Revulsion rippled through me the moment she touched me. I recoiled, pushing her away with two fingers like she was contaminated.
Her expression faltered. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Before I could answer, Dominic's voice boomed from the bathroom. "Hannah! How do you turn on this shower?"
Panic flickered in her eyes. She abandoned me instantly. "Don't touch it! The floor's slippery—I'm coming."
I seized the moment, slipping back to my room and locking the door.
Silence.
I redialed my best friend. He picked up on the first ring, voice dripping with outrage.
"It's insane! She swore eternal devotion to marry you. Worshipped the ground you walked on. And now? She brings her lover into your home?"
"Refresh my memory," I said. "What exactly did she do to marry me?"
His account painted a woman I couldn't reconcile with the nemesis in my memories.
Ten years ago, Hannah and I had clashed over a project—a dispute that ended with both of us falling from a rooftop. She got stitches. I got fractured bones, a secondary infection, and a month in the ICU.
"While you were fighting the reaper," he said, "Hannah stood guard outside your door. Dug her nails into her palms until they bled. Eyes bloodshot from sleepless nights. She refused to leave."
She'd confessed in a rasp that facing death had shattered her pride. She realized how many years we'd wasted on hatred. She swore if fate gave her another chance, she'd never let me go.
When I finally woke, this proud, obstinate woman broke down. Clung to me sobbing, impossible to pull away. The same woman who scoffed at religion knelt in the hospital corridor, thanking a God she didn't believe in.
From that day, she buried her temper. Handed over the disputed project without a fight. Stopped obstructing my deals. Even learned to cook—wielding a spatula with hands that had never known labor—just to nurse me back to health.
She cut off every suitor. Ended her reputation as a socialite.
At her company's ribbon-cutting, she made a public vow: she would love only me. She implemented a three-meter rule—no man allowed within ten feet of her.
She enforced it ruthlessly, firing any employee who breached the perimeter. The city buzzed: the ice-cold heiress had melted for Joel, loving him to madness.
Hearing this, I felt a strange disconnect.
My memories were different. I remembered only war.
Hannah and I had been enemies since childhood. If I topped the class, she poured ink on my textbooks. I shredded her notes in retaliation.
During finals, she spread rumors about my mother's infidelity to rattle me. I countered by bringing her family's illegitimate daughter to school, having the girl call Hannah "Big Sister" in front of everyone. Her face turned a lovely shade of green.
Adulthood brought no peace. Every deal became a gladiator match.
She overwatered my office plants until they rotted. I plucked the tail feathers of her family's prized "fortune goose." When she hosted a VIP client, that bald, furious bird attacked the partner. The deal collapsed. I laughed until my sides ached.
Yet in the eye of that storm—passion.
Office arguments turned physical. Screaming matches dissolved into aggressive kisses. I never knew who started it. Only that it was unstoppable.
Post-coital clarity was brutal. I'd sneer she was boring in bed; she'd reply my technique was garbage.
Despite the insults, we booked hotel rooms with increasing frequency.
We never spoke of love. On Valentine's Day, she sent roses with a card addressed to "a boyfriend"—refusing to name me.
To provoke me, she'd kiss some B-list celebrity by the fountain, watching me from the corner of her eye. I'd pull a pretty waitress into my lap. As I admired the girl's flushed cheeks, I savored the sound of smashing glass from Hannah's direction.
