In elite high society, everyone knew Cicely Sanchez loved me with something close to devotion.

A woman that proud, that cold, and yet every single year she went to the child foot of the snowy mountains to pray for me, a full month at a time.

For the longest time, I believed I was the luckiest man alive.

Until the day I scrolled past a video.

My best friend, Connor Delgado, holding a child, smiling into the camera as he said:

"This is exactly where we were climbing the mountain that year, when we got carried away, and then we had our baby."

"So every year, we come back to thank the heavens."

The next second, a woman's hand reached in from off-screen to tuck in his scarf where the wind had loosened it.

The gesture was tender. Practiced.

But on that wrist sat the safety knot I had woven for Cicely with my own two hands.

I was sitting in a room with the heat turned up high, yet inch by inch, the blood went cold in my body.

Right then, the doctor pushed the door open.

"Mr. Winfield, the results are in."

"The samples you and Ms. Sanchez froze last time show very high viability. Conception is very likely to succeed."

I lifted my head, dazed.

At some point, without my noticing, tears had already covered my face.

"I need you to cancel the fertility plan with Cicely Sanchez."

"And the frozen samples. Destroy them too."

——

The doctor froze.

"Mr. Winfield, are you sure?"

"Ms. Sanchez loves you so much. This child, haven't the two of you been hoping for it for so long?"

She was probably trying to talk me out of it.

After all, all of elite high society knew that Cicely Sanchez had once taken nineteen knife blows meant for me from an attacker.

That when I lay dying, she had dropped a ten-billion-dollar project to go alone to the foot of the snowy mountains, bowing to the ground with every step.

A love that vast. The kind everyone envied.

But in that moment, I couldn't get a single full sentence out.

My throat felt like it was being cut, my heart aching so hard I could barely stay on my feet.

The doctor looked at the tears streaming down my face and finally stopped asking.

She only let out a quiet sigh.

"Then I'll pause the rest of the process for now."

After the door closed, I opened that video again.

My fingertips trembled so badly I could hardly hold the phone.

In the comments, someone had asked with a smile: "How old is the baby? He's so adorable."

Connor had replied fast: "Five years old."

I stared at those words, and a sudden ringing filled my ears.

Five years ago, I'd been gravely injured in a car accident, declared critical by the doctors more than once.

Cicely Sanchez, proud as she was, had rushed to the mountains like she'd lost her mind.

Palms split open from the cold, forehead bloodied from kneeling, begging the heavens to let me live.

Later, I woke up.

Everyone said it was Cicely's devotion that had moved the heavens.

And I believed it too, all this time.

But it turned out that while she knelt at the foot of those mountains praying for me,

she had also tangled herself up with my best friend in the wind and snow.

And even had a child.

The wrenching pain in my chest nearly swallowed me whole.

As the phone screen dimmed, Connor's chat window popped up.

The last message was still the one he'd sent the night before.

"Gilbert Winfield, I really envy you, man."

"A woman like Cicely Sanchez, you can tell at a glance she's so restrained, so gentle."

"Not like my wife. Lately I don't know what's gotten into her."

"Every night she wears me out till my back aches and my legs go weak, and won't stop no matter how I beg."

"She's about to drain me dry."

A few suggestive emojis trailed after it.

Reading those lines now, my stomach suddenly turned.

So the wife he kept talking about was Cicely Sanchez.

My fingers clenched the phone, my vision going black in waves.

In all the years I'd been with Cicely Sanchez, in bed she had always held herself back, almost gentle to a fault.

Lights off. Move quietly.

Even her kisses never went past the surface.

Once, clumsy and trying to copy the things people online did to please a lover, I held her late at night, my face hot, hinting that we could let go a little that night.

Cicely only frowned and lifted my hand away.

"Gilbert, your health is fragile."

"I'm afraid of hurting you."

I used to think that was tenderness. That she loved me too much to ever lose control.

It wasn't.

She'd simply taken every reckless, blazing, unrestrained ounce of desire she had.

And given all of it to Connor.

I laughed, suddenly.

And laughing, the tears struck the screen.

Not long after, the doctor pushed open the door.

"Mr. Winfield, the fertility process has been suspended."

"For the destruction paperwork, we'll need you to come in and sign at nine o'clock three mornings from now."

When I left the hospital, my assistant messaged me: the charity gala held under my name was about to begin tonight.

I hurried to the venue. Passing the VIP lounge, I heard familiar voices inside.

Someone was laughing, egging her on.

"Ms. Sanchez, what made you finally willing to bring your husband back to the Capital this time?"

"Aren't you afraid Gilbert will find out?"

My steps stopped at the door. Through the crack, I looked in.

Cicely had her arm around Connor's shoulders, smiling.

"Gilbert couldn't dream up the idea that I'd cheat on him."

Someone asked again.

"So what exactly are you and Connor, then?"

"The boy's already five. You can't keep him with no name, no standing, forever."

Connor lowered his head, the rims of his eyes faintly red.

Cicely glanced at him, and her voice softened.

"That's why I plan to hold a wedding for Connor."

There was water shining in Connor's eyes, like a grievance held in for years.

Cicely took his hand.

"The title's already gone to Gilbert."

"Everyone in elite high society knows him as the Sanchez family's Mr. Winfield."

"As for the marriage license and the wedding, those go to Connor."

She paused, as if laying out the fairest arrangement imaginable.

"This way it's better for both of them."

Connor leaned into her arms, his voice soft.

"Cicely, I don't want to hurt Gilbert."

"Maybe we should forget the wedding after all."

Cicely bowed her head and kissed his cheek.

"You waited five years for me. This is what I owe you."

Someone in the lounge laughed and smoothed it over.

"Ms. Sanchez, that arrangement's pretty ruthless."

"One's the Mr. Winfield everyone sees, and one's the real husband at the foot of the snowy mountains."

Cicely only smiled.

"I'll still be at Gilbert's side from now on."

"His health is poor, and he leans on me for everything emotionally."

"Twelve months a year, I'll spare just one for Connor and the boy."

"The other eleven, I'll be right there with him."

"He'll never find out I gave Connor a child."

The instant those words landed, I laughed.

I never doubted a person's true heart, until this moment, when it dawned on me: a true heart can turn in the blink of an eye.

The Cicely who once loved me enough to take a knife for me, willingly.

In this moment, drove the cruelest blade of all into me with her own hand.

I couldn't listen anymore.

Something clogged my chest, an ache so sour that even breathing hurt.

I didn't push open that lounge door.

I just braced myself against the wall and left the gala, one step at a time.

Back home, I started packing away the things Cicely had given me.

The cashmere scarf, from our first year together.

The little wooden horse ornament, from our third.

And that string of prayer beads, the first she ever brought back from the snowy mountains.

She'd said: "Gilbert, I asked the gods to keep you safe."

I packed them away, one by one, into the box.

Each time I lifted another piece, something inside me split open, slow and fine as a paper cut.

These were the things that had once made me feel loved.

Now every last one of them was a joke.

I sealed the box and was just about to drag it out to the trash when the lock clicked. Cicely was home.

She came in carrying a small gift box, her eyes soft.

"Gilbert."

"I passed a shop and saw these cufflinks. I thought you'd like them."

She walked over, reaching to hold me the way she always used to.

But as she leaned close, I caught a wave of cedar.

It was the scent of Connor's favorite cologne.

The next second, I saw the faint red mark on her collarbone.

My stomach turned, and I shoved her away.

Cicely froze. "Gilbert, what's wrong?"

I said nothing. I turned for the kitchen, wanting a glass of water to settle my stomach.

But when I opened the fridge, my whole body went rigid.

My jasmine tea was gone.

In its place sat a row of the coconut water and black coffee Connor liked to drink, and his favorite green grapes.

I held on to the fridge door, nearly drowning under the wave of bitterness crashing over me.

It wasn't just Cicely's heart.

Even this home had been claimed by him, inch by inch, long ago.

My phone buzzed right then.

I looked down. That couple's influencer account had posted an update.

Connor had shared a photo.

A table full of watches, cufflinks, and men's jewelry boxes, gleaming under the light, sharp enough to hurt.

The caption read: "My wife spoiled me tonight."

"Everything from the auction at the gala. She bought all of it for me."

"The organizers saw how generous she was and threw in a bunch of little gifts too."

I stared at the photo, my fingertips going cold inch by inch.

Then I tapped it open to full size.

In the corner sat an unremarkable cufflink box.

Identical to the one Cicely had just handed me.

So the cufflinks she'd supposedly passed a shop and thought I'd like.

They were nothing but a giveaway Connor didn't want.

Before I could even close the phone.

Another reply from Connor refreshed in the comments.

Connor posted a bashful emoji.

"Just bought a very special shirt."

"The one my wife kept pestering me to wear."

"Planning to reward her properly tonight."

I stared at those lines, and the nausea surged up my throat again.

Cicely came up behind me then.

She must have finally noticed something was off with me, because her voice dropped low.

"Gilbert, are you just too tired today?"

"Let me take you to bed to rest, okay?"

She reached out to steady me, her touch gentle, the way it had been a thousand times before.

If I hadn't seen that red mark, the coconut water in the fridge, the photo Connor posted.

I probably would have gone on believing, like always, that she cherished me dearly.

Before I could say a word, Cicely's phone lit up.

She glanced at it on instinct.

And out of the corner of my eye, I saw the photo too.

Connor wearing a scrap of black fabric, a stretch of shoulder and neck bare.

So suggestive it needed no words at all.

Cicely's hand stilled for an instant. Then she kissed me, tenderly.

"Gilbert, something urgent came up at the company."

"I need to step out for a bit."

I reached out suddenly and caught her by the wrist.

My voice came out so soft it hardly sounded like my own.

"Cicely, don't go."

"Stay with me tonight, okay?"

She looked at me, and a flicker of hesitation crossed her eyes.

For that one second, absurdly, a small hope rose in me.

But soon enough, the phone buzzed again.