He Begged Me to Remarry, Then Cheated Again,I took everything.

When I came to again, the sharp sting of antiseptic filled my nostrils. I frowned, the smell alone enough to make my stomach turn.

I struggled to sit up, but Hubert's voice cut through the silence before I could manage it. "You're hurt. Rest. What are you squirming around for?" A pause, then a sigh heavy with irritation. "You never make anything easy."

I clenched my fingers into the bedsheet. "And whose fault is it that I ended up like this?"

Hubert's expression froze for a split second before hardening over. "You brought this on yourself. Don't blame anyone else."

His words drove through my chest like a blade, buried themselves deep in my heart. The pain stole every word I might have said.

When I stayed silent, he opened his mouth to speak again, but a shrill ringtone cut him off.

He answered, and just like that, his voice softened without him even seeming to notice.

"Clarissa... yeah... I'll pick some up for you on my way over..."

He hung up and the warmth vanished, replaced by ice. "Clarissa is being generous this time. She's not pressing charges. Her birthday is in two days. Don't show your face there."

Two days. That was exactly when I'd planned to leave.

I lowered my gaze and said nothing.

The moment Hubert walked out, my phone buzzed with a text from Clarissa.

Don't kid yourself into thinking Hubert actually cares about you. He's planning to propose to me at my birthday gala. You're welcome to come watch, of course, but he'd really rather you didn't.

I turned off the phone and stared out the window at the blue sky and drifting clouds. My mind pulled me back to the day Hubert had proposed to me.

After I'd said yes, he'd lifted me off my feet and spun me around, laughing, again and again. He'd even had fireworks set off over Crestfall for nine straight nights to celebrate.

Back then, he'd been so happy he wanted the whole world to know I was his.

But after that... everything changed. The house was the same. The man was not.

The next day, I was discharged and went home. I punched in the door code, and the screen flashed red. Incorrect password.

I tried again. And again. Each time the same cold rejection blinked back at me, until the lock froze me out entirely.

That code, the one my fingers had entered thousands upon thousands of times, now told me I didn't belong here.

I remembered the day I'd first moved into this house. Hubert had taken my hand, and together we'd set the password.

"Just in case a certain someone forgets," he'd said with a grin, "I picked the day we got together."

That date was also my birthday. There was no way I'd gotten it wrong.

Yet the alarm kept blaring, each beep a slap across my face.

I was still standing there, frozen, when the door swung open from inside.

Clarissa stood in the doorway wearing my silk nightgown. She yawned, slow and lazy, as if she'd just rolled out of bed.

Then she swept her hair to one side, deliberately baring a neck mottled with hickeys. Her eyes glittered with satisfaction she didn't bother to hide.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sweetie. Hubert brought me home last night, and I threw a little fit, so he changed the code." She tilted her head, lips curling. "Guess he forgot to tell you."