Three years after they cut off my breast and threw me out with nothing. That's when Rhys Griffin called.
"Dahlia's been gone for a while now. Why haven't you come home?"
"Oliver starts school next week. You should come back and spend some time with him, or he won't even recognize you."
His tone was casual, like we'd only been apart since yesterday.
I frowned. "Rhys, we're divorced."
A few seconds of silence. Then a sigh from the other end.
"It was a sham divorce."
"We agreed you'd come back once Dahlia got her city residency permit."
"That's all done now. Why are you still making this difficult?"
I hung up and laughed.
Signed. Stamped. Filed.
Divorce was divorce. There was no "real" or "fake" about it.
——
I was a little surprised to see Rhys standing outside my apartment building.
Then again, it made sense.
I'd left with nothing in the divorce. The only thing to my name was this small apartment I'd bought before we got married.
Where else would I be?
He wore a long trench coat, his posture tall and straight.
His face, though, carried the same impatience it always had.
"Where the hell have you been? Coming home this late."
That habitual, accusing tone. It couldn't stir a single thing in me anymore.
I didn't want to deal with him. I walked straight toward the other elevator.
He froze for a second, then stepped in front of me, his chest heaving.
"What kind of attitude is that?"
It was the after-work rush. People streamed through the lobby, and more than a few turned to stare.
Curious eyes landed on me. I instinctively pulled my coat tighter.
Rhys's gaze followed, settling on my chest.
What had once been hollow and flat, after several reconstructive surgeries, now looked almost normal again. Surprise flickered across his face. "You disappeared for three years just for this?"
When I didn't warm up, his expression soured. He pressed on.
"How many times have I told you? Even without your breast, I wouldn't have looked down on you."
"Instead of wasting your time and energy on something so trivial, you should've taken a page from Dahlia's book. Learned how to be a good mother. A good wife."
Comparing me again. To the woman who'd repaid my kindness by stealing everything I had. Even with all the calm I'd built over three years, anger sparked in my chest.
"Who gave you the right to lecture me?"
He didn't back down. If anything, he looked more earnest.
"Serena Clarke, honestly? As a woman, you're just not in Dahlia's league."
That serious expression of his landed in my wide eyes, and whatever fight I had left just drained out of me.
Right. In his mind, I could never measure up to the little nanny.
The little nanny whose whole world revolved around our son. Around him.
And me? I'd had the audacity, while my newborn was crying for milk, to spiral into my own grief over losing a breast.
Three years ago, those words would have shattered me. I would have sobbed and screamed. Demanded to know if he was disgusted by me. If he'd stopped loving me.
Now, all I felt was how absurd it was. How laughable.
"Mr. Griffin, we divorced three years ago."
"Legally, you're Oliver's guardian. First grade orientation isn't a reason I need to show up."
"I'll keep depositing child support into his account on schedule."
"As for you and me, we're strangers. Complete strangers. And I'd appreciate it if you stopped contacting me in any form."
Rhys stared.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"It was a sham divorce!"
"You were eighteen when you followed me. You cut off your own family to marry me. You nearly died giving birth to my child..."
