Chapter 4

I sat beside my mother until the sky went dark and the first light of morning came through the window.

In the bed beside me, my mother opened her eyes — the pain had been too much to sleep through.

My own eyes burned.

It was only after pulling myself out of that love that I could see clearly.

They had all been suffering because of me.

"Mom, if I go back again — will you have to go through all of this again?"

It was as if she already understood. She didn't ask why. She just said softly:

"When you go back next time, I'll finally tell you where the matches came from."

I went back to the house that had been sold.

I needed to ask Miller why.

I loved him fully, and I was going to leave with the full truth.

The old housekeeper was still there, working as she always had.

My throat felt tight, like something lodged deep. A quiet pain that kept coming.

Everyone had known. Everyone except me. I had been the last to find out — the punchline of a joke I wasn't in on.

I set the photograph of our marriage certificate on the table in front of him.

"Why?"

Why hold on to me, knowing it was false? Why not just tell me the truth?

Why arrange for our baby to be taken from me?

Why let Scarlett send chemically treated flowers to my mother, month after month, and say nothing?

Every question was there, jammed in my throat.

Miller's eyes narrowed slightly. He hadn't expected me to find out. His knuckles curled.

"You were always good at being a wife."

"What I wanted for Scarlett was different. I wanted her to be free. To never have to worry about anything — just love me."

"When we stopped talking in college, she was the one who came to comfort me. She helped me think of ways to win you back."

"The flowers, the jewelry, the things I said to you — all of it came from her."

"By the time we were ready to get married, I found out she had feelings for me all along. She was just too insecure to say anything. And then her family sold her to that club."

"The night of our wedding, when I said I was busy — I was going to bring her home. She was more careful with herself than you. She never chased after anyone."

"The divorce papers — I had you sign them the day we finalized the sale of the house."

Nausea rose in my chest.

I remembered the night he had come to find me during our long silence. He was crying, really crying — but he hadn't made any grand promises.

He spent every dollar he had on a diamond ring for me. And the way he looked at me then — there had been real love in his eyes. I was sure of it.

I pressed my brows together hard. The insults dissolved into something quieter.

"That's disgusting."

Miller sighed. He reached out and took my hand.

"Samantha, I always thought you were the capable one. I won't shortchange you on what's yours."

But what I got was pain. Deception. Betrayal.

The face I had known for fifteen years slowly became something monstrous in my eyes.

I took back my phone and stood to leave.

There was nothing left to ask. A hollow exhaustion settled over me.

Miller looked startled. He stood quickly, and I felt my wrist caught in his grip.

His expression shifted — irritable, unsettled.

"Why are you playing the wounded victim?"

"You think I don't know what you've done?"

A stack of photographs hit me in the face.

They scattered across the floor. I looked down at them.

They were AI-generated images. Obviously fake. Me, with different men.

But Miller's voice came down hard.

"You went behind my back during our fight. You were sleeping around."

"If it weren't for Scarlett, I'd still have no idea. I loved you enough to marry you without questioning your past — and this is what I get."

I almost laughed out loud.

I had loved this man for that long.

I had been that blind.

I had burned two matches for him. I had made my mother suffer through it twice.

I closed my eyes.

"Miller, are you actually that stupid? Have your IT people run a forensic check on those images. You'll see they're fake in five minutes."

"You just couldn't wait to throw dirt on me. You need to make your cheating look like a reaction. Like you were forced into it. Like you were the devoted one."

My phone rang. A nurse, her voice urgent and scared.

"Samantha! Scarlett came into your mother's room — your mother has gone into shock!"