"This is between you and me. It has nothing to do with Victoria."
He lowered his voice, looking down at me with naked threat in his eyes.
"You've been working yourself to the bone all these years just to pay for your foster mother's heart surgery, haven't you?"
"I hear they've already found a matching donor?"
My heart slammed to a stop. Every drop of blood in my body seemed to freeze solid.
I'd been an orphan for as long as I could remember. Margaret Whitfield had taken me in despite the whispers and sideways glances from everyone around her. She survived by collecting recyclables, picking up odd jobs, pinching every penny, raising me bit by bit on almost nothing.
When Anthony and I first started dating, I never let him drive me home. I was terrified he'd look at me and my family the same way everyone else did, with that mixture of pity and contempt.
But when he found out the truth, he cried.
He pulled me into his arms, one hand stroking my hair, his voice breaking.
"Nora, I'm going to work so hard. I'll give you the best life. I'll take care of your mom. And I'll make every single person who ever looked down on you choke on their words."
And he did.
When he proposed, he hired the most prestigious event planning team in the city and built a sea of ten thousand roses. It was the talk of the town. Overnight, I became the woman everyone envied.
He bought us a house and put my name on the deed. He found doctors for Margaret, managed her treatment plan, covered every medical bill without blinking.
All those people who had sneered at me, who had mocked me behind my back, suddenly lined up to congratulate me, falling over themselves with flattery.
Back then, they used to whisper that Anthony must have done something terrible to feel guilty about, that it was the only explanation for why he treated me so well.
I was drowning in it, certain that a love like ours would never change.
Then Victoria wedged herself between us and shattered that dream to pieces.
But never, not once, did I imagine he would use my mother's life as a bargaining chip. That he would weaponize the only vulnerability I had left, just to make Victoria happy.
My fists clenched so tight my nails carved crescents into my palms. The pain didn't register. It was nothing compared to what was tearing through my chest.
Despair pressed down on me like a hand over my mouth. I couldn't breathe. I closed my eyes, and tears rolled silently down my cheeks.
When I opened them again, everything inside me had gone quiet. Dead quiet.
"Fine," I whispered. "I'll apologize."
Anthony looked at me with satisfaction, snapped his fingers, and his assistant placed a sheet of paper covered in text on the hospital bed.
"Read it exactly as written. Don't skip a single word."
I picked up the paper. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Every line on that page turned the truth inside out. It pinned all the blame on me, claimed I had slandered Victoria out of jealousy and spite. It even stated that Anthony's faked death was a delusion, a product of my own psychological breakdown.
But I had no way out. None. So I swallowed everything I was feeling, read the script he'd prepared, recorded the video, and posted it.
When it was done, my whole body was ice cold, drenched in a thin sheen of sweat.
Anthony glanced at the wound on my neck. He pulled a checkbook and pen from his pocket, scrawled a string of zeros, and pressed the check into my hand.
He let out a long sigh.
"There's a million dollars here. Consider it compensation."
"Transfer to another hospital as soon as you can. Victoria shouldn't have to see you. It upsets her."
Then he turned and walked out.
I checked out of the hospital on unsteady legs. The moment I stepped outside, my phone rang.
It was my boss.
"Nora, the company is going through a restructuring. Your termination notice has been sent to your email, and the severance has already been deposited into your account."
I stood there, stunned, before I managed a few hollow words.
"Thank you for the opportunity. I understand."
After I hung up, I scrolled through my phone. The apology video I had just recorded was already trending at number one. Every negative story about Victoria had been scrubbed clean, wiped away without a trace, as if none of it had ever existed.
