Their excitement was instant, voices dripping with mockery.
"Amanda, if you hadn't spent every waking minute controlling Carter—telling him what he couldn't eat, refusing to let him go out with us—he never would've fallen for someone as sweet and caring as Nora."
"Bet you're regretting it now that he's dumped you, huh? Why don't you get on your knees and beg him to take you back? Who knows, maybe he'll change his mind!"
Laughter and jeers erupted across the room.
A year ago, when Carter and I returned from Doctors Without Borders, I'd shed my usual reserve and made a real effort to fit into his social circle. I'd even broken the Henson family's rule against living together before marriage and moved into the Gilbert residence.
They all assumed I was deeply in love with Carter. He assumed the same.
That was why they'd conspired to set this trap for me.
Right now, Carter was waiting for me to fall apart. Waiting for me to beg him to come back.
He was wrong.
Under every mocking stare in the room, I slipped the engagement ring off my finger and let it drop to the floor like it weighed nothing.
"Congratulations on your marriage, Carter."
"We're done."
The words hung in the air.
Carter, still holding Nora, went rigid. His expression darkened as he stared at me.
"You're doing this on purpose, Amanda. Trying to get under my skin."
"Just because I humiliated you at the engagement party, now you're pretending you don't care."
I looked at him with a cold smile.
"Whether I care or not—"
"You'll find out soon enough."
With that, I turned and walked out of the banquet hall. I pulled out my phone.
"Stop delivering medication to the Gilbert residence."
"And suspend the new drug research project with the Hensons. I'm cutting ties with them. Permanently."
Since I was leaving the Henson family behind, I intended to resign from Henson Medical Center as well.
Three days later, I finished the handover.
And ran straight into Nora, who was at the hospital for a checkup.
She took one look at the cardboard box in my arms and let out a soft laugh.
"Amanda. Three years ago, when you destroyed my reputation and got me blacklisted from every medical school in the country—did you ever imagine you'd end up like this?"
"So what if I never became a doctor? I still managed to drive you out of this hospital."
Looking at that smug, gloating face, it all came flooding back.
Three years ago, Nora and I were both graduate students under the same advisor. But she'd been desperate for quick results and secretly purchased unauthorized materials, mixing them into the drugs we were developing.
The entire batch was ruined.
She pinned every last bit of blame on me—the person who'd been on duty with her that day.
In the end, the police traced the purchase records back to her and cleared my name. But because she'd destroyed nearly six months of the institute's work, she was blacklisted from the field entirely.
Nora, of course, blamed all of it on me.
She'd been looking for payback ever since.
"I have to say, I didn't expect your man to be so easy to reel in. A few staged run-ins and he convinced himself it was fate."
"He complained about you constantly—how you spent every day locked in your lab, how boring you were. Not like me..."
"I can give him the kind of pleasure you never could."
She tugged the silk scarf from her neck, revealing a trail of bruises scattered across her skin.
Her eyes locked on mine, daring me to react.
"I asked Carter how many children he wanted. Guess what he said?"
"He said the more the better. Because he's going to love our children so, so much."
Nora's brows arched in triumph. She was searching my face for devastation, for the cracks she was so sure would appear.
Instead, I smiled.
A big happy family?
They were in for a disappointment.
A year ago, when Carter and I returned from Doctors Without Borders, we'd both gotten full physicals.
Carter's results showed he would never be able to father children. Not in this lifetime.
Once, in the heat of passion, he'd held me close and begged me to give him a baby.
He'd grown up in an orphanage. All he'd ever wanted was a family of his own.
