LOGIN**Marcus's POV**She didn't answer my calls.Not once. Not during the court session, not after, not on the drive over. Twelve calls, but they went straight to voicemail after the third ring which meant she was declining them, not missing them. I knocked on her door anyway.Nothing."Diane." I pressed my hand flat against the door. "I know you're in there. Your car is outside. I'm not leaving until you open this door."There was silence."Diane. Please."The lock turned.She opened the door and looked at me and what was on her face was not anger, I could have handled anger. Anger I knew how to navigate. What was on her face was the specific hurt of someone who had trusted completely and been made a fool of, and that was so much worse than anger because there was no argument to meet it with.She was still wearing the ring.I noticed that immediately.She stepped aside and let me in without a word and that silence followed me into the apartment, sat between us while she stood by the wi
**Angela's POV**"Case number 4471. The matter of Angela Ruby versus Marcus Goldman. Mrs. Ruby is bringing three charges against the defendant : Domestic violence, breach of promise For marriage, and verbal abuse. The plaintiff is seeking damages of forty thousand dollars. All parties please rise."I rose.Slowly. Deliberately. With my back straight and my chin up. The white bandage wrapped around my head positioned exactly where everyone in that courtroom could see it.Was it dramatic?Yes.Did I care?Absolutely not.My lawyer, Mrs. Cole was sharp, fast, and the kind of woman who ate courtrooms for breakfast. She leaned close and whispered, "You look perfect.""I know," I whispered back.Across the room, Marcus sat at his table in a dark suit that he had clearly ironed three times, his hands were flat in front of him, his lawyer beside him shuffling papers. He glanced at me once when I sat down.I stared straight ahead.The judge was a woman in her fifties with reading glasses and
**Marcus's POV**Seven days.Angela had been in that bed for seven days and I had counted every single one of them sitting in that chair beside her, watching her chest rise and fall and telling myself that she was going to be okay. Knowing that okay was the least she deserved from me right now.The doctors said the swelling on the back of her head was reducing. They said her brain activity was normal. They said all the right things in all the right clinical tones and I sat there and heard none of it because all I could see was the moment her head hit that wall.On a loop.Every time I closed my eyes.I had not meant to push her that hard. I had not meant to push her at all. But I had in self defense because she was out to kill me. I wish I hadn't, and she had fallen, the sound her skull made against that plaster was something I was going to carry for the rest of my life whether I deserved to or not.I did deserve to.I knew that.I rubbed my face with both hands and looked at her. Sti
**Angela's POV** "Marcus!!!" My voice hit the walls before I even fully got down the hallway. "Marcus, who is Diane?!" I heard the bath water stop running. Heard the small splash of Eli being lifted out. Marcus's footsteps was careful, slow, the footsteps of a man who had just heard something through a wall that told him whatever came next was not going to be good. He appeared in the bathroom doorway with Eli wrapped in a towel on his hip, with water still dripping, looking at me with an expression I had never seen on his face before. Not guilt exactly. He was caught so unaware that he completely went mute. "Please...calm down, I am begging you Angela.." "Don't." I held up one finger. "Don't say my name like that. Don't give me the voice. Just answer the question." I stepped closer. "Who. Is. Diane." Eli looked between us. His small brow furrowed. "Mama?" he said. "It's okay, baby." My voice softened for exactly one second and then hardened again when I looked back at Mar
**Elena's POV** Richard looked smaller today. I couldn't really tell but there was something off about him. That was the first thing I noticed when we walked in. Like the bed had gotten larger or he had gotten less , but something had shifted. He looked at us when we came through the door and something moved across his face that I could not read. Relief, maybe. Or the particular exhaustion of a man who has been carrying something heavy for a very long time and can finally see the place where he is allowed to set it down. "Dad." Liam pulled his chair close. "We need to talk to you." "I know," Richard said. We both looked at him. "I know why you're here," he said. "I've been waiting for this conversation for longer than you know." Liam looked at me silently . I looked at Richard. "Then tell us," I said quietly. Richard closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he looked directly at me, not at Liam. "Your mother's name is Grace," he said. "Grace Thompson." The room
**Angela's POV**I woke up to an empty bed.For a moment, just one ... I forgot everything. The argument with Marcus, our breakup, last night. I just lay there in the Saturday morning quiet and felt the warmth still in the sheets and thought nothing in particular.Then it all came back.I pressed my face into the pillow and groaned.Because the worst part was not what happened last night. The worst part was that I had liked it. I had lain there in the dark with Marcus's arm around me and felt something settle in my chest that hadn't been settled in months and I had liked that feeling desperately and I hated that I liked it.I missed him.I had missed him for weeks...I mised the specific weight of him in the bed, the smell of his skin, the way he always woke up before me and made noise in the kitchen before he remembered other people were sleeping. I had broken up with him and missed him every single day and last night my body had simply decided without consulting the rest of me.I sat
*Liam's POV*I drove too fast.I knew I was driving too fast and I did it anyway because Andrea had called me and said 'Elena fell, she's in the hospital, she's okay" and my brain had processed exactly one of those three things.She fell.The rest of it ... the okay part, the she's fine part, the c
*Elena's POV*“What the bloody hell?” I screamed, bolting upright in the tangled sheets.Liam jerked awake, his eyes wide and bleary. “Elena? what’s wrong? You’re shaking. Talk to me...”I didn’t answer. Tears were already flooding my red, swollen eyes, spilling hot down my cheeks. I couldn’t speak
*Elena's POV* “I’m going to make you feel exactly what I felt, Alex,” I whispered to the night air, my voice raw from crying. “You slept with my twin like she was me? Fine. Tonight, I’ll sleep with someone who’ll make you wish you’d never been born.” My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. His name flash
*Elena's POV*“Alex… yes, right there,” the moan floated down the hallway, low and breathless, exactly the way I sounded when he touched me. “God, I’ve wanted this for so long.”My stomach lurched. I froze, one hand still on the door handle, the other pressed to my mouth so I wouldn’t scream. That







