The same year Louis Farley cheated on me, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

His mistress fled. I said nothing, donated my stem cells, and nursed him through every humiliating day of his recovery.

The day Louis was discharged, I told him I wanted a divorce.

He got on his knees and begged me for one more chance. Swore he'd never betray me again.

I caved.

While we were trying for a baby, we booked a couples' suite at a hotel for a romantic night. I woke up halfway through to an empty pillow.

I found him in the room next door, wearing a bathrobe, holding the same woman he'd sworn was out of his life.

Louis calmly let go of her and offered his explanation:

"I went downstairs to grab the food delivery. Came back and walked into the wrong room by mistake. Nothing happened between me and Kathy. Don't overthink it."

I didn't believe him. I demanded they both take a DNA test.

His expression darkened. He scooped me up, carried me back to our room, and kept me in bed three rounds straight.

He bit my earlobe and whispered:

"Daphne Henson, trust me. All I want right now is to have a baby with you. A happy little family of three. So stop making things hard for Kathy."

I chose to give him one last chance.

Three months later, Louis came with me for a prenatal checkup. A fire broke out in the hospital.

I was still on the ultrasound table when he abandoned me to rescue Kathy Hughes, who was having her own checkup in the next room.

"Kathy's pregnant too, and she's more fragile than you. I need to get her out first!"

While Louis carried Kathy toward the exit, I collapsed on the floor and was trampled by the stampeding crowd.

He didn't even glance back. His foot came down hard on my lower abdomen.

The baby was gone.

And so were we.

——

By the time a stranger helped me to the hospital entrance, Louis had already disappeared.

My abdomen was badly injured. Blood kept soaking through.

Out of habit, I called Louis for help. Before I could get a word out, his impatient voice cut in:

"Daphne, why do you have to be so needy? Just take a cab home. Why do you need me? Kathy just had a terrible scare. I'm taking her to see a doctor."

Then I heard Kathy's voice in the background:

"Louis, don't worry about me. Go find Daphne. Just leave me here to fend for myself."

"Shh, don't say that. I'm not going anywhere today. I'm staying right here with you..." He hung up.

Louis cared so much about Kathy and her pregnancy that he'd left me behind in a burning hospital.

I couldn't help but suspect the child in Kathy's belly was his.

But none of that mattered anymore.

Not even Louis himself mattered to me now.

I called an ambulance and went to a different hospital.

The doctor examined me and was prepping me for a D&C surgery.

That's when Louis burst through the door.

"Dr. Dickerson! Kathy's over there saying her stomach hurts. You need to go examine her right now!"

Only then did he notice me lying on the operating table. His face cycled between pale and livid, and he snapped:

"Daphne, you did this on purpose, didn't you? Instead of going home, you came here to steal Kathy's doctor?"

A bitter laugh escaped me. So this was what I was in Louis Farley's eyes.

He was the one who cheated. Kathy Hughes was the one who ran the moment he was diagnosed with leukemia.

I was the one who donated stem cells. I was the one who stayed and took care of him. I shut down my company for him. I was drained, body and soul.

And this was what I got.

I looked at Louis, my voice shaking.

"Do you remember what you promised me? You said you'd never betray me again. You said you and Kathy were finished."

"What exactly are you doing right now?"

A flicker of guilt crossed his face, but it vanished in an instant, replaced by righteous indignation.

"Kathy is pregnant. You want me to just ignore whether she lives or dies? Daphne, how can you be so heartless?"

"She's not doing well. I need Dr. Dickerson over there right now. Stop making a scene."

As he spoke, he grabbed Felicity Dickerson by the arm and tried to drag her away. He didn't even glance down at the blood soaking through my pants.

Dr. Dickerson wrenched her arm free, her voice sharp and urgent.

"Absolutely not. You cannot stop a D&C midway through. The patient is at risk of infection, hemorrhaging, or worse."

Louis didn't care. He let out a cold laugh.

"Daphne is just jealous of Kathy. This has nothing to do with you. You're coming with me. Now."

No matter what Dr. Dickerson said, he hauled her away by force.

I watched his retreating back, and something inside me collapsed.

"Louis, I want a divorce."

I saw him falter. His steps hitched for just a fraction of a second. But then he kept walking without looking back.

A few seconds later, Kathy's voice drifted from the room next door.

"Louis, you pulled another patient's doctor away like that. Won't she be upset?"

His reply was soft, tender.

"So what if she is? As long as you're safe, nothing else matters."

Kathy giggled, pleased with herself.

"I knew it. You care about me more than anyone."

A searing, ripping pain tore through my body.

The nurse who came to check on me went pale, her voice trembling.

"Mrs. Henson, you're hemorrhaging. I'm getting Dr. Dickerson right now."

Hemorrhaging. That explained the dizziness, the way the room swam, the frantic hammering of my heart.

But I heard it clearly when the nurse rushed to the next room. Louis's voice, low and hard.

"Hemorrhaging? It's a trick. She's faking it. Dr. Dickerson stays right here. If anyone tries to move her, I'll take it straight to the hospital director."

He was convinced I was lying. Meanwhile, I was slipping into shock from blood loss.

The nurse eventually found a doctor from another department. They barely managed to save me.

When I woke the next day, Louis was sitting by my bed.

For one foolish moment, I thought he'd come because he finally cared. Instead, he stared at me with a deep crease between his brows.

"Why are you still in the hospital? What exactly do you want? Why do you insist on making life difficult for a pregnant woman?"

The anger hit my wound like a fist. I pressed it down, forced my voice steady.

"Louis, have you forgotten that I went to the hospital for a prenatal checkup? Kathy is pregnant, and I'm not? Is that what you think?"

I held his gaze.

"I was two months along. But the baby is gone now. Because of you."

The color drained from his face. Then, in the next instant, his palm cracked across my cheek.

"You're out of your mind, Daphne! You'd make up anything to come between me and Kathy!"

The blow caught me completely off guard. I tumbled off the hospital bed and hit the floor.

The surgical wound from yesterday felt like it was tearing open.

Louis saw the agony on my face. He reached for me instinctively.

"Are you okay? Did you hit anything?"

I shoved him away with every ounce of strength I had.

"Get away from me. Don't touch me!"

In that moment, I felt a revulsion toward him I had never known before.

He stared at me, stunned, unable to form a single word.

His phone cut through the silence, shrill and jarring.

He didn't answer it. Instead, he straightened up and spoke in a rush.

"If you want to lie here, suit yourself."

"Kathy's in a bad mood. She's pregnant, after all. I'm going to take her out to clear her head."

I said nothing. He walked out without a backward glance.

A bitter smile twisted my lips. How had we ended up here?

Louis and I had grown up together. Childhood sweethearts. We started dating at eighteen, and the day I graduated college at twenty-three, we got married.

I never imagined that three years in, I'd discover he'd been keeping Kathy Hughes on the side like a caged songbird.

I'd been ready to divorce him. But then, out of nowhere, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

The very night of his diagnosis, Kathy took off with tens of millions of his money and fled the country.

For the sake of the twenty-some years we'd known each other, I chose to stay and take care of Louis. When the donor match came back positive, I donated my stem cells.

I nursed him through everything for two years. Changed his bedpans, cleaned up after him, held him together. It took that long before his condition was finally under control and he could be discharged.

The day he left the hospital, he swore to me with every ounce of conviction he had. Said I was the only woman he'd ever love. Said he'd never stray again.

And then, at that hotel, he slipped out of our bed in the middle of the night and went to Kathy's room.

Back then, I let him fool me. I believed him when he said nothing had happened between them.

Now I knew better. From that night until now, they'd been carrying on behind my back. God only knew how many times.

How else had Kathy gotten pregnant? And why else would Louis be so devoted to a woman who'd abandoned him when he was dying?

I dragged myself back onto the hospital bed.

The pain from the wound was unbearable. I blacked out almost immediately.

I was jolted awake by my phone buzzing with notifications.

Kathy had sent a video.

In the footage, the woman was sitting in our bathtub. Louis was patiently feeding her fruit salad, then running his hands over her shoulders in a massage that left nothing to the imagination.

"Daphne, your husband was worried I might get depressed during my pregnancy, so he invited me over to your place as a guest. You don't mind, do you?"

I didn't reply. Not a single word. I just saved the video in silence.

A few minutes later, another message came through. This time, a photo.

It was my mother's roses. The ones she'd planted before she died.

I'd kept them alive on the balcony. Whenever I missed her, I'd go out there and sit with them, letting the sight of those blooms bring her back to me for just a moment.

"These flowers are so ugly. I went ahead and pulled them out for you."

My chest seized.

I fired off a message immediately:

"No! Don't touch them!"

I threw myself out of bed, dragging my broken body through the discharge paperwork as fast as I could.

I called Louis on the way home. Over and over. More than a dozen times.

He didn't pick up once.

I unlocked the front door and found Kathy standing there with a smug look on her face, still holding a single rose in her hand.

"Who told you to touch my flowers? What the hell is wrong with you?"

I was out of my mind with rage. I stormed up and slapped her across the face.

I raised my hand to do it again, but Louis caught my wrist and shoved me hard. I went sprawling to the floor.

The back of my skull cracked against the wall with a dull, sickening thud.

Kathy wiped the smile off her face in an instant. Her voice turned thin and trembling.

"Daphne, I was just trying to help you prune the flowers. Why are you so hostile toward me?"

"Louis and I are really just friends now. That's all we are. Please stop being so jealous, okay?"

Louis held her in his arms and looked down at me, his eyes cold and flat.

"Daphne, do you have to act like such a vicious shrew? You're disgusting."

I fought through the splitting pain in my head and pulled myself to my feet. I walked toward the balcony.

When I saw that every last rose was gone, something inside me snapped.

I grabbed the pruning shears and went looking for Kathy.

Louis stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

"Get out of my way! She destroyed the roses my mother left me. I'll kill her!"

Kathy dabbed at her tears, but in the space where Louis couldn't see, she flashed me a taunting little smile.

I knocked Louis's hand aside, lunging for that woman, ready to cut that lying mouth to ribbons.

A large hand seized a fistful of my hair and slammed me face-down onto the cold glass coffee table.

"They're just flowers, Daphne. If you lay a finger on Kathy, I will personally make sure you end up in prison."

Louis's voice was colder than I'd ever heard it.

I looked up at the man pinning me down, and all I felt was that I was staring at a stranger.