Woke Up To My Husband's Betrayal

I gave my husband my kidney and woke up from a year-long coma. My first sight wasn't his loving face, but him cheating with my sister in my hospital room.

Fueled by rage, I went to file for divorce, only to be told our marriage had been annulled ten months ago. He had already married her.

While I lay helpless, they erased me from my own life. Now, his powerful father has a new plan for me: a forced marriage to another wealthy heir who is also in a coma.

Chapter 1

Haylie Camacho POV:

The first coherent thought I had after a year in a coma wasn't about the light, or the pain, or the husband I' d given my kidney to save. It was that I needed a divorce.

"Haylie, what are you talking about?" My adopted sister, Joselin, rushed to my side, her perfectly manicured hands fluttering near my face. "You just woke up. You' re delirious."

I pushed her hand away. My muscles felt like wet clay, weak and unresponsive, but the revulsion was a live wire inside me. I stared past her, my eyes fixed on the door of the sterile hospital room. "Get me a lawyer. I want to file for divorce from Jeremy."

"No, you don' t understand," she insisted, her voice syrupy with fake concern. She grabbed a thick, leather-bound journal from the bedside table. "Look at this. Jeremy has been writing to you every single day you were unconscious. Every single day, Haylie."

She opened it, the pages filled with Jeremy' s familiar, elegant script. My heart, a stupid, traitorous muscle, gave a painful throb.

"He never left your side," Joselin continued, her voice rising with theatrical emotion. "He read to you, he played your favorite music. He slept in that uncomfortable chair every night for a year."

She pointed to the worn armchair in the corner, a hollow carved into its cushion.

"And on your anniversary," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "he drove three hours to the coast, just to get you that seashell you always wanted from that little beach we went to as kids. He said it would bring you back to him."

She held up a pale, pearlescent shell. It was beautiful. It was a lie.

"When the doctors said your chances were slim, he went on a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage, Haylie!" She was practically crying now. "He walked for miles on his bare feet to the most sacred temple in the mountains to pray for you. He brought this back."

She pulled a delicate silver chain from her purse. Hanging from it was a small, intricately carved charm. A 'get well' charm, supposedly blessed by monks. It looked so real, so full of hope.

"He loves you more than anything," she finished, her voice thick with tears. "You can' t do this to him. You can' t break his heart after everything he' s done."

I stared at her, at the performance, at the carefully constructed web of lies. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear that journal to shreds and smash that stupid seashell against the wall.

"Stop it," I finally managed to say, my voice a raw croak. "Just... stop."

Because I remembered.

I remembered the moment I woke up. It wasn' t a gentle drift back to consciousness. It was a violent slam. One second, I was in a black, silent void, the next, my eyes were open, staring at the acoustic tile ceiling. The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor was the first sound I heard. The second was a soft moan.

My head was turned to the side, my gaze falling on the space between my bed and the window. And there they were.

Jeremy, my husband, the man for whom I had willingly placed myself on an operating table, was pressed against the wall. His expensive suit was rumpled, his face buried in the neck of the woman in his arms.

And that woman was Joselin. My sister.

Her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, her fingers tangled in his hair. Her dress was hiked up high on her thighs. The sounds they were making were soft, intimate, and utterly sickening.

"We have to be careful," Jeremy murmured, his voice husky. "What if she wakes up?"

Joselin laughed, a low, throaty sound that made my stomach turn. "She won' t. The doctors said she' s practically brain-dead. Besides," she purred, pressing a kiss to his jaw, "we do it in here all the time. It' s kind of a thrill, isn' t it?"

All the time.

In the room where I lay helpless, a breath away from death. In the room paid for by the sacrifice of my own body. My kidney was inside him, functioning, keeping him alive, while he defiled our marriage vows just feet from my bed.

The charm Joselin showed me wasn't for me. The pilgrimage wasn't for me. The journal was a prop. The love was a lie.

I saw Jeremy' s hand slide down Joselin' s back, cupping her backside and pulling her impossibly closer. He kissed her then, a deep, hungry kiss that was meant for a lover, not a sister-in-law. It was a kiss I hadn' t received in years.

A single tear escaped my eye and rolled down my temple. The heart monitor beside me, the one that had been beeping a steady, monotonous rhythm for 365 days, suddenly changed its tune.

Beep. Beep. Beep-beep-beep-BEEEEEP.

Jeremy' s head shot up. His eyes, wide with panic, met mine across the room.

The shock on his face was almost comical. He shoved Joselin away from him so hard she stumbled.

"Haylie?" he breathed, his face draining of all color.

Joselin' s expression was one of pure fury before it melted back into that mask of sweet concern she wore so well.

That was the last thing I remembered before the nurses and doctors rushed in, shouting, their faces a blur of alarm.

Now, looking at Joselin' s tear-streaked, lying face, the memory was as sharp and clear as a shard of glass in my gut.

"You want to file for divorce?" The clerk at the county registrar' s office looked at me over her glasses, her expression bored. "ID, please."

I slid my driver' s license across the counter. My photo was from before the surgery, my face fuller, my eyes bright with a naive happiness that now seemed like a cruel joke.

Joselin stood beside me, wringing her hands. "Haylie, please, let' s just go home and talk to Jeremy."

I ignored her.

The clerk typed my name, Haylie Camacho, into her computer. Her fingers paused. She frowned, then typed again.

"Hmm, that' s odd," she murmured, leaning closer to the screen.

A cold dread, heavier and more chilling than anything I had felt before, began to seep into my bones. "What is it?"

She looked up at me, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Ma' am, according to our records, you can' t file for divorce."

My breath caught in my throat. "Why not?"

The clerk' s eyes were full of a pity that made my skin crawl.

"Because your marriage to Jeremy Glass was annulled ten months ago." She paused, her gaze flicking to Joselin and then back to me. "And two weeks after that, he married someone else."

She tapped her screen. "He married a Joselin Camacho. Is that... any relation?"