Betrayed by the Man I Almost Married

Three years ago she'd posted a photo—two hands laced together, fingers interlocked.

The caption read:

*Tonight, I bloom for you.*

I recognized those hands instantly—the ones twisting the sheets into knots. Eugene's hands.

Three years ago.

I scrolled like someone possessed, faster and faster, until finally—four years back, in a group photo from Eugene's company—I found her.

She was his coworker.

Yet in all these years, I'd never once seen her at any of Eugene's work dinners.

All this time, she'd willingly kept herself hidden for him.

I forced down the nausea clawing up my throat

and sent Eugene a message:

*I'm home. I know everything.*

An hour later, footsteps shuffled outside the door, and with them a woman's voice, thick with tears.

"Gene, it's my fault. Let me in. I'll explain everything to her."

"No!"

Eugene kept his voice low, deliberately so, but the force still bled through—commanding and shielding at once.

The man on the other side of that door was not the one I knew.

With me he was gentle, easygoing. But now—decisive, hard-edged, yet still somehow soft with her.

I stood before I realized I was moving, my feet carrying me toward the door.

I needed to see him. The Eugene out there. And the girl with the chestnut hair.

I gripped the door handle. They were still arguing on the other side.

I yanked it open.

The door swung wide.

The girl with the chestnut hair was curled into Eugene's chest, crying. His hand stroked her hair over and over, his eyes full of nothing but ache for her.

Watching his fingers rest in that chestnut hair—

in a flash, the strands under the pillow, the strands in the bathroom, all of them seemed to stretch out and wind tight around me.

They saw me.

Eugene dropped his arms from around her so fast it looked violent.

The girl wiped her eyes and took a step forward.

"I'm so sorry, Lottie. Please—this was all my fault…"

I couldn't hold back. My arm swung up and the slap cracked full across her face.

When my hand kept going toward Eugene, he charged in from behind, shoved me hard, and pinned the girl behind him—shielding her like a startled rabbit he refused to let anyone touch.

"Lottie, what are you doing?!"

Resentment and raw anger surged behind his eyes.

But mine had already dropped to her left hand.

On her ring finger sat a diamond engagement ring. Massive. Unmistakable.

The exact same design Eugene had put on my finger three months ago when he proposed.

My nails bit into my palms.

I spun around, walked fast to the bedroom, and wrenched open the left drawer of the vanity.

The ring box was empty.

I ran back out, seized the girl's wrist,

and pried the ring off her finger by force.

Under the dim hallway light, the engraving on the inside of the band didn't say *Lottie*.

It was this year's limited edition.

When Eugene and I went to buy it, it had been the last one in stock.

I held the ring in front of Eugene's face.

"Is this mine? Or did you buy two from the start?!"

"I'm the one who begged Gene to get it for me!"

The girl stepped in front of him before he could answer.

"Lottie, I'm sorry—it's all my fault. I know I don't deserve to be with Gene. I just… I only wanted to stay close to him, quietly, even if it was only for a little while…"

I looked past the top of her head and locked eyes with Eugene.

"So you bought two. You bought two from the very beginning?!"