When my fiancé, Evans, cheated on me with my sister, Colleen, I didn’t cry or beg him to stay. Instead, I turned around and slept with his two best friends.
When he found out, he didn't apologize for his own betrayal. He accused me of being clinically insane and had me locked away in a psychiatric hospital.
It took me a long time to realize he hadn't committed me for my health. He did it so he could spend the last two years playing house with Colleen without me getting in the way.
Now, two years later, he had suddenly remembered to fetch me, acting as if nothing had ever happened.
A nurse handed me my small bag of belongings at the front desk. She eyed me up and down, her expression a mix of pity and disgust.
"Are you sure you're gonna come back to him?" she asked, lowering her voice. "He's the reason you went crazy in the first place. Are you really doing it all for his money? You actually are insane."
I didn't answer her. Two years ago, I would have desperately tried to defend myself, to explain the suffocating injustice of it all. Today, I just took my bag and walked out the sliding glass doors.
Evans was waiting by his car. When he saw me, he pushed himself off the hood and held out a massive bouquet of pink peonies.
Colleen's favorite flowers. Not mine.
I didn't even break my stride. I dismissed the bouquet entirely, walking right past him toward the passenger side door.
"Hey!" Evans snapped. He dropped the flowers, grabbing my arm and pulling me back around to face him. "What is wrong with you?"
I looked down at his hand gripping my arm, feeling absolutely nothing. "What else?" I asked, my voice flat. "Why are you here?"
Evans scoffed, his face twisting with arrogant disbelief. "Come on, Louisa. Are you still mad because I slept with your sister? You slept with my friends and completely ruined our friendship! If anything, you owe me."
"You locked me in a psychiatric ward for two years, Evans," I said, my tone eerily steady. I didn't yell. I didn't try to pull my arm away. "You put me in a facility with barred windows so you could sleep with Colleen without sneaking around."
"You were hysterical!" he shot back, his grip tightening. "You smashed my office windows. You seduced Marcus and Julian just to spite me! Do you know how humiliating it was to have my own groomsmen look at me like that? I had to cut them out of my life because of you. You were out of control, Louisa. You needed help, and I paid a fortune to get it for you."
"You got me out of the way," I corrected simply.
"Besides, where would you even go? You have nothing. You have no work, no money. Your own mother doesn't even want you."
He wasn't lying. My mother had always favored Colleen, her wealthy new husband's daughter, over me. When Evans committed me, my mother hadn't visited a single time. She had just sent a text saying I was an embarrassment to the family.
Over the years, Evans had systematically stripped away my career, my independence, and my support system until he was the only thing left in my world.
Once upon a time, those words would have shattered me. They would have sent me spiraling into a panic attack, begging him not to leave me. Now, they just sounded exhausting.
I let out a quiet sigh. "What do you want, Evans?"
"I want to take you home," he said, his voice dropping to that soft, persuasive register he used in boardrooms. "We have a wedding to plan. The invitations need to go out next month."
"We should cancel it," I said calmly. "I don't want to get married."
"That's not gonna happen, babe. Stop being mad. We're getting married, and everything is going back to normal."
I didn't argue. There was no point in fighting a man who only heard his own voice. I just got in the car.
The drive back to the villa was silent. When we finally walked through the front doors, the house looked exactly the same as the day the orderlies had dragged me out of it.
"I'll have the chef make your favorite for dinner," Evans called out, already loosening his tie and heading toward his study to take a phone call.
I ignored him and dragged my bag up the sweeping staircase, heading straight for my bedroom. All I wanted was to lie down, stare at the ceiling, and finalize my plans to leave this city for good.
But the moment I pushed open my bedroom door, I froze.
It wasn't the furniture or the lighting. It was the smell.
A thick, suffocating wave of sweet vanilla and rose hit my face. It was Colleen’s custom perfume.
My eyes slowly scanned the space. The silk bedsheets were a different color. My favorite books had been replaced by glossy fashion magazines stacked carelessly on the nightstand.
And then, my gaze landed on the center of my vanity.
There, sitting right next to my framed photo of my late father, resting casually on the polished wood as if it belonged there, was a positive pregnancy test.
