On the suit jacket her husband had just taken off, Hannah noticed a lipstick stain,one that definitely wasn’t hers. Yet at that very moment, her husband was clasping around her neck a one-of-a-kind gemstone necklace in celebration of their 7th wedding anniversary. Later, when she found a single strand of golden hair that didn't belong to her too, a seed of doubt quietly took root in her heart. Still, her husband's tenderness, his unwavering attention and love, made her question her own suspicions. Could she really be imagining things? Until she saw the photo on the phone— Her husband, in bed with another woman. He really had betrayed her! And that woman… was the friend she had trusted most.
View MoreNICOI’ve always believed people can be broken, but they can also be mended. Bent back into place with enough patience, enough love, enough pressure.That’s what I tell myself every time I watch Hannah walk the halls again. She doesn’t drift like a ghost anymore. She moves with purpose—my purpose. The way she pauses to greet the staff, the way she takes her coffee in the sunroom again. Those are signals. Proof. She’s healing.The others can’t see it, but I do.I see it when she lingers just a second longer at the dinner table, not rushing to her room. I see it when she wears the ring again, the diamond catching the chandelier light like it used to. She’s not doing that for show. Not entirely. Somewhere inside, she remembers.She belongs here. She just forgot.And I’ll remind her.I’ve already started the plans. Quietly, carefully. She’ll have no idea until the moment arrives, when the surprise blooms around her and she can’t say no. Because what wife refuses her husband’s vow renewal?
HANNAHThe office smelled like leather and old smoke, even though Nico hadn’t touched a cigar in years. I eased the door shut behind me, pressing the handle down until it clicked without a sound. My heart was already hammering, a traitor against my ribs.I shouldn’t have been here. Not alone, not after midnight, not with Nico asleep down the hall. But “shouldn’t” had stopped mattering weeks ago.I crouched by the mahogany desk, fingers brushing against the drawer David had told me about—the one Nico never used during the day but kept locked every night. “Behind the false wall,” David had murmured, sliding the scrap of paper across the table. Numbers written in his careful, spare hand. A code. “Don’t try unless you’re sure. Once you cross this line, there’s no going back.”I’d crossed it the moment I tucked that paper into my bra instead of burning it.The drawer groaned open, revealing nothing but neat rows of pens and stationary, the same glossy emptiness that fooled everyone else. Bu
SYDNEYHe called me a liar in front of the house.Nico’s voice ricocheted down the corridor, thick with fury. I stood there swallowing it like glass while the folder slapped my chest and the photos I’d built fluttered to the floor like dead birds. How dare you touch my marriage?—as if I hadn’t spent months stitching myself into the seams of his life, as if I hadn’t been the one holding his hand when the press circled or when Veronica sharpened her smile at the table.He chose her.I locked the bathroom door and stared at my reflection until the mascara bled. It wasn’t crying; it was chemistry. I wiped the streaks with the heel of my palm and smiled at the ruined face until it hardened. Fine. If he wants devotion, I’ll give him devotion—just not to him. To the truth. Or the version that will become truth once I repeat it enough.Hannah likes mirrors. She thinks they make her look composed. Mirrors also make it easy to aim.I rinsed my hands. “At any cost,” I told the sink.Then I went h
DAVIDI waited until the last guard passed the corridor. The monitors in front of me showed the usual: Nico’s men on lazy loops around the mansion, Sydney fuming in her bedroom like a storm cloud with lipstick, Veronica sipping her late-night tea, composed and poisonous.And then there was her.Hannah stood by the window in the east wing suite, moonlight carving her into something spectral. She touched the curtain twice—our signal. Safe. Alone.I slipped out of the control room, crossed the grounds through shadows I knew better than my own reflection, and took the service stairs two at a time. By the time I reached her door, my pulse was steady again, my hand already curling into a fist like it always did before a negotiation. Except this wasn’t business. It was worse.She opened the door without a word.The first thing that hit me was her eyes. Tired, rimmed with defiance, like she hadn’t decided whether to collapse into my arms or push me out into the hall.“You’re late,” she whisper
HANNAHBy the third morning, the house pretends I belong to it again.Alvarez brings me toast without asking how I like it. The gardener tips his cap like I’m a painting that’s been rehung. Staff footsteps adjust to my rhythm in the halls, no hesitation, no curiosity. White lilies return to the foyer table—thick-throated and sterile, like the house wants me to breathe hospital air.Nico mistakes all of that for peace.He appears in doorways the way he always did—already moving toward me, already narrating the next scene. He kisses the top of my head when I’m seated, the corner of my mouth when I stand, the hollow beneath my ear when he’s decided he’s been patient enough. I smile appropriately, soften on cue, use the little stallers I’ve perfected until they sound like breath: “Headache,” “Not yet,” “Doctor said to ease back in.”He believes me because he needs to.At breakfast he spreads apricot jam on my toast and slides the plate toward me like a vow. “You’re too thin,” he says, cupp
HANNAHThe door slammed so hard the chandelier rattled. Nico stood there in the frame, chest heaving, his eyes wild. Papers fluttered in his fists like broken wings. He threw them across the room, and they scattered at my feet.“Explain this,” he snarled. His voice was raw, shredded by rage.I didn’t move right away. I forced my face into wide-eyed shock, my lips parted just enough to tremble. Slowly, deliberately, I crouched down and picked one of the photos off the carpet.David. His profile bent toward mine. My face, blurred, close enough to suggest intimacy.Fabricated. Twisted. Sydney’s handiwork.But Nico didn’t see forgery. He saw betrayal.I let my breath hitch. “What… what is this?” I whispered, like a woman whose world had just collapsed. I pressed a hand to my chest, sinking onto the edge of the bed as if my legs couldn’t hold me.“You tell me!” he roared, stepping closer. His shadow loomed over me, filling the room. “Tell me why you’ve been sneaking around with him. Tell me
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