### Chapter 1

"Ms. Abbott, your son's having a heart attack. He won't make it. Please come to the hospital right away!"

For one second, the whole world went silent. I fell as if into a pit of ice, every drop of blood in me running backward.

My mother came running through the rain, only to be thrown fifty meters by a truck that had lost control. She died on the spot.

I knelt for a long time in the corpse-pale light of the hospital corridor, my son's cold little body in my arms, my mother lying broken in front of me. My heart felt like it was being torn in two while I was still alive. I coughed up a mouthful of blood and fainted.

When I came to, I saw Ellie Cooley's latest post, the caption brimming with happiness.

"Thank you, Stuart Weiss, for fighting through a whole day and night with me. I'm finally a 'mommy.'"

And the husband I had nearly gone mad trying to reach had left a tender comment beneath it: "Silly little thing, you worked so hard. I'm honored to be the godfather."

Numbly, I tapped a like and wrote, "Congratulations to you both."

One second later, Stuart called, his voice cold as he ordered, "Delete your snide little comment."

I bit down hard on my lip and sent him the hospital's location. "Stuart, come see your son—"

"One last time" never made it out before he cut me off, impatient. "It's just a routine checkup, isn't it? You go with him, that's enough. It's not like you're busy with anything."

I clenched my fist, nails biting into the flesh, and shouted at him, "Your so-called important matter is delivering Ellie Cooley's dog's litter?!"

"Are you sick? Now you're jealous of a dog."

The call cut off hard.

I wiped the tears from my face. If he wouldn't come, then I'd let the lawyer talk to him.

…

Today was Bradley Coleman's fifth birthday. When it happened, I was at home making the birthday cake he'd been waiting so long for.

Watching his body and my mother's pushed into the crematorium, realizing they were no longer in this world, that my son would never again taste a birthday cake I made, the pain stopped my breath.

"Ma'am, my condolences. Maybe something held Stuart up, that's why he…" Beside me, Stuart's colleague Lewis Cobb frowned, unable to hide his discomfort.

The pain knotted in me until I shook, tears falling one after another, and I said nothing.

My son could have been saved.

Lewis said that if Stuart, the heart specialist, had operated himself, my son would have had a chance.

He was my own flesh and blood. I wanted so desperately to save him. But I called until my phone died, and that man never once picked up.

It was the second night when I walked out of the crematorium. I pushed open the door of my home, swaying on my feet.

Stuart was sitting on the sofa, head bowed over his phone, a smile he couldn't suppress at the corner of his mouth. No need to guess—he was looking at the newest photos of Ellie Cooley and the dog.

His black suit jacket was tossed carelessly onto the rug by his feet, as if he took for granted I'd pick up after him.

He didn't lift his head at the sound of my steps, his tone carrying a trace of complaint.

"Where'd you run off to all day? I came back at noon and couldn't even get a cup of coffee."

I didn't answer. So he hadn't come home last night either.

Ever since Ellie Cooley came back to the country last year, he'd always been like this.

When Ellie Cooley woke from a nightmare, he'd drop everything to run over and stay with her in the middle of the night.

In his hurry that time, he forgot to lock the door properly, a thief got in, and the fright sent Bradley's heart condition flaring again. He spent a month in the hospital before he was out of danger.

When Ellie Cooley's dog was about to give birth, he could give up taking his son to his checkup.

He forgot Bradley's birthday completely, yet he'd taken a week off in advance to go be with her, as if her dog were the one he'd fathered.

Getting no response, Stuart finally looked at me.

When he saw my pale face, he stood up, his expression stiffening.

"Why do you look so awful? Did your son act up again and upset you?"

I turned my head away, dodging the hand reaching for my face, holding down the trembling all through me.

"I called you so many times yesterday. Why didn't you answer?"

At that, he drew his hand back and frowned at me.

"Seraphina Abbott, are you interrogating me?"

"Coco had a difficult birth. She's family that matters a lot to Ellie. In a life-or-death moment like that, how would I have time for your boring calls?"

"It was just an ordinary checkup. So you went with Bradley, so what? It's not like missing me would cost you anything."

Watching him stand there as if none of it mattered, disappointment swept over me like a wave and drowned me.

I wanted to scream that my son wouldn't lose anything—he was already dead!

And my mother, frantic with worry for her grandson, had hurried across the road and been hit by a truck, shattered to pieces. By the time she reached the hospital she was nothing but a pool of blood and flesh.

I held Stuart's eyes hard, and he shifted his gaze away, uneasy.

"Can you stop acting like a jealous shrew? Ellie and I grew up together. I only see her as a little sister. How can your mind be so filthy?"

I couldn't help but laugh. I was filthy?

He said he had no time to answer my calls, yet the moment I left a comment, he could call straight away to order me to delete it.

Terrified Ellie Cooley might be unhappy.

"Is it really just a little sister?"

"Because Bradley saw you kiss her with his own eyes."

It was at the very restaurant I'd booked for his birthday.

Last night the doctor handed me his belongings, and on his phone watch I found the photo my son had taken from outside the window.

He saw his father's affair with his own eyes, and the shock brought on his heart attack.

Even though the driver rushed him to the hospital right away, his small life still stayed forever at five years old that day.

### Chapter 2

A flicker of guilt crossed Stuart's eyes.

"Ellie's flower shop got hit with some trouble, so I took her out to get some air. How was I supposed to know she'd drink too much—"

He cleared his throat twice. "Enough. Next checkup, I promise I'll take our son myself."

But Stuart, you'll never get the chance to take him anywhere again.

The biting wind poured in over the windowsill. I stood facing the night air, and every word came out soaked in blood.

"No need. Bradley had a heart attack. He's dead!"

Shock flashed across his face and was gone.

Then his expression turned ugly, and he stared at me, eyes full of blame.

"Seraphina, I already told you that kiss didn't mean anything. Are you really so jealous you'd curse your own son?"

"I went through every line of his results at the last checkup. His condition is well under control. I've poured everything I have into this family, and all you do is throw tantrums. What kind of example is that for the child?"

Watching him stand there so sure of himself, I lost any desire to say another word to him.

I said it one word at a time. "Then let's divorce."

Stuart froze, then let out a scornful laugh.

"You're thirty years old and still this emotional, this reckless. No job, no income. You think you could even feed yourself without me?" Contempt filled his eyes. Then he glanced down and caught the corner of the cremation certificate sticking out of my bag.

"Cremation? Who's being cremated?"

He frowned, puzzled, and reached to pull it out. A burst of cheerful music chimed at his waist.

It was the ringtone he'd set just for Ellie, so she could always reach him first, no matter what.

Ellie was crying, all fragile.

"Stuart, some thugs smashed up the flower shop. I'm so scared—"

His pupils shrank. "Don't be scared. I'm coming right now."

"Put Bradley to bed yourself."

He grabbed his coat and strode out, never noticing that there was no sign of his son in the house, never noticing that the study he always kept locked had been left open.

Something pulled me inside, and the thing in the corner stabbed at my eyes.

Seven years ago, I was the most promising newcomer at the law firm, and I took on a difficult case.

The defendant was the most powerful crime syndicate in the area. To get back at me, they drove my family's company into bankruptcy, and my father, cornered by his creditors with nowhere to turn, jumped to his death.

I went alone to gather evidence of their crimes, wanting justice for my father.

When they drugged me and dragged me onto a yacht, it was Stuart, out fishing with friends, who saved me.

He wiped away my tears and the blood, one gentle stroke at a time. "Don't worry. That crowd comes to our hospital whenever they get hurt. I'll quietly help you gather the evidence."

Only later did I learn he was the youngest medical professor in the city, and the heir to the Weiss Group.

So many people longed to attach themselves to this powerful, brilliant doctor and never could, yet he was the one who reached out to me.

Six months later, with Stuart's help, I won the case, sent them all to prison, and avenged my father.

Through every night the nightmares came, he was the one beside me, stroking my back to soothe me.

To marry me, he broke with the Weiss family, and announced his love for me to the whole world.

Then the second year came, our son was born, and Stuart looked at me, torn.

"Baby, I know becoming a great lawyer is your dream."

"But I can't stand the thought of someone else raising our son. Could you quit and raise Bradley yourself? I promise I'll be good to you and our boy for the rest of my life."

I loved him so deeply that I gave up my own future with all my heart.

On so many sleepless nights, I would secretly run my fingers over my bar license.

When Stuart got up in the night and saw, he was overcome with guilt, holding me and promising over and over that he would never let me down.

But now my precious bar license was being used to prop up a flowerpot.

A safe sat in the corner. I tried Ellie's birthday.

The door opened. A pile of things slid out.

Inside a thick envelope were photos of the two of them, everywhere—embracing on a Hawaii beach, nestled together watching penguins in Antarctica, looking at the snow in the Rocky Mountains—

All the places I'd once wished to go with him.

He always said he was busy.

Yet he made it happen for someone else.

There was more—a thick stack of receipts: him funding Ellie's high-end apartment in the city center, setting up her flower shop, all of it.

I took out my phone and photographed every piece of it.

### Chapter 3

As I was putting everything back, I caught a line of writing on the folder for the flower shop renovation.

"Just fly. I'll carry every storm for you."

I stared at that sentence for a long, long time.

So it turned out he could throw himself behind someone's dream too.

Six years married. By day I washed his clothes and cooked his meals, by night I rocked our child to sleep, spinning like a top that never got to stop.

And online, my old colleagues were winning case after case. I watched them glowing in those photos, and all I felt was envy and a quiet ache.

The wind carried my tears off into the night sky.

In the end I laughed out loud.

I took out my phone and dialed the number I knew by heart.

"Fergus Gray, that overseas market in Chicago you mentioned. I'm in."

Fergus went quiet for a beat, then said, delighted,

"Seraphina, with you on board we'll be unstoppable! But it means relocating abroad. Have you really thought this through? Your husband, your child—"

"I've thought it through." My answer didn't waver.

"Then we leave in three days, on schedule."

Three days from now, I would walk away from him for good.

The next morning I went out first thing to buy a suitcase.

A child tripped and fell by the roadside, and her mother scooped her up against her chest, soothing her.

Watching the little one sob into her mother's shoulder, something in my chest twisted without warning.

I thought of Bradley. He'd clung to me more than anyone while he was alive. Every day the moment I got home he'd trail after me like a little shadow, wherever I went, he went. On the road to the afterlife, with no mother beside him, how frightened and heartbroken my baby must be.

He was so small. Would his little ghost lose its way home, not knowing how to find his mother?

I turned my head away, unable to look any longer, and the tears broke loose like a flood.

The moment I got home I started packing fast.

Anything Stuart had bought me, I wanted none of it.

But the protective jade pendant my mother had blessed for Bradley before she died, that I was taking with me.

Bradley had a congenital heart defect. Back then my mother heard of a master said to be miraculous, and she'd walked miles of road, dropping to her knees with every step, kowtowing until her forehead ran with blood.

When she pressed the jade pendant into my hands and I cried at the sight of her, she only smiled, warm.

"As long as Bradley is safe and healthy, as long as your family lives happy and whole, anything I do is worth it."

Just as she'd instructed, I tucked the pendant under Bradley's pillow.

But now the pendant was gone.

A chill ran through me. I was about to go ask the housekeeper when laughter drifted up from downstairs.

I walked to the open hallway overlooking the room below and saw Ellie Cooley sitting on the sofa with a brown teddy in her arms, Stuart beside her.

Ellie smiled and looped her arm through his.

"The second I said CoCo had a hard birth, you went and got her a jade pendant for protection. Stuart, you're so good to CoCo, you sweet godfather."

My gaze dropped, and all at once I saw it, the jade pendant around the teddy's neck, the very one my mother had blessed for Bradley.

Stuart ruffled Ellie's hair. He was severely germophobic, yet he lifted his own cup and held it for her to drink.

"You're the one. Running the flower shop and looking after the dog both, you've worn yourself out, you little fool."

That handsome face wore a doting smile I'd never once seen, and the sight of it scorched my eyes like fire.

There was a time I'd done housework all day, run a high fever, and absently picked up his cup to drink from it.

He hadn't said anything then. But later, that cup turned up in the trash.

So his germophobia depended on the person, after all.

He stood and headed for the kitchen. "Hungry? I'll go cook. Your favorite, beef stew."

For six years I'd tended to his every meal, down to the smallest detail, certain he didn't even know where the kitchen was.

So it turned out he would cook for someone else, too.

I came down the stairs step by step. Ellie looked up and curled her red lips at me, all charm.

"Oh, so you're home, Seraphina. And here I thought you'd actually gone to the county clerk's office to file for divorce."

"Just what I said. A lazy good-for-nothing who'd happily wrap around her own husband like a strangling vine, how could someone like that ever get divorced?"

"Honestly, next to you, I'm just built for a career. Too busy to even find myself a boyfriend."