Chapter 3

Haylie Camacho POV:

The drive was a silent torment. I sat in the back of Jeremy' s sleek black sedan, watching the familiar landscape of the city slide past the window. Everything looked the same, but I felt like a foreigner in my own life.

Up front, Jeremy kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror, his eyes filled with a desperate, cloying mixture of guilt and what he probably thought was love. It made my skin crawl.

Joselin, in the passenger seat, was a constant, chattering presence. "Oh, Jeremy, honey, I' m starving," she whined, placing a hand on his arm. "Can we please stop at that little French place? The one with the macarons I love?"

"Of course, sweetie," Jeremy said instantly, his hand covering hers. "Whatever you want."

His words hung in the air. The macarons Joselin loved. The ones I was allergic to. The ones he had watched me have an anaphylactic reaction to on our third date.

He realized his mistake a second too late. His eyes shot back to the rearview mirror, wide with panic. "I mean-we can get something for you too, Haylie. Whatever you want."

"I' m not hungry," I said, my voice flat. I turned my head to stare out the window, the reflection showing my own hollow-eyed face.

He pulled up in front of the pastel-pink bakery. "I' ll just be a minute," he said, practically fleeing the car.

The moment the door clicked shut, the atmosphere inside the car shifted. Joselin' s sweet-and-innocent façade dropped like a stone. She turned in her seat, a smug, venomous look in her eyes.

"So, you' re back," she said, her voice dripping with disdain. "Don' t think for a second this changes anything."

I didn' t answer, just kept my gaze fixed on the passing traffic. My silence seemed to infuriate her more than any argument would have.

"He' s my husband now, Haylie," she hissed, pushing her left hand toward me. A massive diamond, far larger than the one Jeremy had given me, glittered mockingly on her ring finger. "The annulment was legal. The marriage is real. You are nothing."

Something inside me snapped. The year of helplessness, the betrayal, the humiliation-it all coalesced into a single, white-hot point of rage. My hand moved before I even thought about it. The crack of my palm against her cheek was shockingly loud in the confined space of the car.

Joselin' s head whipped to the side, a red handprint blooming on her skin. Her eyes widened, first in shock, then in pure hatred.

The brief flash of satisfaction I felt was immediately swamped by a wave of profound, soul-crushing sadness. This was my life now. Fighting with my own sister over a man who belonged to neither of us. I had lost everything. My health, my husband, my sister, my home.

Jeremy returned, juggling a pink box and two coffees. He opened the door to a tableau of frozen fury. Joselin had tears streaming down her face, and I was sitting rigid in the back, my hand still tingling.

"What happened?" he asked, his eyes darting between us. "Haylie, is your hand okay?"

My hand. He was worried about my hand.

"She hit me!" Joselin wailed, pointing an accusing finger at me. "For no reason! I was just trying to be nice!"

"I' m sure you were," Jeremy said, his voice tight with annoyance, but his concern was all for me. He tried to take my hand, but I snatched it away. "Joselin, stop it. Haylie just woke up, she' s fragile."

His feigned concern was a knife in my gut. He handed Joselin her macaron box and one of the coffees. Then he passed the other coffee back to me.

"Here, I got you your favorite," he said, a hopeful little smile on his face. "Caramel latte, extra shot, no sugar."

I stared at the cup. It was Joselin' s favorite. I hated caramel. I had always ordered a simple black Americano. Always. For the five years we had been together.

In one year, he had completely forgotten. He had written me out of his memory as thoroughly as he had written me out of his life.

Joselin took a delicate bite of a macaron. "Thank you, honey," she cooed, leaning over to kiss his cheek, her eyes fixed on me with triumphant malice.

I turned my face away and let out a small, bitter laugh that was closer to a sob.

The car finally pulled up to the house. Our house. The cozy two-story colonial we had bought together, the one I had spent months lovingly decorating. A place that had once been my sanctuary.

I got out of the car on shaky legs. I walked to the front door, my heart pounding a nervous rhythm against my ribs. I lifted my hand to the fingerprint scanner, a muscle memory from a lifetime ago.

ACCESS DENIED.

The cold, electronic voice was another slap in the face.

Jeremy rushed to my side, fumbling for his keys. "Oh, the system must have reset while you were... away," he stammered, his face flushed. "Don' t worry, I have a key."

But he wasn' t fast enough.

Joselin pushed past both of us, her perfectly manicured thumb pressing against the scanner.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The lock clicked open. She turned, the door swinging inward to reveal the home that was once mine. A victorious, pitying smile played on her lips.

"Welcome home, sis," she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "Come on in."