Hidden Wife: Rising From The Ashes

Hidden Marriage for Two Years, I Hid Our Marriage Certificate and Was Content to Be Nothing but My Husband's Legal Assistant.

Even with severe second- and third-degree burns across my body, I charged into a raging fire to save Gia Delaney, his childhood sweetheart.

Yet Gia felt no gratitude. Instead, she publicly accused me of setting the fire and of coming between them.

I begged my husband Brighton to tell the truth. Instead, he gently held Gia in his arms:

"I tolerated your obsession because I felt sorry for your difficult family background. I never imagined you'd actually delude yourself into thinking I'd marry you. Let me make this clear-Gia is the only woman I've ever loved."

I was on the verge of collapse, desperate for an explanation, when I accidentally bumped into Gia. Brighton shoved me so hard I crashed to the floor.

When I woke up, a nurse handed me a miscarriage report and told me I would never be able to bear children again.

I wanted to run away and disappear. But Brighton, to protect Gia, forged medical records and had me locked away in an illegal psychiatric institution, where guards tortured me with electric shock batons.

I barely escaped that living hell.

This time, what I wanted was more than a divorce. I would bring all my evidence and watch their lives burn to ash.

Chapter 1

Eleanor's POV

For two whole years, I folded our marriage certificate and tucked it into the lining of my wallet, while my husband introduced me to colleagues as nothing more than his legal assistant.

Brighton Donovan was Sterling & Vance Law Firm's youngest junior partner. For one year and five months straight, I had to watch his childhood sweetheart Gia Delaney lounge insolently on his desk, draped in his cashmere coat, sneering at me in front of everyone as a scheming social climber who was delusional enough to think she could steal another woman's man.

Brighton had told me that Gia lost her parents in a house fire five years ago and developed severe PTSD. To keep her stable, I swallowed every grievance and humiliation.

But he never told the firm that the fire started because Gia had passed out drunk with a lit cigarette in her mouth. He never mentioned that I was the one who'd risked my life to drag her out of the burning living room, spending three full months in a burn ward.

Even now, on damp rainy days, the thick hypertrophic scarring on my right forearm still throbbed.

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, the skin graft on my right wrist suddenly became badly infected, throbbing like a stab wound. Before heading to my afternoon shift at the Metropolitan Art Restoration Lab, I stopped by St. Jude Memorial Hospital to get an antibiotic prescription.

I was walking through the lobby toward the outpatient pharmacy when a hand suddenly clamped down hard on my arm.

Gia stepped in front of me, wearing the cream wool coat Brighton had bought on his last business trip to Chicago, her delicate face twisted with rage.

"You've been following me," Gia spat, her nails digging into the tender, sensitive skin over my burn scar. "You saw Brighton drop me off for therapy, so you tailed me in here, didn't you?"

"Let go of me, Gia," I said, struggling to pull my arm free. "I'm here to pick up my own prescription."

"Don't play dumb, you shameless homewrecker!" Gia shrieked, her shrill voice echoing off the lobby tiles, drawing stares from nurses and waiting patients. "It's not enough that you hang around Brighton at the office all day-now you're stalking his private life? You think running errands for him means you can claim him?"

Her sharply manicured nails dug deep into my swollen, raised scar tissue.

A searing pain shot straight up my arm to my shoulder, making me gag. The inflamed skin tore open under her nails, pus and blood instantly seeping through my thin sleeve.

"Stop it!" I cried out, yanking her hand away. "Gia, I am Brighton's legal wife! We've been married for two whole years! And you know perfectly well how I got these scars-you got drunk and set the fire, and I risked my life to drag you out!"

The noisy lobby went dead silent. The security guard a few meters away stopped in his tracks.

Gia stared at me, eyes wide with disbelief and fury. Instead of backing down, she grabbed the collar of my trench coat and dragged me toward the revolving door.

"You call yourself his wife, huh?" Gia ground out through clenched teeth, spittle flying. "Fine. His office is only three blocks away. Let's go there right now. I'd love to see how Brighton handles a delusional lunatic like you in front of the whole litigation department."

This time, I didn't struggle. I let her drag me through the cold, rain-slicked streets.

For two years, Brighton had begged me again and again to be patient. He said Gia was emotionally fragile and couldn't handle the shock that he belonged to someone else. He promised me that once Gia's insurance settlement came through and her psychological evaluation stabilized, he would throw me a proper, lavish wedding in Manhattan.

I believed his lies. For two years, I quietly cleaned his apartment, ironed his custom shirts. Even when Gia showed up uninvited in the middle of the night, I had to meekly hide in the bedroom.

We arrived on the twenty-fourth floor of the Sterling & Vance building. Gia shoved open the double glass doors of the litigation department and hauled me inside like a stolen object she'd just recovered.

Lawyers, senior paralegals, and administrative staff in the cubicles all looked up.

"Brighton!" Gia wailed, and the moment he stepped out of the corner conference room holding a stack of depositions, tears streamed down her face. "Brighton, look what she's doing to me! She attacked me in the hospital lobby, and now she's going around telling everyone she's your legal wife!"

Brighton stopped dead. His eyes darted rapidly between Gia's tear-streaked face and my blood-soaked sleeve.

I stared straight into his eyes.

"Brighton, tell them," I said, my voice trembling with the anger I'd suppressed for two years. "In front of Gia, in front of everyone in this office, tell them clearly-exactly what am I to you?"

Gia stumbled forward two steps and threw herself bonelessly into his arms, clutching his suit lapels. "Brighton, please... my heart's racing so fast... she was yelling at me about that fire... she told everyone I killed my parents..."

Without a moment's hesitation, Brighton wrapped his arms tightly around her. He stroked her blonde hair and pressed her face to his shoulder.

"Don't be afraid, Gia. I'm right here. You're safe." He murmured soft comforts.

Then Brighton looked up at me, his expression instantly turning to ice.

"Eleanor, get this embarrassing spectacle under control immediately," Brighton's voice boomed across the open office floor. "Out of pity for your difficult family situation, I've tolerated your obsession with me all this time. But bringing your delusions into my workplace? This is completely unreasonable! I have never been married to you. In my life, Gia is the only woman who matters."

A shock went through my whole body, as if a hammer had struck my chest, and I couldn't breathe.

My legs went weak. I stared at the man before me-the man whose wedding ring, on a silver chain, I wore next to my skin under my collar every single day of my life.

The colleagues around me immediately started whispering.

"I knew it. The way she looks at Brighton these months was off."

"She's insane. To actually think she's the partner's wife?"

"Look at the blood on her sleeve. Probably self-harmed for attention."

With trembling hands, I reached into my bag, pulled out my phone, and quickly logged into the state public civil records database. I pulled up our officially certified marriage record and held the lit screen right up to Brighton's face.

"Open your eyes and look at the state seal, Brighton!" I hissed. "Look at the city hall registration number! This was signed in writing by both of us!"

The closest colleagues craned their necks. When they saw the official seal and our two handwritten signatures on the screen, the whispers stopped dead.

Gia caught the shift in everyone's expression. A flash of panic crossed her face, then curdled into hysterical rage.

She lunged forward and swatted my phone away, then raised her heavy leather heel and brought it crashing down on the screen, shattering it into pieces that skittered across the hardwood floor.

"This is forged!" Gia shrieked. "Brighton, she forged your signature! This woman is insane! Call the police and have her locked up in a madhouse!"

Brighton stepped forward expressionlessly, grinding his heel into the wreckage of my phone.

"Gia's right," Brighton said calmly, turning to his senior paralegal. "Call building security and notify the precinct. Ms. Forman used my personal identity information to forge a marriage. She has severe erotomania and now poses a direct physical threat to Ms. Delaney."

"Brighton, are you out of your mind?!" My throat tightened as I stepped forward in disbelief. "It's real! You know perfectly well we live together in the apartment on 84th Street!"

"Security, throw her out." Brighton gave the cold order and turned his back completely, escorting Gia into his private office.

Two burly security guards rushed over and clamped my arms, twisting my injured right wrist behind my back. Agony blurred my vision. As they hauled me through the elevator lobby past dozens of colleagues watching coldly, I bit down hard and refused to lower my head.

Ten minutes later, the police arrived. Based on a written statement from a law firm partner and Gia's fabricated assault complaint, I was arrested on charges of trespassing, identity fraud, and assault.

They locked me in a precinct holding cell. For the next seven days straight, Brighton used every connection he had in the legal world. The firm filed emergency motions with the court, repeatedly extending the mandatory seventy-two-hour psychiatric observation period.

In that cold, damp cell, no one cleaned my torn arm. The skin graft had become completely necrotic. Under filthy paper dressings thrown in through the bars, yellowish pus mixed with old blood. By the fifth day, I ran a high fever, drifting between nightmares of burning ceiling beams and Brighton's cold, rejecting eyes.

Not until the eighth morning did a municipal judge personally review the county database records, confirm the marriage certificate was fully valid in the state system, dismiss the identity fraud charges on the spot, order my unconditional release, and sternly warn us to settle our domestic dispute in civil court.

I stumbled out of the precinct and went straight to a free walk-in clinic on the street.

The on-duty doctor soaked the crusted blood off my forearm with saline. When he saw the tissue underneath, his face darkened.

"The infection has reached the deep fascia," the doctor said, pointing to the stiff, tight tissue around my wrist. "The scar contracture has fused with your flexor carpi radialis tendon. Ms. Forman, you've lost thirty to forty percent of the fine motor function in your right hand. Any delicate brushwork or precision instrument work will cause chronic spasms. This damage... is permanent."

I stood on the sidewalk outside the clinic, holding up my useless right hand. I was an art restorer. These hands were my entire life.

Brighton had destroyed my career, trampled my dignity, wasted my youth-crushing it all underfoot like he'd crushed my phone screen.

I hailed a cab and gave the address of our apartment on 84th Street.

When I turned the key in the lock, the familiar sandalwood cologne scent of Brighton was completely drowned out by a heavy, cloying vanilla perfume.

I walked down the hallway straight to the master bedroom.

Gia Delaney was sprawled insolently across our king-size bed, wearing my silk nightgown. Brighton lay on his side beside her, suit jacket draped over the chair at the headboard, reading a book of poetry aloud, his long fingers gently running through her hair-the exact habit he'd once used to lull me to sleep when burn scar pain kept me awake at night.

The bedroom door bumped the wall with a soft sound.

Brighton's head snapped up. The tenderness on his face vanished instantly, replaced by undisguised irritation and disgust.

"Why are you even back?!" Brighton demanded sharply, getting out of bed while still holding Gia's hand. "After making such a scene in my office, reducing Gia to a nervous wreck! Eleanor, do you have any compassion at all?!"

I walked expressionlessly to the nightstand, picked up the half-full glass of ice water next to his watch, and hurled it full in Brighton's face.

Cold water droplets slid down his eyelashes, soaking his expensive custom Italian shirt.

"Brighton Donovan," I said, looking at him, no tears left in my eyes. "We're getting a divorce."

Eleanor's POV

Brighton froze, ice water streaming down his jawline and soaking his silk tie. His eyes widened in disbelief, as if the very idea that I might leave him had never once occurred to him.

"What did you just say?" Brighton asked quietly, taking half a step toward me.

Gia sat up in bed and pulled the silk sheet over her bare shoulders, her round blue eyes wide.

"Brighton... my head hurts again," Gia whimpered, grabbing his sleeve. "Why is she yelling? Is she going to hit us again?"

Brighton turned around immediately. The shock on his face vanished in an instant, replaced by a reflexive tenderness he'd rehearsed a thousand times.

"Don't be afraid, Gia. Lie back down. I've got this." He soothed her with low, steady words, tucking the sheet carefully around her, then turned back to glare at me darkly. "Keep your voice down, Eleanor! Can't you see how weak she is right now?"

I stood there, still wearing the dirty clothes from the holding cell, blood seeping through the bandages on my wrist, watching him gently adjust her pillow.

Five years ago, when I'd spent three full months in the hospital with second-degree burns across both arms and my chest, Brighton had also sat by my bed for hours on end. He'd sworn he'd love every inch of my scars, calling them medals of honor-proof that I'd saved his best friend from the fire.

And now, looking at my bandaged arm, all he felt was undisguised revulsion.

"Get out of my bedroom," I said, pointing toward the hallway. "Both of you. Get out of my apartment."

Gia let out a soft, mocking little laugh. She slid out of bed, trailing my favorite silk robe across the hardwood floor.

"Your apartment?" Gia walked toward the walk-in closet, sneering. "Eleanor, look at yourself in the mirror. You look like a homeless person off the street. This penthouse was bought by Brighton. He pays the maintenance. Even that cheap polyester dress you wore to his office last week-he bought it for you."

She reached into the closet and pulled out a charcoal-gray Italian designer suit, then thrust a receipt right under my nose.

"Brighton specifically bought this to cheer me up," Gia said coldly, her finger jabbing the printed paper. "I'm the only one he actually cares about."

I looked down at the light blue cotton shirt under my coat. Brighton had given it to me for our second anniversary, swearing it had been custom-made at an independent atelier.

And the receipt in Gia's perfectly manicured fingers bore yesterday's date, charged to our joint credit card.

"Is that true, Brighton?" I turned to look at him. "You charged my credit limit to buy Gia fourteen thousand dollars' worth of clothes, then turned around and told me we need to live frugally and save for a future house?"

Brighton heaved a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose in extreme irritation.

"Gia's parents died with massive debts and left her nothing, Eleanor," Brighton defended himself righteously. "She needs decent clothes to rebuild her confidence and go to social events. You spend all day in a dusty basement restoring old paintings. Why do you need designer brands? Can you stop being so petty and vain?"

"Petty?" A shrill, bitter laugh tore out of my throat. "Haven't I sacrificed enough for your precious friend? On our wedding night, Gia called saying she was scared of thunder and having a panic attack, and you left me alone in a hotel room! Last winter, I was pregnant and you refused to come to my prenatal appointment just because Gia wanted you to drive her to a spa weekend in Vermont-and I miscarried alone on our bathroom floor, losing our child!"

Brighton clenched his back teeth. "That was just an unfortunate medical accident. Stop using it as an excuse to attack Gia!"

"And my father, dying of lung cancer in hospice!" I screamed, the weight of memory tearing my voice apart. "I begged you to come to the hospital for just ten minutes-just ten minutes-so he could meet my husband before he closed his eyes! You lied to me about an emergency client meeting and actually took Gia to a wine tasting in the Hamptons! My father died believing I'd fabricated a husband to save face, because not a single person in our family ever saw you!"

The room fell into suffocating silence.

Brighton glanced at the floor. A flicker of guilt and embarrassment crossed his face, but it hardened back into coldness in an instant.

"Your father's passing was indeed sad, Eleanor, but bringing up ancient history every time we fight only proves how emotionally unstable you are," Brighton said coldly. "We'll talk when you've calmed down. Go wash your face."

"No need," I said, backing toward the front door. "We're done. 9 a.m. Monday. City courthouse."

I spun around and strode toward the hallway.

"Eleanor! Stop right there!" Brighton shouted, heavy footsteps pursuing me to the foyer.

He reached for my shoulder, but Gia suddenly dashed past him, throwing her arms open to block the front door.

"You're not just going to leave and make Brighton look like a villain!" Gia screamed, pressing forward.

Using the pretense of blocking me, Gia's hand secretly dropped down and precisely clamped onto the edge of my infected, oozing burn wound, driving her sharp nails deep into the torn flesh!

Unbearable pain swallowed me whole. A scream tore out of my throat.

Out of pure physical instinct, my uninjured left arm swung hard to push her away.

Gia had barely even touched my elbow. The moment my hand brushed her shoulder, she let out an exaggerated wail and threw herself backward, deliberately crashing onto the foyer carpet.

"Brighton! My baby!" Gia clutched her stomach, screaming in theatrical agony. "She hit my stomach! She's trying to kill my child!"

Brighton went rigid as if struck by lightning. The color drained from his face, then flooded back with rage.

"What did you say?" Brighton stared at Gia, his voice trembling.

"I'm pregnant, Brighton!" Gia rolled on the floor, sobbing. "I was going to surprise you tonight! Six weeks already! And she tried to murder your child!"

Brighton's gaze moved from Gia's trembling hands to my face, his fury nearly lethal.

"You psycho bitch." Brighton growled through clenched teeth.

He didn't even glance at my bleeding arm. He lunged forward, ramming his shoulder into my chest and shoving me aside to get to Gia.

The force slammed my already exhausted, weakened body into the sharp edge of the marble foyer console.

A sickening crack echoed from my pelvis.

A searing, burning pain flooded my lower abdomen. I collapsed onto the cold tile floor, curling up in agony as warm, thick fluid gushed down the inside of my thighs, soaking through my jeans and spreading into a shocking pool of blood on the white tile.

"Brighton... help me..." I gasped, vision darkening around the edges. "Please... I'm bleeding..."

Brighton swept Gia up into his arms and strode toward the door, never once looking down at me.

"If anything happens to Gia or my child, Eleanor," Brighton said over his shoulder, his voice thick with bone-deep hatred, "I will make sure you spend the rest of your life in prison!"

With that, Brighton carried Gia out and slammed the door behind him, never looking back.

I lay alone in the spreading pool of blood, the ceiling light spinning above me, until the whole world went dark.

Eleanor's POV

The sharp smell of disinfectant and rubbing alcohol pulled me out of unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes to find myself in a stark, blinding hospital room, an IV tape on the back of my uninjured left hand. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling hummed a low, piercing whine that throbbed in my skull.

A female doctor in blue scrubs walked in with a clipboard, her expression heavy.

"Ms. Forman," the female doctor pulled a wheeled stool to the bedside and sat down, her voice gentle. "I'm Dr. Alpert. The building superintendent found you unconscious at home and brought you in."

I tried to sit up, but a tearing pain in my lower abdomen made a hoarse moan escape from deep in my throat.

"Don't move yet," Dr. Alpert pressed my shoulder, her tone soothing. "You suffered severe blunt-force pelvic trauma causing acute massive bleeding. I'm so sorry, but... we couldn't save the baby. To stop the hemorrhaging, we had to perform an emergency dilation and curettage."

The room seemed to spin.

"The baby?" My voice was hoarse and broken, trembling. "I... I was pregnant?"

"About five weeks along," Dr. Alpert said softly, sympathy in her eyes. "Given that you already suffered a natural miscarriage last winter without medical care, and extensive scar tissue had formed inside your uterus, combined with the blunt-force impact this time, your uterine lining sustained irreversible damage. Both fallopian tubes are also severely and mechanically obstructed. Ms. Forman, you will... never be able to conceive again."

The words hit my heart like a sledgehammer.

Infertile. I was only twenty-seven. My body was covered in burns from Gia's fire, and now Brighton's cruelty had destroyed what was inside me too.

Before I could recover from the suffocating blow, the hospital door opened. Mrs. Gable, the sixty-year-old neighbor from the end of the hallway, walked in carrying a small basket of oranges.

"Oh thank goodness, you're finally awake, Eleanor!" Mrs. Gable hurried to the bedside, exclaiming. "You scared me to death when the ambulance came. Brighton sent me to look after you-that man is a total angel!"

I stared at her through puffy, red eyes. "What?"

"Who else? Brighton, of course!" Mrs. Gable beamed, setting the fruit basket on the tray. "I just ran into him on the third floor, carrying poor Gia into the elevator. He told me you'd had an accidental fall and wanted to check on you, but Gia suddenly had pregnancy complications and as her legal guardian he has to stay with her. He's in room 304 right now!"

A bone-deep chill swept over me.

Gia was in room 304. Three floors below me.

"He even made her a special electrolyte tonic with grated dried ginger," Mrs. Gable chattered on. "He told the nurses he learned the recipe from scratch last winter when someone he knew was sick."

My hands gripped the thin bedsheet so tight my knuckles went white.

He didn't invent that recipe. Last winter, when I'd lost my first child alone in the bathroom, I'd spent three days in bed shivering. I was the one who'd made ginger and brown sugar water on the stove. Brighton watched from the side, memorizing the proportions only so I could get up sooner and iron his work shirts.

Now, he was trampling on the blood and tears of my past and offering all that tenderness to his mistress.

I ripped out the IV from the back of my hand. A bead of dark red blood welled from the needle puncture, but I didn't have time for it. I threw off the covers and dragged my trembling legs out of bed, leaning against the wall, gasping.

"Eleanor, what are you doing?!" Mrs. Gable shrieked, trying to grab my arm. "The doctor said you must stay in absolute bed rest!"

"Out of the way." My voice was cold, hollow, and flat.

I dragged my heavy steps to the hallway, got in the elevator, and pressed the button for the third floor. Every step sent a searing pain through my injured pelvis, but the fury burning in my chest kept me from collapsing.

I found room 304 at the end of the obstetrics hallway.

The door was cracked open a thin slit.

Through the gap, the scene inside was warm as a picture-perfect domestic idyll. Gia leaned against soft pillows in a pale pink silk robe, while Brighton sat on the edge of the bed. He gently blew on a spoonful of steaming broth and carefully held it to her lips.

"Is the temperature right, Gia?" Brighton asked softly, a gentleness I'd never heard him use in public. "You need to finish the whole bowl. The doctor said after the shock you just had, the baby needs nutrition most of all."

"It's delicious, Brighton," Gia purred, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. "You're taking such good care of me and the baby. I don't know what I'd do without you."

I shoved the heavy door open. It slammed against the wall with a deafening bang.

The spoon fell out of Brighton's hand, broth splattering the white sheets. Gia gasped and yanked the sheet up to her chin.

"Eleanor?" Brighton stood up sharply, his face instantly settling into its usual look of contempt and irritation. "What are you doing here? Didn't Dr. Alpert say you needed rest? Go back to your room."

I walked straight to the nightstand, grabbed the heavy insulated thermos, and hurled it against the wall opposite.

The metal vessel burst open on impact. Scalding broth and glass shards flew everywhere, covering the floor and baseboards.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Brighton roared, grabbing my shoulders and shoving me backward. "Gia is resting! Your unreasonable outburst nearly made her lose the baby!"

"My outburst?" I shrieked, hot tears gushing from my eyes like acid. "You killed my baby, Brighton! You pushed me into that marble table and left me on the floor to bleed to death! Dr. Alpert just told me I'll never be able to have children again! You've taken away my right to be a mother!"

Brighton flinched. His eyes went wide as he took in my pale, ghostlike face, and a flash of shock and sickening guilt crossed his features.

"Eleanor... I didn't mean to..." Brighton opened his mouth, his voice fading.

Mrs. Gable and three other visitors from the waiting area crowded in the doorway, staring open-mouthed at the shattered thermos on the floor and the woman in a hospital gown screaming in madness.

"Wait," Mrs. Gable said, pointing at Brighton in confusion. "Brighton, who exactly is your wife? You told the building management Eleanor was just your tenant. Why is she saying you caused her to miscarry?"

Gia immediately burst into loud, tearful sobs, grabbing Brighton's arm from behind.

"Brighton, tell them!" Gia wailed hysterically. "She's deliberately destroying our reputation! Tell everyone who I really am!"

I stared straight at Brighton. The air was thick enough to suffocate.

"Tell them, Brighton," I said, staring into his hollow eyes. "This is your last chance. Tell everyone who your wife is. Tell them what you did to our child."

More nurses, orderlies, and patients gathered outside the hospital room, all watching the impeccably dressed young lawyer as he stood trapped under the fluorescent lights.

Brighton glanced at the crowd, then back at Gia's tear-streaked, clinging face. Finally, his gaze fell on the gleaming partner's badge on his suit lapel-the career he'd worked ten years to build.

He stepped half a pace back, standing firmly in front of Gia's hospital bed.

"Gia is not the other woman," Brighton announced to the whole room, his voice steady and professional, but cold-blooded and without any warmth. "Ms. Forman has suffered from a pathological obsession with me for years, completely twisting our professional relationship. Gia is the mother of my child. I will not allow this woman to harass her for one more step."

The crowd went silent for a moment, then erupted in disgusted, condemning chatter.

"What a vicious woman, stalking and harassing a pregnant woman!"

"She should be arrested and thrown in jail!"

Mrs. Gable looked at me with undisguised disgust, shaking her head. "Eleanor, I've treated you like my own child. I never thought you'd do something like this."

Darkness swam before my eyes. The last thread holding my sanity together snapped.

I lunged at him barehanded, scratching wildly at Brighton's chest, tearing at his shirt, raking at his face with everything I had left.

"You liar! Coward! You killed our baby!" I screamed, pounding his chest until my knuckles turned purple.

From behind him, Gia's mouth curled into a fleeting, triumphant smirk, then she shrieked at the crowd: "She's crazy! Hold her down! She also stole things from our house! We'll sue her until she's bankrupt!"

"I'm filing formal charges tomorrow morning!" Brighton roared, grabbing my wrist and twisting it hard, forcing me down onto the cold tile floor. "Security! Get her out of here!"

Two guards rushed over and pinned me to the ground, pressing my face against the cold floor. Gia leaned over the bed rail and tore open the front of my hospital gown, exposing my bandaged chest and the grotesque burn scars to the laughing, jeering crowd in the hallway.

"Everyone look!" Gia shrieked with shrill laughter. "Look at this scarred freak who thinks she can steal another woman's husband!"

I looked up at Brighton in desperation, begging with my eyes for him to stop this humiliation.

Brighton just turned his head away, calmly adjusting his cufflinks, and walked out of the room, letting me be dragged down the hallway like an animal.