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.

The suffocating weight in my chest gave me the resolve I needed. I reached out to several shareholders at the company.

When they heard I was selling my thirty percent stake, every one of them expressed interest.

I told them to make their offers. Highest bidder wins.

Half an hour later, I signed a share transfer agreement with the CTO.

He was talented and ambitious, but Harrison had always kept him at arm's length.

With my shares, he'd become the company's largest stakeholder.

I hoped Harrison would enjoy the wedding gift I'd prepared for him.

My phone buzzed again. The wedding planner.

The coordinator sounded irritated:

"Ms. Simmons, what exactly is going on with you two? First the wedding's canceled, then it's back on, but we already threw everything out like you asked. What am I supposed to do at this hour?"

I felt bad about the trouble, but this wasn't my fault.

I apologized to the coordinator and offered a suggestion:

"My wedding with him is definitely canceled. I won't ask for a refund on the fees. As for Harrison wanting the wedding back on, you can have him place a new order."

"He'll kill me for that!"

"He'll pay. Trust me."

Because he genuinely wanted to marry Claudia.

I hung up. It was already two in the morning.

I abandoned the idea of going home to say goodbye to my mother and took a cab to a hotel near the airport.

The coordinator texted me a thank-you, saying Harrison had been furious but did end up paying again.

I smiled faintly, set an alarm, and collapsed into bed.

But then Harrison started blowing up my phone.

I blocked his number, powered off my phone, and went back to sleep.

Until a violent pounding erupted at my door.

"Tilda Johnson! Open this door!"

The moment I heard Harrison's voice, I realized I'd forgotten to turn off our couples' location sharing.

His voice dripped with fury. The image of Claudia deliberately throwing herself onto the ground flashed unbidden through my mind.

Had she actually lost the baby?

Or was this about the shares I'd sold?

The next second, Harrison kicked the hotel door open.

He stormed in, eyes bloodshot, grabbed my arm, and dragged me toward the door.

"Claudia miscarried because you pushed her. They couldn't even save her uterus. And you're in here sleeping?"

I struggled, tried to explain.

"I didn't push her. She fell on purpose—"

Harrison shoved me into the car.

"That was the only child she'll ever have. Why would she do that to herself?"

He locked the doors and floored it all the way to the hospital.

Then he forced me to my knees in front of Claudia's hospital bed.

"Apologize to Claudia. And promise you'll carry a child for her as compensation."

My kneecaps hit the freezing tile floor. Pain and cold radiated through my entire body.

I tried to stand, but Harrison's hand clamped down on my shoulder, pinning me in place.

"Are you mute? Apologize to Claudia! Did you hear me?"

I swallowed the discomfort and spoke, word by word:

"I didn't push her. If you don't believe me, go back and get the security footage from the neighbor's doorbell camera."

The neighbor's camera would have captured every second of Claudia's little performance.

But he didn't believe me.

"Tilda, you are such a disappointment. Do you have any idea what you did? Claudia didn't just lose the baby—she lost her uterus!"

"She's being generous enough not to press charges. All she's asking for is an apology. What more do you want?"

"You took away her chance to ever be a mother. Carrying a child for her is the least you can do. Consider it repayment for selling off my company shares behind my back!"

The least I could do.

And the man who had always put his career above everything else had just ranked his thirty percent stake below Claudia Simmons.

He really did love her to the bone.

I laughed until tears spilled from my eyes, and finally let three words fall from my lips.

"I'm sorry."

Harrison released his grip and had me sign a document.

It was almost laughable. What made him think that just because I signed, I'd actually carry a child for Claudia?

But I needed to get out of there. So I signed.

Only then did Harrison help me to my feet. His expression was complicated.

"Just to make sure you don't cause any more trouble, you'll have to bear with something for a little while."

"And Claudia losing the baby stays between us. You don't breathe a word."

It wasn't until I was locked inside an abandoned storage room in the hospital that I understood what he meant by bear with something.

He wheeled Claudia off to their wedding.

I pounded on the door and screamed until a janitor finally heard the commotion and let me out.

I checked the time. My flight was about to depart.

I hailed a cab and raced to the airport.

As I was boarding, Mrs. Delgado called.

"Tilda, where are you? Harrison says you ran off before the wedding! And now he's marrying Claudia Simmons?"

Before I could answer, she caught the sound of a flight attendant announcing boarding information in the background.

"Tilda, you're at the airport? Today is your wedding with Harrison. Where are you going?"

"Mrs. Delgado, today's wedding is his and Claudia's. It has nothing to do with me."

She didn't even hang up before turning to confront Harrison, demanding to know if he'd mistreated me.

He shouted back at her.

"Mom, Claudia's pregnant. You're going to be a grandmother soon."

I'd assumed Fiona, who had been desperate for a grandchild for years, would be thrilled by the news.

Instead, her voice rose to a furious roar.

"Bullshit! That girl's had no uterus since she was a child. Pregnant with what, exactly?"