It had been five years since Harrison Gilbert cheated on me and I quietly walked away. We ran into each other outside an office building.

I was there to discuss a partnership. He was placing a package into a delivery locker.

I froze for a moment. When I turned to leave, he caught my sleeve.

"Sibyl Pruitt, I'm sorry. I lied to you. The way I treated you back then, it wasn't because I loved Gloria Cobb. It was because I was going bankrupt."

"I couldn't stand the thought of the woman I loved seeing me at rock bottom. I didn't want you suffering alongside me."

He looked up, eyes brimming with tears.

"All these years, I never stopped loving you."

Looking at how fragile he seemed, I thought to myself: If only that were true.

What he didn't know was that this wasn't the first time we'd crossed paths again.

Three days earlier, I'd been entertaining a client at the finest restaurant in Stoneridge.

Walking past one of the private dining rooms, I happened to catch the laughter spilling through the door.

"I heard Sibyl's back in the country. You're really going after her again?" someone asked.

Harrison Gilbert swirled the wine in his glass. "I've had my fun. It's time to settle down, start a family. The more I think about it, the more I realize Sibyl's the one who'd make the best wife."

"But after what you did to her, you think she'll forgive you?"

"That's where I'll need your help. But I'm not worried. Sibyl's always been a softie at heart."

——

Now, looking at the anxious, groveling expression on Harrison's face, I drew a deep breath.

Maybe it was because I'd just stepped out of the warm office, and my body hadn't adjusted to the cold yet. I could only clench my fists tighter inside my coat pockets.

I glanced toward the restaurant down the street, then turned to him. "Let me buy you dinner."

His face lit up, but then he shook his head, the excitement giving way to disappointment.

"I still have a few more deliveries. If I'm late, they dock my pay."

"Could you give me your new number? Once I'm done, I'll reach out."

He held out his phone to me with an eager, ingratiating look.

The phone was a model discontinued years ago. Scratched screen. Bulky case.

I punched in my number quickly.

He took the phone back with both hands, careful and reverent, as though he'd just recovered something priceless.

"Sibyl, I'll call you as soon as I'm done." His voice carried a lightness he couldn't quite hide.

I smiled, thin and mocking, then drove the signed contract back to the office.

Outside the car window, the streets looked the same as they always had.

Five years, and nothing had changed. The city hadn't. The people hadn't.

Harrison Gilbert was still the same arrogant, self-entitled man he'd always been, convinced that whatever he wanted would eventually be his.

Once, his parents had looked down on me for being an orphan and pressured us to break up. He'd moved out of his family's house without a second thought, cramming into a two-hundred-square-foot rental with me, and stayed until I'd proven myself enough to earn their approval.

Then he got bored. Our steady, quiet love wasn't enough for him anymore, and he started chasing thrills elsewhere. He let Gloria Cobb provoke me again and again, until every last shred of hope in me was dead and I crawled out of that relationship with nothing left.

Now he wanted to come back, and he assumed I'd still be standing right where he left me.

Fifteen years of knowing each other. Eight years together. I'd been ready to accept my losses and move on. But he just had to try dragging me back into the mud.

Harrison, since you started this game, I don't mind playing along.

The chime of my phone cut through my thoughts. An unfamiliar number flashed across the screen.

I hit answer. Harrison's voice came through the speaker.

"Sibyl, I'm all done. Are you still living at the old place? I'll head over right now."

"There's so much I want to tell you—"

"I sold that apartment a long time ago."

The rambling on the other end stopped dead.

After a long silence, Harrison tested the waters. "Sibyl, you really sold the house? How could you bear to let it go?"

It was true. That house was the first place we'd bought on our own after Harrison broke away from the Gilbert family.

It wasn't big, but I'd thrown my arms around him that day, giddy with promise. "This is our first real home. I'll treasure it forever."

When I said it, neither of us imagined that forever came with an expiration date—one so short that I sold the place just two years after going abroad.

"So where are you living now?"

I gave him an address. It was in Stoneridge's most exclusive gated community. Another beat of silence from Harrison.

"Sibyl, sounds like you've been doing well these past few years. Made a lot of money?"

"No, I came back in a rush. I'm just staying there temporarily—a friend's letting me crash."

He let out a long breath of relief.

Of course. He had money and connections. How could the years apart have possibly treated me better than life at his side?

Still, I was looking forward to seeing whether he'd breathe quite so easily once he found out who owned that house.

We'd agreed to meet at the street-food stand outside our old high school—the one I'd suggested visiting several times the year we split up, the one he'd never taken me to again.

"Greasy smoke and cheap food. Sibyl, do you honestly think those grimy tables deserve to share space with my suit? I lost interest in you a long time ago. There's no point in some sentimental trip down memory lane."

The day after he said that, Gloria sent me a photo.

At that very same stand, a man and a woman sat pressed together. The man didn't seem to mind at all when the oil from the skewers in the woman's hand smeared across his crisp white shirt.

That was the moment it finally clicked. When he said not good enough, he'd meant me.

The stand looked exactly the same as it always had. Harrison sat at one of the low tables, his blue delivery uniform blending right in with the surroundings.

What didn't blend in was the cluster of well-dressed young men gathered around him.

I recognized every single face.

They were saying the same kind of things they'd always said—dripping with contempt.

Back then, it had been aimed at me. Now it was aimed at Harrison.

"Your filthy hands just touched my jacket. For old times' sake, I'll cut you a deal—half a million should cover it."

"Come on, that's nothing, right? Used to be what you'd drop on a single bottle of wine."

Brent Delgado, once Harrison's closest friend, propped his foot on the low table, though his eyes kept drifting toward the direction I was coming from.

Someone else stepped forward. "Mr. Delgado, maybe let it go? Like you said, that was the old days. Forget half a million—the guy probably has to deliver food for half a day just to scrape together fifty bucks."

Snickers rippled through the group. "Look at him. This pathetic? Give him five bucks and he'd probably run an errand for you."

Brent waved the owner over and ordered a twelve-pack of beer.

"Finish every last one, and I'll let you off the hook."

Harrison picked up a bottle, humiliation etched across his face.

I slowed my pace until I was barely moving at all.

By the time he drained the second bottle, I was still standing several yards away.

He couldn't hold back any longer. He turned to look at me.

"Sibyl, I'm sorry you had to see this."

Whether it was good acting or the cheap beer burning its way down, his eyes glistened with what looked like tears of shame.

I didn't answer. Instead, I walked straight up to the table, grabbed a bottle, and poured it over Harrison's head.

Then the next one. Then the next. I didn't stop until every bottle in the twelve-pack was empty.

Harrison gaped at me, mouth open, unable to process what had just happened. The others stood frozen, not sure how to react.

I looked at Brent and smiled. "You did say that if someone can't drink it, pouring it over their head counts just the same."

The first time Harrison brought me to meet his circle, Brent had looked me up and down with undisguised scorn. "You turned down every arranged match from every powerful family for her? She's nothing special."

At that gathering, the whole group had gone out of their way to make my life miserable.

For Harrison's sake, I endured it the entire evening.

Near the end, Brent Delgado pushed a full glass of red wine toward me and insisted I drink it. I explained that I wasn't feeling well.

He just gave me that half-smile of his and said what he said.

I finally reached my limit. I grabbed my clutch and stormed out.

Harrison didn't stroll in until the early hours of the morning. His tone was casual, almost bored.

"Half the people in that room were angling for a marriage alliance with the Gilbert family. Because of you, none of them got their chance. A little pushback is expected. You should put in more effort, get along with them. Once you're officially Mrs. Gilbert, these relationships will matter."

I never attended another one of their gatherings. It was a long time before I found out that at every single one after that, Harrison had a woman on his arm.

"You chose not to go. Am I supposed to sit there alone?" he shot back when I confronted him with photos of him cozied up to another woman.

And just like that, in places I couldn't see, he had his first new companion. His first embrace and kiss with someone else. His first time crossing the line.

When I caught him in the act, Brent walked out of the hotel room next door.

"All you ever do is cause a scene. You're out of your mind. Everything my buddy went through for you wasn't even worth it."

I looked him dead in the eye. "Mr. Delgado, you wouldn't go back on your word, would you?"

That snapped him out of his shock at seeing Harrison drenched in beer.

"What is wrong with you?" He raised his hand to strike.

I sidestepped. Crack. The slap landed square on Harrison's cheek, and half his face swelled up instantly.

"Wait, man, I didn't mean to. I was trying to hit—" Brent scrambled to explain.

"Hurt me all you want. Don't touch Sibyl." Harrison's eyes were dark, half anger, half warning.

Brent understood. He gathered his people and turned to leave.

I snatched an empty bottle off the table and aimed it at the back of Brent's skull.

Harrison grabbed me. "Sibyl, hold on, they're—"

Before he could finish, a scream tore through the street.

By the time Harrison came to, Brent and his crew were gone.

They said they'd arranged a hospital room for Harrison out of respect for their former friendship.

A top trauma surgeon. The best medications available. The look of genuine regret on their faces as they left—I pretended not to notice any of it.

In the hospital room, Harrison's expression was grim. "Sibyl, you never used to get physical. When did you become so impulsive? You—"

"I'm sorry. Thinking about how they used to humiliate me, I just snapped." My face betrayed nothing.

Whatever else Harrison had been about to say died in his throat. His expression shifted several times before he finally swallowed his frustration. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "I wasn't blaming you. They have money and power, and I'm bankrupt now. I'm just worried I can't protect you anymore."

"But maybe this isn't all bad. At least I still got the chance to take a hit for you. At least I got to see you worry about me." He reached for my hand. "Sibyl, will you stay with me these next few days? Can I have your home-cooked meals again?"

Under the weight of all that desperate hope in his eyes, I nodded.

I found a restaurant near the hospital and paid the owner a sum of money, then walked him through the recipe step by step.

"Miss, is this actually edible?" The restaurant owner stared into the pot, skepticism written across his face. "Do you even know how to cook?"

"Just follow my instructions," I replied with a quiet laugh.

How could I not know how to cook?

During those years after I left the Gilbert household, Harrison and I had worked around the clock, chasing one deal after another through an endless parade of business dinners.

Later, Willow Gilbert said I hadn't taken proper care of Harrison during those years, that I was the reason he developed stomach problems.