An inexplicable unease settled over me.
Every Valentine's Day for the past several years had ended the same way: me tearing into whatever woman William was seeing on the side, making such a scene that the whole city knew he'd married a jealous shrew.
And every year, after I'd dragged myself home from the latest confrontation, he'd look at me with undisguised irritation, then bury himself in his phone, flirting with mistress number three, four, and five.
Meanwhile, I'd hover nearby like a fool, hoping he might just sit with me long enough to share a quiet bowl of dessert.
William cleared his throat.
"At the family dinner last night, did you draw the golden lot this year?"
I froze.
The golden lot was an old Whitney tradition. Every bride who married into the family had to draw it before her name could be entered into the family registry, before she could truly be considered a Whitney.
But me? I'd been shaking that lot box for nearly ten years and had never once drawn it.
Meanwhile, some dancer William had casually brought home one night could toss out a golden lot on her first try.
So he'd always tease me about it. Said I was too sharp-tongued, too petty to fit in with Harbor City's elite. That was why the lot never fell my way.
Thinking about it now, I shook my head.
"Didn't get it this year either."
Something flickered in William's eyes. Confusion, maybe.
"That doesn't make sense..."
If I hadn't already known the truth, hearing those words would have moved me. I would have believed he was genuinely troubled that I couldn't draw a winning lot.
But his that doesn't make sense had nothing to do with sympathy for me.
I still remembered the phone call he'd made to his mother three days ago.
At first, I'd assumed it was his usual routine, calling to tell Martha her bedtime story.
But the more I listened, the more wrong it sounded.
"She's pregnant. Let her draw the winning lot this year. It wouldn't look good if she's showing and still not in the family registry."
"Mom, I know you don't like her... and I'm definitely not going to just forgive her either. That first year, when she actually drew the golden lot, wasn't I the one who secretly snapped it in half and swapped it with a fake?"
"She's been punished for what happened all those years ago. It's been long enough."
I'd been lying in that soft bed, listening, and every drop of blood in my body had turned to ice.
So all this time, all these years, he'd been blaming me for that.
William seemed about to say something comforting, but before the words left his mouth, a knock came at the door.
"Mr. Whitney, Miss McClain says everything's ready. She'd like you to come personally and... get a matching tattoo."
The moment he heard that, William shot to his feet so fast I nearly tumbled off the sofa.
Desire surged behind his eyes, raw and undisguised. I no longer existed.
He tossed out a careless "Take care of yourself and the baby," then opened the door and was gone.
A notification chimed on my phone. A calendar reminder.
After Valentine's Day: file for divorce.
I walked into City Hall and handed over the marriage certificate.
It took the clerk less than five seconds. She frowned and slid it back across the counter.
"Miss, this certificate is fake. The official seal is forged."
The air left my lungs.
"That's impossible. Could you check again..."
"There's genuinely no record in the system. You and Mr. Whitney are both technically listed as unmarried..."
She turned her monitor around to show me.
The room tilted. My vision blurred.
Memories crashed through my mind, one after another.
Our wedding day. William suddenly deciding he wanted to take me camping on a deserted island, so he'd asked his family to handle the paperwork on our behalf.
Coming back from the island. Taking the marriage certificate from his mother's hands. The strange, unreadable expression on Jemima Whitney's face.
And then, after that happened, William falling apart for days, crying himself to sleep every night.
I'd heard him once, drunk and unguarded.
He said he didn't want to be married.
It all made sense now. Maybe it was never about fearing marriage. He simply never wanted to marry me.
I stood up on unsteady legs.
By the time the world came back into focus, I was sitting outside an exam room at the hospital.
A few nurses pushed a cart past me, chatting.
"Talk about different fates for different people. You know that god-sister of William Whitney's, right?"
