Chapter 1

While my husband and I were tangled together, he said the name of the girl who used to bully me.

Just as I was about to climax, he pulled me hard against his chest and murmured, “Lila—”

In that instant, every bit of heat drained away. My body wouldn’t stop shaking; my face went bloodless. Because the name he spoke is one I’ll never forget.

……

Sweat still clung to our skin; the air was thick with the warm, hazy after-scent of sex. Damian’s arm was heavy over my waist, his breath only just settling.

I turned on my side, letting my fingertips skim his damp temple, my heart soft as melted honey. Five years married, our anniversary just passed—I’d thought we were stepping into a steadier kind of happiness.

That was when he nuzzled my neck in that absent way, lips parting in a near-sigh.

“Lila…”

The word was soft, but it cracked like thunder in my ear.

Heat bled from my body in an instant; I went cold.

Lila?

How could it—Lila?

I jerked upright. My heart pounded so hard it was about to break my ribs.

Damian’s eyes flew open too. A mix of regret and a kind of fatalistic calm flickered there. He stayed silent for a few seconds, then pushed himself up without trying to touch me.

“Aurora,” he began, hoarse but unnervingly steady, “since you heard it… fine.”

“Fine what?” My nails dug into my palms to keep me from shaking, but the tremor in my voice betrayed me.

He drew a long breath, as if choosing to jump. “It’s her. Lila. We’ve… been together for two years.”

Every word was an ice pick to my chest. Two years? The frosting on our anniversary cake wasn’t even dry.

“…Which Lila?” I clung to a last stupid hope—that this was some stomach-turning coincidence.

His next words crushed me flat.

“The one you know. Lila White.” He paused, even tried to pull a soothing smile that looked worse than a sob. “I know you two had some… misunderstandings in school. But that’s past, Aurora. She was young. She had trauma from her family. The things she did to you were… well… probably just projection. On redheads. She’s actually—”

“Projection?” I cut him off; even I didn’t recognize the sharpness of my own voice. “Damian, she led the charge to isolate me, stuffed disgusting things in my locker, and even framed me for stealing her necklace. I almost got expelled. That was ‘targeting’? That was bullying.”

Because of my red hair, I had been Lila White’s favorite target for two long years—because her father’s mistress had red hair.

So I got the ‘equal treatment’ she thought was right. The cold shoulders, snide hints, public humiliations—my entire adolescence was a nightmare. And now my husband told me it was the bully’s ‘projection’ born of her ‘trauma’?

My heart clenched into a knot. The absurdity and the betrayal surged up to drown me.

Damian frowned, impatience creeping in at my “rehashing the past.” “All ancient history. Can’t you be generous for once? First impressions are hard to change, but she’s not who you think she is. She… she’s fragile. She needs me.”

“Needs you?” I almost laughed, but tears pressed anyway. “And what do you need from me? Congratulations? On finding a fragile little dear who needs protection—the one who used to bully your wife?”

He dodged my eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed, then he delivered the verdict: “Aurora, let’s divorce. She’s been with me for two years—I can’t keep her nameless forever.”

A name.

That word swung the last blade. It severed whatever frayed emotion I had left.

Shock, heartbreak, fury—all of it settled at once. A dead-calm silence rolled over me.

I looked at the man I’d loved so long, shared a bed with for five years, and he felt like a stranger that frightened me.

For another woman, he erased my pain with a shrug—and told me he owed the bully a “name.”

I pulled the sheet around me and got off the bed, legs unsteady, back straight.

No screaming. No more questions.

At the door I stopped, didn’t turn.

“Damian,” I said, voice flat and calm, “you dirtied my bed—and our past.”

I opened the door and walked out, closing it gently.

The latch clicked softly, but inside me it fell like an iron gate, sealing off a world.

From the moment he said “Lila,” my world flipped.

And the nightmare had only just begun.