My husband had a strange illness.

When it flared up, he could recognize everyone around him—everyone except me.

He'd point at a flower girl on the street and say, "That's my wife, Maud Fox."

Yet he'd completely ignore me, the woman being harassed by a drunk, begging him for help.

He'd mistake total strangers for me.

But the moment someone called me by my name, he'd come at me with a knife.

"You think you can impersonate my wife?"

To cure him, I tried everything. I prayed at every temple, knelt at every altar, and spent two full years chasing down every folk remedy I could find.

Until this time.

I walked in and saw it with my own eyes—Caspar Stephens tangled up in bed with my best friend, Ebony James.

His arm was wrapped around her waist. "Maud, you've gotten thinner since last time."

I stared at them. My face was calm. I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

When Caspar came to his senses, he dropped to his knees in front of me and slapped himself across the face, over and over.

"I'm sorry, Maud. That night—I got confused again. I thought she was you."

"Hit me. Scream at me. Whatever you need to feel better..."

I had forgiven him ninety-nine times. But I was tired now.

I set the divorce papers in front of him. "Let's end this."

……

I still couldn't get the image out of my head.

The moment I pushed open that door.

My husband. My best friend. In our bed.

Ebony James tugged her shirt back up over her shoulder, her expression dripping with provocation.

"Girl, if you'd shown up any later, your husband and I would've been done already."

A vicious pain tore through my chest. I closed my eyes in despair.

Two years ago, everyone in Harbor City knew that Caspar Stephens loved his wife more than life itself.

He'd crossed an ocean to bid on an East Bay pearl for me at auction when the accident happened, leaving him with Capgras Delusion.

In recent months, the person he most frequently mistook for me was my best friend, Ebony.

He gave her the new nightgown he'd just bought.

He nearly wandered into her bedroom in the middle of the night.

It put me in an awkward position, and I finally brought it up with her.

"Ebony, maybe you could stay at one of my other houses for a few days?"

When Ebony had lost her job and couldn't find work, I'd waved her in without a second thought—hired her as a live-in caretaker at five thousand dollars a month.

But now Caspar kept confusing them, and it was driving me out of my mind.

Ebony smiled. "But I don't want to leave."

"Even if your husband really does think I'm you, nothing would ever happen between us."

I believed her.

But later, when I wasn't home, she schemed her way into Caspar's bed with every trick she had.

When she saw me frozen in the doorway, face white as paper, staring at the two of them, her smile only grew wider. More vicious.

"Maud, your husband really does have stamina for days."

"He had his arms around me all night long. Wore me out completely."

"But don't get the wrong idea—he was totally out of it. He thought I was you, that's all..."

As she spoke, Ebony pulled her collar open, deliberately showing off the trail of hickeys across her skin.

Blood rushed to my head.

My fists clenched. Something inside me finally snapped. I grabbed the stool beside me and swung it at her head.

But before it could land, a hand clamped around my wrist.

Caspar.

"What do you think you're doing?"

He glared at me, cold and hard, his fingers digging into my wrist until the bones ached.

There was no trace of the warmth he used to show me. Nothing in his eyes but ice-cold hostility and the guarded look you'd give a stranger.

As if I were his worst enemy.

I knew. He was having another episode. He couldn't recognize me.

But I had already shattered.

"Caspar Stephens, look at me! Look at my face!" My voice cracked. Tears spilled down my cheeks. "Who am I?"

"I'm Maud Fox. Your wife. The woman who stood by you for five years, who spent the last two on her knees praying to every god she could find, begging them to bring you back to me!"

"Can you just open your eyes and look at me? When are you going to stop mistaking me for someone else?"

But he didn't hear me. Or didn't care. He kept Ebony tucked behind him, shielding her like she was something precious and fragile.

When he turned to face me, there was disgust in his eyes.

"You think you get to call yourself that?"

"She is my wife. You're nothing but a lunatic, and if you lay a finger on her again, I swear you'll regret it."

Ebony nestled against Caspar's chest, dabbing at crocodile tears with trembling fingers.

"Maud, please don't misunderstand. There's nothing between me and Caspar. He's sick, that's all. He thinks I'm you. Don't blame him. If you need to blame someone, blame me. It's all my fault..."

Every word was designed to twist the knife, yet she delivered them with the perfect quiver of a victim.

And Caspar fell for it. He raised his arm and shoved me. Hard.

"Get out!"

The venom in his voice, the cruelty in his eyes. I had never seen him look at me like that. Not once in five years.

I hit the floor. From where I lay, I watched them. The two of them, still holding each other. One was the husband I loved down to my marrow. The other was the best friend I'd given my whole heart to.

Together, they had just delivered the killing blow.

I couldn't even speak.

I left the room. Walked out into the street in a daze, barely registering the world around me. A car swerved past, missing me by inches.

"What the hell! Are you out of your mind?"

"Watch where you're going!"

The driver's curse snapped me back. Cold sweat crawled down my spine.

Two years.

Two full years I'd devoted to a man who couldn't recognize my face. Two years clinging to the wreckage of a marriage that had already sunk.

Everyone in Harbor City thought I was a joke.

Even at the last gala, Carissa Sanchez, a woman who'd always been perfectly polite to me, had deliberately shoulder-checked me with a sneer plastered across her face.

"Still think you're the same Mrs. Stephens he used to treat like a queen?"

"He doesn't even know who you are anymore. He'd call any random woman on the street his wife."

"Maud, how many times do you think he's humiliated you in these two years? You must have lost count by now."

I stared at the haggard face in the mirror and forced a bitter smile.

Caspar, I'm so tired.

I sat on the front steps for two hours before I finally dialed a number I hadn't called in a long time.

"Mom. I'll do it. I'll fly out in seven days."

My mother's voice surged with excitement, then confusion.

"You've changed your mind? Wait, that doesn't make sense. Just last year you were telling me everything was fine, that you and your husband were happy, that you didn't want to live apart..."

"And don't forget, if you actually commit to moving here for good, you and that Stephens Group heir of yours won't be seeing much of each other..."

I lowered my head, the bitter smile returning.

"He... doesn't recognize me anymore."

By the time I hung up, it was dark.

I drifted home like a ghost. Back to the house that had been so warm two years ago. Our home.

Back then, Caspar had proposed with everything he had. He'd lit up the Harbor City skyline with fireworks that blazed for three straight nights. People still talked about it as one of the greatest love stories the city had ever seen.

This villa, over five thousand square feet of luxury, he'd personally overseen every detail of the renovation for an entire year before it was finished.

Every corner was exactly the way I liked it.

But soon, none of it would be mine.

I was heading upstairs to start packing when voices drifted from the first-floor bathroom. A man and a woman.

Caspar's voice, deliberately low, strained to the point of breaking:

"Ebony, I already did everything you told me to do. What more do you want?"

I moved closer without thinking.

Through the crack in the door, I saw Caspar pinning Ebony against the wall.

"I already agreed to do what you wanted. I faked being sick for two years so you could get your thrill from sneaking around. Why won't you leave her alone?"

"And today, you deliberately provoked her at the hotel like that. Are you not satisfied until you've destroyed our marriage completely?"

Caspar's voice was ice-cold.

It froze me where I stood. I couldn't even breathe.

But Ebony just smiled, a wicked, venomous smile.

"Oh, Caspar. We're just getting started."

"Don't forget, it was Maud's father who killed mine. He's the reason I grew up on the streets, suffering through hell. You think this little bit of payback is enough?"

"I want her to know exactly what it feels like to have her husband stolen from her."

"Once I've gotten it all out of my system, I'll give you back to her."

She reached out, her wrists sliding up slowly until her arms were draped around Caspar's neck. Her smile turned suggestive.

"Besides, your acting has been pretty impressive these past two years. You've really gotten into the role. Are you going to tell me you didn't enjoy yourself while we were sneaking around?"

Silence from inside the room.

My breath caught. I stumbled, nearly falling, and something clattered.

"Who's out there?"

Caspar's low voice carried through the doorway.

He rushed out immediately. The first thing he saw was me, collapsed on the floor, shards of broken porcelain cutting into my skin.

Something flickered in his eyes. Pain. But it vanished just as quickly, replaced by that practiced indifference.

"You again?"

"I already told you, I don't want to see you anymore. And stop pretending to be my wife."

I sat there in silence for a long time, then spoke, my voice flat.

"Fine. I'll go."

"You'll never have to see me again."

I got to my feet slowly, staggering toward the stairs.

Behind me, Caspar sucked in a sharp breath.

"Mau—"

Before he could finish, Ebony wrapped her arms around his waist from behind.

"Babe, were you looking for me? I just took care of you. Don't tell me you're hungry again already."

My steps faltered. I didn't turn around. I kept walking.

Back in my room, I shut the door and finally let myself crumble, sliding down against it until I hit the floor.

It was almost masochistic.

The image of Ebony and Caspar tangled together played over and over in my mind, a loop I couldn't stop.

A sharp sting bloomed in my palm. I looked down. My fingernails had dug in so deep that the skin was torn beyond recognition.

I grabbed a tissue and wiped away the blood. The door swung open.

Ebony walked in, arms crossed.

"Maud, even after all this, you're still not going to leave?"

"Think about it. You were standing right in front of your husband, and Caspar still couldn't recognize you."

"Don't you think that seems a little... deliberate?"

Those pretty, almond-shaped eyes fixed on me, sharp with scrutiny.

She was testing me. Trying to figure out if I'd overheard what she and Caspar said in the bathroom.

I lowered my gaze. "What do you want, Ebony?"

She let out a soft laugh, then reached out and tilted my chin up with one finger, her expression pure provocation.

"I'm going to replace you. I'm going to be Mrs. Stephens. If you've got any pride left, just admit you've lost."

"All you have to do is sign the divorce papers, and I'll leave you alone."

It all made sense now.

The best friend I'd poured my whole heart into had been plotting this all along, right under my nose.

"If I'd known you were a snake, Ebony, I never would have saved you."

I met Ebony when I was twelve.

I was the little princess of my family, sheltered and spoiled, never wanting for anything.

She was skin and bones, sallow-faced, bullied by the other kids at the orphanage where she'd grown up.

A group of children were pelting her with rocks.

I couldn't just stand there. I charged in and pulled her out, then had my family's bodyguard put those kids in their place.