Chapter 3

When someone betrays you, the other person leaves for good.

I couldn't help the bitter little smile that pulled at my mouth.

Stuart could love me down to the bone and still bring Luna Pruitt into our home, into our bed, and have a child with her on the side.

I sat there working my fingers together, helpless, desperate to know exactly when the two of them had started.

Had every bit of his love for me before this just been an act?

He came home to cook for me every day. The moment anything happened to me, he dropped everything to be at my side. That kind of love, holding nothing back. How much of it had really belonged to Luna?

My arm slowly went numb. I sat on the couch and said nothing.

That night, tears soaked into the cushions. I sent the lingerie from the bedroom off to a testing lab, to have them analyze the fluids on it.

The next day, something occurred to me.

I grabbed the car keys off the nightstand, my chest burning with urgency.

I made it to my parents' house fast.

"Rosalie? What brings you home today? Stuart didn't come with you?"

My mother came forward and pulled me inside the house, her voice full of surprise.

In that moment, everything I'd been holding in came pouring out. I buried my face against her and choked out the truth, that Stuart had cheated.

"Rosalie, could you have gotten it wrong?"

My father sat on the couch, still holding two reports in his hand.

"How could I be wrong? The forum post mentioned seafood, and the next thing I know there's seafood in our house. There's no mistake."

"Men are all the same. Fickle, never satisfied. And that little tramp's even gone and had a baby!"

"I thought Stuart would be the one exception. I never thought he'd give in and stray too. The promises he made back then, that he cherished you, respected you, that we never had to have kids. It's only been three years, and he's already out chasing his thrills!"

My mother stroked my back, aching for me, and spat the words out in fury.

My father set the reports down, frowning. "Everyone knows Stuart loves Rosalie more than anything. To marry her he took the family's punishment head-on. It cost him his leg."

"So what? A bad leg didn't stop him from cheating. A man like that knows how to put on a show. Maybe all that devotion back then was an act too."

My mother fired back angrily, glaring at him.

I wiped my eyes, but my heart was full of doubt.

It was exactly what everyone said.

All these years, Stuart had spoiled me beyond reason, treating me as if I'd melt if he held me too close.

He was the heir to the Webb family, the man half the young women in New York dreamed about.

The night before our wedding, the daughter of the Dickerson family, the most powerful family in New York, had kidnapped me and locked me in a warehouse soaked in gasoline, trying to force him to marry her instead.

Stuart turned her down flat. He pinned her down, frantic, pressed a knife to her throat, and made her tell him where I was.

But it was already too late. By the time he reached me, flames were roaring up all around me.

He didn't hesitate for even a second. He ran straight into the fire, through the smoke and the falling beams, and dragged me out with everything he had.

His back was covered in burns from it. He even cracked three ribs.

And all he did was hold my hand, still shaken, his warm tears falling on my shoulder.

"Rosalie, I can't lose you. Only when you're here can I feel my heart beating."

It was because I'd seen him give himself like that, completely, that none of this made sense.

Was it really just because I didn't want children?

What did Luna have that moved him, that turned his heart?

The next moment, my phone started buzzing wildly.

I put it on speaker. Stuart's cold voice came through. "Rosalie, where have you hidden Luna?"

"What are you talking about? I have no idea where she is!"

I frowned, and a mocking smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

"Rosalie! How can you be this jealous? You'd actually believe some baseless gossip off the internet! Where is she?"

My father suddenly clutched his chest and crumpled to the floor, mumbling.

"Luna? Luna's... gone?"

My mother and I rushed him to the hospital in a panic, but not one doctor there would step forward to treat him.

"Rosalie, your father gets his surgery the moment Luna comes back."

Stuart's icy voice echoed in my ear through the receiver.

"Stuart, the Webb family cares about nothing more than its reputation. If word gets out that you cheated and left your own father-in-law to suffer without treatment, you know exactly what that does to you."

"The doctors can keep him alive. But your father wakes up the moment Luna shows up."

After the call ended, my mother had already dissolved into tears.

"Didn't you all hear me? Get over here and save him!"

The doctors swarmed in and started CPR on my father.

"There's no time, Mom. We're going to bring her back, and we'll get evidence of the affair right where it's happening."

I quickly opened my phone, found Luna's social media account and her location, then pulled up a car GPS tracking app.