Erica Butler was scrolling through a resale app when she saw someone selling custom cufflinks from H-brand for ten dollars, swearing they were the real thing.
In the photos, everything matched — the packaging, the cufflinks themselves, even the message on the gift card were identical to the birthday present she'd given Carter Maddox.
Something dropped in her chest. She placed the order, just to make sure.
The seller messaged her:
"Looks like our addresses are in the same building. Why don't we just meet up?"
What were the odds?
Suspicion flared, and Erica decided to go see for herself.
She reached the address the seller had given, and the door was opened by a woman in the late stages of pregnancy.
The woman carried out the gift bag and handed it to Erica, then stuck out her tongue playfully.
"Sorry about that. I'm Laura Swanson, eight months along, and my husband won't let me go out."
Erica examined the cufflinks carefully, and to her surprise, they really were genuine.
She asked, puzzled, "Why are you selling them so cheap?"
Laura huffed.
"It's my husband's fault! He won't let me leave the house, insists it's to protect me. I got mad, so to smooth it over he gave me these custom cufflinks, eight hundred grand's worth, and I decided to sell them for ten bucks out of spite!"
Just then a man's voice came from inside the apartment:
"Laura? Why aren't you back yet?"
At the sound of it, every drop of blood in Erica's body seemed to freeze in an instant.
That voice belonged to her boyfriend, Carter Maddox.
She was about to speak when Laura called back into the apartment:
"I'm not coming! Carter, quit bossing me around!"
The guess was confirmed, and it hit Erica like a bucket of ice water poured over her whole body.
A fine, spreading ache rose from the center of her chest and reached into every limb.
Her voice came out dry. "What is Carter to you?"
Laura turned her head and smiled, sweet and easy.
"He's my husband. We've been married two years already!"
...
There was a ringing in Erica's ears. She staggered half a step and nearly fell.
The boy she'd loved for five years, the one she was about to marry, was already married to someone else — and about to have a child.
Her mind was in chaos, and then she heard footsteps inside, coming closer.
The next second, Carter appeared, wrapping his arms around Laura from behind, chin resting on her shoulder.
"Come inside, sweetheart. You're about to be a mother, and you're still acting like a kid."
Laura pouted.
"I'm so bored I could die! You want me to forgive you? Fine, but only if you get Mavis and the others to come over tonight and keep me company!"
Carter laughed, indulgent.
"All right. I already told Mavis James yesterday to bring over some food a pregnant woman can eat. We're throwing a party here, Terence is coming too. I was going to make it a surprise for you."
Standing outside the door, Erica heard it all, and it drenched her like ice water from head to foot.
Terence Donaldson, Mavis James, both friends she and Carter had known since childhood, the ones who'd always said how they envied what she and Carter had.
She'd treated them as her closest friends, and all along they'd known Carter had married someone else in secret and kept it from her.
The whole group had gone behind her back, folding themselves into Carter's little family long ago. Only she, from beginning to end, had been the outsider.
A helplessness welled up from the center of her chest, and her nose stung.
The whole world had betrayed her, abandoned her.
Laura, meanwhile, was cheered up at once, unable to hold back her smile.
"Oh, why didn't you tell me!"
She thumped Carter's chest, half-embarrassed, half-annoyed.
"You're awful! You didn't warn me, so it's not my fault I got mad and sold those custom cufflinks of yours!"
The smile on Carter's mouth froze for an instant, then went back to normal.
"It's fine. Just a pair of cufflinks, no big deal."
A laugh nearly rose in Erica's throat.
She'd tracked down the designer half a year in advance, humbling herself, saying every nice thing, sending every gift, until finally the designer agreed to make that one pair of cufflinks for Carter.
And now, with one weightless line, he said it didn't matter.
The thing she'd given him, it turned out, didn't matter even if it was lost.
Carter's arm curved around Laura's waist as he coaxed her gently:
"Go on inside, baby."
The girl nodded, but then slipped free of him.
"Let me say goodbye to the lady who bought your cufflinks first."
Only then did Carter lift his eyes and look toward the door.
The moment he saw Erica, his pupils contracted slightly.
Erica met his gaze without flinching, without looking away.
She'd thought he would be at a loss, would panic and explain. But there was none of that.
His slip lasted only a heartbeat.
He ruffled Laura's hair. "You go in first. Good girl. I'll see the guest downstairs."
Laura, who knew nothing, was still smiling without a care in the world, and waved at Erica.
"Bye-bye, hon. I'm not in any state to walk you out myself."
Carter watched Laura waddle back into the apartment, and the indulgence in his eyes melted away. He clamped a hand around Erica's wrist and pulled her toward the elevator landing.
"We'll talk outside."
Erica stumbled after him, her wrist locked as if in an iron clamp, the bones aching.
"Carter! Let go of me!"
She fought with everything she had, prying at his fingers with her other hand, but he didn't budge, his grip shockingly strong.
Frantic now, Erica dug her nails hard into his forearm and dragged them down.
Carter flinched at the pain and let go on instinct.
Erica seized the chance to yank her wrist back, and the next second her hand flew up in a ringing slap.
"Smack!"
Carter's face snapped to one side.
He turned back slowly, running the tip of his tongue against the struck cheek, something dark and unreadable in his eyes.
"You're not going to explain?" Erica's voice shook. "Carter, you tell me what's going on!"
Carter was silent for a moment.
"There's nothing to explain," he said. "What you saw is the truth. Laura and I have been married two years. The baby's eight months."
"Laura's in her last trimester, and she can never know about this. If you take it to her and anything happens to her baby, Erica, I will never let you off."
The world spun around Erica, and her heart felt as if a hand had seized it and wrung it dry.
