Chapter 5

Haven stood there, a smug little smile playing on her lips. She was expecting me to break, to scream, to cry. She wanted a reaction. I gave her nothing.

I looked at her, my expression calm. I reached into my drawer and pulled out the crisp file my lawyer had prepared. I placed it on the table between us.

"I've already had them drawn up," I said. "But he won't sign them. Not this easily."

I knew Aiden. His ego, his possessiveness, it wouldn't allow him to let me go. He had to be the one to end things, on his terms. Simply signing a paper I presented would be an admission of failure.

Haven's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before her composure returned. She picked up the papers, her smirk widening.

"Don't worry about that," she said, her tone dripping with condescension. "I know how to get what I want from him."

She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "We've been together for a long time, you know. Since before you two were even married. I was the one who was there for him during his darkest times."

She painted a picture of herself as his savior, the one who understood his demons. She spoke of a night seven years ago, when he was in a self-destructive spiral. She claimed she had saved him.

My mind flashed back. I remembered that night. It was the night before my own kidney transplant surgery. The donor was a young, anonymous woman who was a match. But at the last minute, there was a complication. The hospital told me the donor had backed out. I was devastated.

Then, hours later, a miracle. Haven, my sweet, frail sister-in-law, was a match. She had insisted on being tested, she said, because she loved me like a sister. She was my hero.

Now, looking at her smug face, the pieces clicked into place. The timing. The convenience of it all. They had been together even then. The "complication" with the original donor was likely Aiden's doing, a way to indebt me to Haven, to bind us all together in a web of secrets and obligations.

The depth of the betrayal was staggering. It wasn't just a recent affair. It was the foundation of our entire life together.

"So you can have him," I said, my voice flat. "I don't want him anymore."

Haven looked confused. My calmness unnerved her. This wasn't the reaction she had planned for.

"I don't just want him," she sneered, her ambition laid bare. "I want this house. I want the company. I want your name. I want everything that was yours."

She looked me up and down with disdain. "Just you leaving isn't enough. He'll still think about you. I need him to hate you. I need him to be the one to throw you out so he never, ever looks back."

The bedroom door opened, and Aiden walked in.

In an instant, Haven' s face crumpled. She let out a pained cry, stumbled backward, and fell to the floor, clutching her stomach.

"Ahh!" she screamed, tears streaming down her face. "Charlotte, please! I'm sorry! I'll leave! Just don't hurt my baby!"

I just stood there, speechless at the audacity of her performance.

Aiden rushed to her side, his face a thundercloud of rage directed at me.

"What did you do?" he roared.

"She's pregnant, Aiden!" Haven wailed, "And you pushed her! Just like you pushed Leo!"

The accusation was so absurd, so utterly baseless, it was almost laughable.

"I didn't touch her," I said calmly. "There are cameras in this house, Aiden. Let's check the footage."

Haven's body went stiff at the mention of the cameras.

But Aiden wasn't listening. He was lost in his own paranoid narrative, fueled by Haven's lies. "I don't need to check any cameras! I trust my son! I trust what I see!"

The irony was a physical blow. He, who had installed cameras in every corner of the house to watch my every move, now refused to look at the one thing that would prove my innocence. He had trusted me for years, he'd claimed. But all it took was the word of a manipulative woman and a spoiled child to shatter that trust completely.

"We need to get you to the doctor," Haven whimpered, pulling on Aiden' s arm, expertly redirecting his attention.

Aiden looked at me, his eyes filled with a chilling disappointment. "I don't know who you are anymore, Charlotte," he said, his voice cold.

"You've changed. You used to be so kind, so gentle. Maybe you should learn a little something from Haven."

He helped her up and they walked out, leaving me alone in the room. The click of the door shutting echoed in the silence.

I let out a shaky breath and started to laugh. It was a hollow, bitter sound.

I hadn't changed. I was the same woman who had loved him, who had cared for him, who had sacrificed everything for him.

It was our relationship that had changed. It had rotted from the inside out, and I was just the last one to realize it was already dead.