His Fake Illness, Her Real Heartbreak The Betrayal I Never Saw Coming

My husband had a strange illness.

When it flared up, he could recognize everyone around him—everyone except me.

He'd point at a flower girl on the street and say, "That's my wife, Maud Fox."

Yet he'd completely ignore me, the woman being harassed by a drunk, begging him for help.

He'd mistake total strangers for me.

But the moment someone called me by my name, he'd come at me with a knife.

"You think you can impersonate my wife?"

To cure him, I tried everything. I prayed at every temple, knelt at every altar, and spent two full years chasing down every folk remedy I could find.

Until this time.

I walked in and saw it with my own eyes—Caspar Stephens tangled up in bed with my best friend, Ebony James.

His arm was wrapped around her waist. "Maud, you've gotten thinner since last time."

I stared at them. My face was calm. I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

When Caspar came to his senses, he dropped to his knees in front of me and slapped himself across the face, over and over.

"I'm sorry, Maud. That night—I got confused again. I thought she was you."

"Hit me. Scream at me. Whatever you need to feel better..."

I had forgiven him ninety-nine times. But I was tired now.

I set the divorce papers in front of him. "Let's end this."

……

I still couldn't get the image out of my head.

The moment I pushed open that door.

My husband. My best friend. In our bed.

Ebony James tugged her shirt back up over her shoulder, her expression dripping with provocation.

"Girl, if you'd shown up any later, your husband and I would've been done already."

A vicious pain tore through my chest. I closed my eyes in despair.

Two years ago, everyone in Harbor City knew that Caspar Stephens loved his wife more than life itself.

He'd crossed an ocean to bid on an East Bay pearl for me at auction when the accident happened, leaving him with Capgras Delusion.

In recent months, the person he most frequently mistook for me was my best friend, Ebony.

He gave her the new nightgown he'd just bought.

He nearly wandered into her bedroom in the middle of the night.

It put me in an awkward position, and I finally brought it up with her.

"Ebony, maybe you could stay at one of my other houses for a few days?"

When Ebony had lost her job and couldn't find work, I'd waved her in without a second thought—hired her as a live-in caretaker at five thousand dollars a month.

But now Caspar kept confusing them, and it was driving me out of my mind.

Ebony smiled. "But I don't want to leave."

"Even if your husband really does think I'm you, nothing would ever happen between us."

I believed her.

But later, when I wasn't home, she schemed her way into Caspar's bed with every trick she had.

When she saw me frozen in the doorway, face white as paper, staring at the two of them, her smile only grew wider. More vicious.

"Maud, your husband really does have stamina for days."

"He had his arms around me all night long. Wore me out completely."

"But don't get the wrong idea—he was totally out of it. He thought I was you, that's all..."

As she spoke, Ebony pulled her collar open, deliberately showing off the trail of hickeys across her skin.

Blood rushed to my head.

My fists clenched. Something inside me finally snapped. I grabbed the stool beside me and swung it at her head.

But before it could land, a hand clamped around my wrist.

Caspar.

"What do you think you're doing?"

He glared at me, cold and hard, his fingers digging into my wrist until the bones ached.

There was no trace of the warmth he used to show me. Nothing in his eyes but ice-cold hostility and the guarded look you'd give a stranger.

As if I were his worst enemy.

I knew. He was having another episode. He couldn't recognize me.

But I had already shattered.

"Caspar Stephens, look at me! Look at my face!" My voice cracked. Tears spilled down my cheeks. "Who am I?"