"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.

"This is between you and me. It has nothing to do with Victoria."

He lowered his voice, looking down at me with naked threat in his eyes.

"You've been working yourself to the bone all these years just to pay for your foster mother's heart surgery, haven't you?"

"I hear they've already found a matching donor?"

My heart slammed to a stop. Every drop of blood in my body seemed to freeze solid.

I'd been an orphan for as long as I could remember. Margaret Whitfield had taken me in despite the whispers and sideways glances from everyone around her. She survived by collecting recyclables, picking up odd jobs, pinching every penny, raising me bit by bit on almost nothing.

When Anthony and I first started dating, I never let him drive me home. I was terrified he'd look at me and my family the same way everyone else did, with that mixture of pity and contempt.

But when he found out the truth, he cried.

He pulled me into his arms, one hand stroking my hair, his voice breaking.

"Nora, I'm going to work so hard. I'll give you the best life. I'll take care of your mom. And I'll make every single person who ever looked down on you choke on their words."

And he did.

When he proposed, he hired the most prestigious event planning team in the city and built a sea of ten thousand roses. It was the talk of the town. Overnight, I became the woman everyone envied.

He bought us a house and put my name on the deed. He found doctors for Margaret, managed her treatment plan, covered every medical bill without blinking.

All those people who had sneered at me, who had mocked me behind my back, suddenly lined up to congratulate me, falling over themselves with flattery.

Back then, they used to whisper that Anthony must have done something terrible to feel guilty about, that it was the only explanation for why he treated me so well.

I was drowning in it, certain that a love like ours would never change.

Then Victoria wedged herself between us and shattered that dream to pieces.

But never, not once, did I imagine he would use my mother's life as a bargaining chip. That he would weaponize the only vulnerability I had left, just to make Victoria happy.

My fists clenched so tight my nails carved crescents into my palms. The pain didn't register. It was nothing compared to what was tearing through my chest.

Despair pressed down on me like a hand over my mouth. I couldn't breathe. I closed my eyes, and tears rolled silently down my cheeks.

When I opened them again, everything inside me had gone quiet. Dead quiet.

"Fine," I whispered. "I'll apologize."

Anthony looked at me with satisfaction, snapped his fingers, and his assistant placed a sheet of paper covered in text on the hospital bed.

"Read it exactly as written. Don't skip a single word."

I picked up the paper. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Every line on that page turned the truth inside out. It pinned all the blame on me, claimed I had slandered Victoria out of jealousy and spite. It even stated that Anthony's faked death was a delusion, a product of my own psychological breakdown.

But I had no way out. None. So I swallowed everything I was feeling, read the script he'd prepared, recorded the video, and posted it.

When it was done, my whole body was ice cold, drenched in a thin sheen of sweat.

Anthony glanced at the wound on my neck. He pulled a checkbook and pen from his pocket, scrawled a string of zeros, and pressed the check into my hand.

He let out a long sigh.

"There's a million dollars here. Consider it compensation."

"Transfer to another hospital as soon as you can. Victoria shouldn't have to see you. It upsets her."

Then he turned and walked out.

I checked out of the hospital on unsteady legs. The moment I stepped outside, my phone rang.

It was my boss.

"Nora, the company is going through a restructuring. Your termination notice has been sent to your email, and the severance has already been deposited into your account."

I stood there, stunned, before I managed a few hollow words.

"Thank you for the opportunity. I understand."

After I hung up, I scrolled through my phone. The apology video I had just recorded was already trending at number one. Every negative story about Victoria had been scrubbed clean, wiped away without a trace, as if none of it had ever existed.