Chapter 4

The day I discovered Caelum was cheating on me was our fifth wedding anniversary.

I had planned a surprise for him at a hotel, but on my way out, I spotted him with his arm around a striking woman with black hair and red lips. They kissed as they walked, oblivious to everything around them.

I sat alone at home from afternoon until evening.

At 8:00 p.m., Caelum returned with an emerald necklace identical to the one I'd seen around that woman's neck.

"Annie, happy fifth anniversary." He smiled and leaned in to kiss me, but I pulled away.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"Just a business dinner. If it bothers you, I'll skip the next one."

Whatever had been holding me together finally snapped. I barely recognized myself as I screamed until my voice gave out and smashed everything within reach.

"How could you do this to me? You lied to me!"

The memory of my mother's death came rushing back. I couldn't accept it. My own husband had turned out just like that animal I called my father. He had cheated on me, too.

Caelum dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around me, crying as he begged for forgiveness. "I'm sorry, Annie. I'm so sorry. What happened with her was a mistake. I've already ended things with her. Please, can't you just let this go?"

And like a fool, I believed him.

Afterward, Caelum blacklisted Nancy from every project, and I did everything I could to forget his betrayal and restore what we'd once had.

Then Nancy sent me photos from her bed.

[Your husband is such a bad boy. He claims he blacklisted me, but he really just wanted to keep me as his mistress.]

When I confronted Caelum, he rubbed his temples in irritation. "Annie, Nancy isn't like you. She wasn't born into money. She built everything she has from nothing, and I feel for her.

"I've already told you that the body and the mind are separate. You're still the one I love. Can you please stop making a scene?"

For a moment, I felt as though I were meeting Caelum for the first time. A terrible chill settled deep inside me.

I contacted a paparazzo, hoping to expose Nancy and destroy her reputation, but Caelum thwarted every attempt.

He had built Nancy's career with his own two hands. He even forced me into a divorce that left me with nothing.

"Annie, you'll walk away with nothing if we divorce, so what's the point of fighting over any of this? If you're willing to accept things as they are, you can still be Mrs. Pemberton."

For the next 179 days, I felt myself die a little more with each passing day.

Night after night, sleep eluded me. My hands trembled without warning. I vomited uncontrollably and broke down sobbing until I had no tears left.

I couldn't even hold a paintbrush anymore. I'd lost the one skill I relied on to make a living.

Half out of my mind, I bit my own wrist until the skin was raw and bloody. I obsessively scrolled through Nancy's more than 2,000 Instagram posts, scrutinizing every photo for some trace of Caelum, desperate to piece together exactly when their affair had begun.

Online, I cursed them both and wished them dead.

I hadn't been the one who shattered the glass, yet I was the one forced to walk across the shards, again and again.

Then, one day, I ran into Caelum at the hospital, my cancer diagnosis clutched in my hand. He had accompanied Nancy to her checkup.

I was gaunt and hollow-eyed, barely recognizable, while the two of them looked radiant together, as though they were made for each other.

Caelum frowned, his expression otherwise unreadable. "Annie, you don't look well."

Tears immediately streamed down my face.

In the end, fear overwhelmed everything else. I was terrified of suffering the same fate as my mother, of dying alone in some rented room without anyone even knowing I was gone.

I desperately needed something, anything, to reassure me that I was still alive, even if it meant clinging to a love that had rotted away from within.

And so I said the words. "Caelum, I was wrong."

A satisfied smile spread across his face, and just like that, we remarried.