As if terrified I'd refuse, he hung up immediately.

Then he sent me a text:

Tilda, I'm begging you, please stop making a fuss. I'm just getting a marriage certificate with Claudia. It's a piece of paper, nothing more. It doesn't mean anything. Canceling the wedding is just so we can save your dream wedding for the perfect moment.

Those familiar words stung my eyes until they burned.

The perfect moment.

I'd been hearing that for eight years. Nearly three thousand days and nights, waiting for him to marry me.

And instead, I'd waited just long enough to watch him become someone else's legal husband.

Harrison, I'm done waiting for you.

Because we were never right for each other.

Harrison recalled the message.

Then a new one came through:

What I just sent isn't something Claudia should see. She's pregnant and reads too much into things. Anyway, just do what I asked. Whatever I owe you, I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you after the three years are up!

I laughed out loud.

I waited two minutes. Sure enough, he recalled that message too.

So which was it? Was he lying to me, or to himself?

If he was simply helping Claudia out of obligation, why would he care if she got upset over promises he'd made to me?

The baby in her belly wasn't even his, and he was already willing to go this far for her.

What if the baby was his?

I shook my head, banishing the thought before it could take root.

I typed a quick OK and hit send.

All I got back was a red exclamation mark.

He'd already deleted me. Couldn't wait to make Claudia feel better.

Fine by me.

I didn't dwell on it. I posted on social media announcing that the wedding was off.

People started asking why almost immediately.

Not wanting to stir up drama, I stuck to Harrison's script and said I just wasn't ready to get married yet.

But my friends flooded my inbox telling me I was out of my mind:

"Tilda, Harrison isn't some broke nobody anymore. Every woman in the city would throw herself at him. You call off the wedding now and you're basically gift-wrapping your man for someone else!"

I didn't reply.

Because Harrison was already someone else's husband.

Shortly after my post went up, Claudia sent me a photo of the marriage certificate.

Her tone dripped with triumph as she thanked me for stepping aside.

Tilda, thanks for the assist! Harrison and I were supposed to get the certificate tomorrow, but he pulled some strings and got it done today just to make me happy!

I didn't bother responding. Delete. Block. Done.

My phone buzzed. My mother was calling to chew me out.

"What is wrong with you? The fruit's hanging right there and you won't pick it? What kind of stunt are you pulling? By the time you decide you want to get married, he might not want you anymore!"

I let out a quiet laugh.

"What if he's the one who doesn't want to marry me?"

She went silent for a beat, then laid into me even harder.

"Then you obviously did something wrong! Swallow your pride, say something sweet, patch things up. Don't tell me you followed that man for all those years just to walk away with nothing!"

Eight years loving Harrison, and his refrain never changed: career first, family later.

But when success finally came, when he had the house and the car, it wasn't a home with me he wanted to build.

It wasn't that I hadn't tried. Trying just didn't matter.

For eight years, I'd been by his side through every struggle. The basement apartment. The instant noodles. I'd swallowed my pride and told him a thousand times that marrying him was all I'd ever dreamed of, rich or poor.

I'd even given up three pregnancies.

Because he said the timing wasn't right. He didn't want a child suffering alongside them.

I loved him, so whatever he said, no matter how much it hurt, I went along with it.

Just like tonight, when he told me he wanted to get legally married to his childhood sweetheart.

In that moment, even as my heart was being carved open, I felt something I hadn't expected.

Relief.

Maybe it was better this way. At least I wouldn't have to keep waiting for him like some desperate fool, begging to be chosen.

My mother was still going on about how a woman who knew how to act sweet always got the best deal in life, but the grievance pressing against my chest suddenly lost its need for an audience.

"Mom, the wedding is off. I'm never marrying him."

I hung up and called the wedding planner to cancel tomorrow's ceremony.

The coordinator went quiet for a moment before speaking.

"Mr. Delgado already called about this. But he asked us to keep the decorations and banners in storage for three years. That's going to be difficult. Most of those materials are single-use..."

It hit me instantly. It wasn't that he hadn't had time to notify the guests on both sides.

He just didn't want to deal with the questions.

And he assumed I'd do what those cheap decorations would do—sit in storage and wait for him for three years.

"Throw it all out. Even if it weren't disposable, three years in a warehouse would rot it."

Just like his love for me.

It would decay with time until nothing remained.

After hanging up, I scrolled to my mother-in-law's number and felt a headache coming on.

She despised Claudia Simmons. If she found out her son had already gotten legally married to that woman at City Hall, she'd probably have a stroke.

I took a deep breath and transferred the $88,000 bride price back to her account—every last cent.

I counted to three in my head.

The phone rang.

"Tilda, why did you send the bride price back?"

"Mom, Harrison and I aren't getting married for now. I'm going abroad for three years."

Even though I was telling the truth, Fiona Delgado's sharp instincts picked up on the lie underneath immediately.

"Did that boy do something to wrong you? I'm going over there right now! The wedding tomorrow will go on as planned!"

"Mrs. Delgado, the wedding really can't happen—"

But she'd already hung up.

It was Harrison's turn to figure out how to handle his own mother.

And it was time for me to pack my bags and leave.

The apartment was still dressed for a celebration. Every detail—the red accents, the fresh flowers, the carefully chosen linens—was something I'd picked out, each one a small prayer for the happy life I thought was coming.

Now they were all knives, buried in my chest.

There wasn't much to take. A single suitcase, and it wasn't even full.

But there was plenty to throw away.

By the time I finished, I noticed Harrison had called me several times.

I didn't need to guess why. He was going to blame me for not keeping his mother under control.

I left the key on the entryway table and picked up the last framed wedding portrait on my way out.

I walked straight into Harrison.

The portrait smashed against the floor, the glass shattering into pieces.

A shard sliced across the top of my foot. Blood welled up instantly.

Harrison grabbed Claudia and pulled her behind him, his face tight with irritation.

"Tilda, what the hell? Didn't you see Claudia standing there? What if you'd hurt her?"

He didn't see the blood pooling on my foot. Instead, he crouched down and carefully brushed a speck of glass—no bigger than a grain of rice—off Claudia's shoe.

I had no interest in watching him dote on another woman. I grabbed my suitcase and walked past them.

His eyes caught the luggage, and he scrambled to his feet, seizing my arm.

"Tilda, where are you going?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but his phone rang.

I saw the name on the screen. His mother.

He picked up, visibly annoyed.

"Fine! I know! It's not canceled! I'll smooth things over with her! Don't worry!"

He hung up and turned to me.

"Tilda, my mom says the wedding tomorrow has to go on as planned."

"I don't want to upset her, so let's keep everything the way it is. But can you be the one who runs?"

"My mom loves you. If you're the runaway bride, she won't blame me. And I can explain to her afterward that I only married Claudia on impulse, out of spite."

I stared at him, unable to believe these words had come out of the mouth of the man I'd loved for years.

But then I remembered—he was already Claudia Simmons' husband.

Then again, nothing he said or did could surprise me anymore.

I was leaving anyway. Might as well grant him this one last favor.

"Fine."

Maybe it was how easily I agreed that finally snapped Harrison out of his blindness.

He noticed, at last, that the shattered thing on the floor was our wedding photo.

And that the top of my foot was slick with blood.

His eyes went red in an instant. He rushed back to the bridal suite to grab the first aid kit.

The moment he was gone, Claudia lifted her chin and sneered at me.

"Tilda, you really are pathetic. You already know I'm Harrison's wife, and you still thought you could go through with the wedding?"

"So what if his mother doesn't like me? She can fight it all she wants. Harrison still married me."

"Tomorrow's wedding? It'll be mine. And Harrison will only ever be my man."

"You're going to be the homewrecker everyone spits on."

"And don't bother dreaming that he'll divorce me and marry you in three years, because..."

She placed a hand on her stomach, her smile dripping with triumph.

"This baby is his flesh and blood."

I lowered my eyes to hide the tears that surged up without warning.

So Harrison really had betrayed me.

And he'd treated me like a fool, telling me to wait another three years.

I did the math. The baby in Claudia's belly would have been conceived the night Harrison didn't come home.

That was the first time he'd ever forgotten my birthday. He said he was out entertaining clients.

The next morning, he came back full of apologies.

And proposed to me.

Said he wanted to give me a fairy-tale wedding.

I'd waited eight years for that moment.

The joy crushed every last shred of unease in my heart.

But that night, he forgot to lock the bathroom door. When I walked in, I saw the scratches across his back.

Fresh scratches. I demanded to know what happened.

He answered without missing a beat. Said a cat scratched him.

Even pulled up his rabies vaccination record as proof.

I forced myself to believe it.

But a woman's intuition is a stubborn thing. Even while I was planning our wedding, none of it felt real.

A voice in the back of my mind kept whispering: He finally agreed to marry you because he's trying to make up for something he did.

I buried my head in the sand, too afraid to dig for the truth.

But I wasn't willing to let it go, either. So I started following him in secret.

When I discovered that his "client meetings" were actually visits to Claudia's apartment, I stopped confronting him. I just waited for him to come clean.

That was why I didn't push when he skipped the rehearsal.

That was why I said nothing when he texted me about getting legally married to Claudia at City Hall.

"Excuse me."

I had no interest in wasting words on Claudia. I just wanted to leave.

But the second Harrison stepped out with the first aid kit, she grabbed my hand and threw herself backward into the broken glass.

"Tilda, I know you don't like me, but why would you push me?"

"Ah! My stomach... my baby, it hurts..."

She held up her hand. Her palm was sliced open.

Harrison lunged forward, his face tight with panic and anguish.

"Claudia, don't be scared. I'm taking you to the hospital right now."

He scooped her up and bolted for the door.

Before he left, he turned and fixed me with a cold stare.

"Tilda, I never thought you could be this vicious. Attacking a pregnant woman? How heartless can you be?"

"If anything happens to her baby, there's no future for us. None."

I watched his back disappear through the doorway.

"There hasn't been a future for us in a long time," I whispered.

By the time I finished sweeping up the broken glass, the cut on my foot had already stopped bleeding on its own.

But the wound in my chest was still raw and open.