Chapter one

"Sign it and be done with it, Elara. Stop making this difficult."

He slid a thick manila folder across the table. I didn't need to open it. I knew what the divorce papers looked like.

"She’s really back, then?" I asked, my voice sounding raspy even to my own ears.

"Lydia is home. And she's packing in." Charlie finally looked at me, his eyes full of that familiar, jagged hatred. "Dem it, Elara, did you think I’d stay with you a second longer than I had to? You’ve spent three years in this house paying for what you did to her. The debt is settled. Get out."

The debt?. Everything with Charlie was a transaction.

He still believed it. He still believed that seven years ago, I was the one who pushed Lydia down those stairs, leaving her paralyzed the reason she disappeared for years. And he still believed that twenty years ago, it was Lydia’s small hands that pulled him out of the frozen lake when we were kids. He had married me in a drunken rage because we looked so much alike, vowing to make my life a living hell as penance for "paralyzing" the woman he loved.

But now, Lydia had walked back into the city on two perfectly healthy legs, a "miracle" recovery that coincided perfectly with Charlie’s massive inheritance.

"I didn't push her, Charlie," I said, the words feeling like a script I’d memorized but no longer believed in. "And it was me in that lake. It was always me. She stole the silver whistle I used to call for help, and you just... you just let her steal the rest of the truth, too."

"Shut the f**k up!" Charlie roared, slamming his glass onto the table. The scotch splashed over the wood. "Don't you dare lie about her. Not today. Lydia has the scars. You just have the face."

He stood up, his massive frame casting a shadow that made the room feel even smaller. He leaned over me, his breath smelling of peat and anger. "I only married you because I couldn't have her. Every time I touched you, I closed my eyes and imagined it was her. You were just a ghost, Elara. I took you because I wanted to break you the way you broke her. But now? Now she’s perfect again. And you? You’re just a mistake I’m finally erasing."

He turned and walked toward the door. "Be out by morning. I don't care where you go. Just don't let me see your face again."

The front door slammed, the sound echoing through the hollow mansion.

I looked down at the papers. My hand was shaking as I reached for the pen. I wasn't crying because he was leaving. I was shaking because of the secret I was carrying the secret that had arrived two days ago in the form of a positive test.

I was pregnant with the child of a man who looked at me like I was dirt,

"Fine," I whispered to the empty room. "You want your life back? Take it."

I signed the papers. I didn't take a cent of his money. I didn't pack the jewelry he’d bought me to "punish" me with its weight. I just grabbed my laptop and the small, tarnished silver whistle I’d kept hidden for two decades.