

She pressed a hand to her lower belly, her voice trembling with pained reluctance.

"As for the baby... I'll get rid of it."

Joy lit up every corner of Anthony's face.

"Victoria, you're pregnant?"

My chest seized. It felt like a fist had closed around my heart and was crushing it, squeezing until my entire body went rigid.

Victoria pushed Anthony away as he moved toward her, shrinking back.

"The doctor said it's barely over a month. If I terminate now, it's nothing more than a clump of cells."

"I'll walk away with nothing. I'll give you the signed divorce papers."

"Just... make things right with Nora."

The moment the words left her mouth, she bolted for the door without a second's hesitation.

Anthony's face drained of color. He moved to chase after her.

I stepped in front of him on instinct, wanting an explanation, but he shoved me hard.

"Nora!"

His eyes were full of revulsion. His voice, ice.

"No matter how big a scene you make, this is between the two of us!"

"Ever since you threatened her six years ago, Victoria has suffered from severe depression. The slightest emotional trigger and she does something drastic."

"I spent years nursing her back to health. And now you want to destroy her out of pure spite?"

"If anything happens to her, I will never forgive you."

The shove threw me off balance. My body pitched backward, out of control, and the back of my neck dragged across a shard of broken glass. Warm blood seeped out, wet and spreading.

Right before everything went black, I heard John talking to Anthony.

"Anthony, Nora's bleeding badly!"

"Call an ambulance and dump her at the hospital. Clean this up. Victoria can't handle the sight of blood."

I drifted awake to the sound of nurses whispering in the room.

"Miss Mason only had a little scare with the baby, and her husband moved her straight into a VIP suite. He's been by her side the whole time, terrified something might happen to her."

"And then there's this one. The glass nearly hit her carotid artery. Do you know how close that was? She's been awake for a while now, and not a single person has come to see her. It's just sad."

"How can two people's lives be so different?"

After the door clicked shut, I slowly opened my eyes and let out a bitter laugh.

My hand drifted to the gauze on my neck. Tears slid down my cheeks. I wiped them away and swung my legs off the bed to go find the billing desk.

I had barely sat up when Anthony shoved the door open and stormed in. He seized my wrist, his voice ice-cold.

"Nora, what the hell are you trying to do?"

"Lying to you was my decision. Victoria had nothing to do with it!"

"If you have a problem, take it up with me. Why did you have the media drag her name through the mud online, calling her a homewrecker?"

"She just woke up, saw those posts, and got so worked up she nearly jumped off the balcony. Did you know that?!"

His grip was brutal. The color drained from my already pale face.

I wrenched my wrist free with every ounce of strength I had and fired back.

"Anthony, I never did anything like that!"

He let out a contemptuous scoff and shoved his phone in my face.

The screen was flooded with posts calling Victoria Mason the other woman.

Henson Group's wife Victoria Mason — a mistress who clawed her way to the top.

Beyond that, there were lengthy threads detailing how Anthony Henson had faked his own death and spun an elaborate web of lies to deceive his girlfriend, all for the sake of his mistress.

Henson Group's stock had been in freefall ever since.

And the outlet that had broken the story was the same one where my best friend used to work.

Anthony's eyes were glacial, his tone dripping with mockery.

"Still denying it? Your little friend worked right there, didn't she?"

"When it comes to you, she's always been the first to charge in without a second thought."

I stood frozen, struggling to explain through the frustration choking my throat.

"She moved abroad three years ago. She hasn't worked there in—"

"Stop lying to my face!"

Anthony cut me off, his voice sharp as a blade, his eyes heavy with disappointment.

"Nora, when did you become so calculating?"

"You used to be such a kind person. Now you'd rather drive Victoria and her unborn child to their deaths."

He paused. When he spoke again, his tone softened in a way that made no sense.

"Have you forgotten how much pain you were in when you lost your own baby?"

My head snapped up. I locked onto his gaze and held it.

My heart felt like a dull knife was sawing through it, tearing open scars that had barely held together.

The memory surged back unbidden. Six years ago, the day I found out I was pregnant, I walked into our apartment and found Anthony tangled up with Victoria in our bed.

I had only just discovered the affair. Before I could even confront him, the shock sent me to the hospital.

I made it home in a daze, only to hear the unmistakable sounds of a man and a woman behind the bedroom door.

I lost my mind. I flew into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and charged at them. But Anthony threw himself in front of Victoria, shielding her, and shoved me so hard I slammed into the vanity.

A searing pain ripped through my abdomen. Something warm and wet spread between my legs. The baby was gone. Just like that.

After that came his tearful apology, his threats to kill himself if I left. And after that came my surrender, my foolish belief that he had changed.

Bitterness coated my tongue like ash. I forced a hollow smile, my voice so hoarse it barely sounded human.

"Anthony, Victoria Mason will never shake that label. Not in this lifetime. What the two of you have will always disgust people."

"And you don't get to mention my baby. Ever."

"Nora, shut your mouth!"

Anthony's brows twisted into a hard knot as he barked the words. His eyes were sheets of ice, and in them there was not a single trace of guilt.