Her gaze landed on me with unnerving precision—calm as still water, yet carrying an almost tangible pressure.
"Nicole?" she spoke, her voice soft, yet it hit me like a hammer to the chest.
I nodded instinctively, a sense of dread rising inside me.
"We need to talk." It wasn’t a request, but a statement.
In the coffee shop across from campus, she stirred the black coffee in front of her, untouched by sugar, then came straight to the point. "I'm Ryan's wife."
A deafening *buzz* filled my head, wiping my mind completely blank.
My world didn’t just crack—it detonated. Shards drove into every inch of my body.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I could only stare, my gaze locked.
She seemed to have expected this. Calmly, she took a small red booklet from her bag and slid it across the table toward me.
A marriage certificate.
On it was Ryan's face—a gentle, smiling version I had never seen—and the name Abigail.
The registration date was three years ago.
"It was a marriage of convenience," she explained coolly. "No real affection. But I'm carrying his child. You understand what that means, don’t you, Nicole?"
Of course I understood.
I’d been played for a fool.
All the tenderness I’d treasured—it was nothing but a cheap diversion for a married man.
"I…" My voice was rough as sandpaper. "I didn’t know… He never told me…"
"Of course he didn’t." A faint, mocking smile touched Abigail’s lips. "He told my assistant you were… special. Easy to handle. Poor family, starved for affection since childhood. A little pocket money and you’d be grateful forever. Like a well-trained puppy."
*Boom.*
If my world had exploded before, now it was being ground to dust.
"A well-trained puppy…" I repeated the words numbly. An invisible fist closed around my heart, squeezing so tight I could barely breathe.
