Chapter 1
My arrival shattered their perfect happiness.
"Emma?" my husband, Charlie Brook, stiffened for a second before finally saying my name.
He immediately stepped in front of Yolanda Jones, his eyes filled with caution, as if I were some threat he had to keep away from her.
No one knew me better than Charlie.
He knew I was the kind of woman who would rather drag everything into the flames than watch him live happily with his mistress.
The first time I discovered his affair with his assistant, I had lost control in front of everyone. I tore that woman's clothes off and stamped the word "SLUT" across her face and body.
That was why he was afraid I would do the same thing to Yolanda.
But Yolanda had been my closest friend.
"Yolanda," I called out. "So it really was you? I thought you were dead. Why didn't you stay dead? When you watched me collapse on the beach after crying until I lost consciousness, did you ever feel guilty for even a second?"
I couldn't see her face. Charlie had completely shielded her behind him.
I grabbed the vase beside me and hurled it at them. "How could you be this shameless?"
My son, Jack Brook, stepped in front of me. Two years had gone by since I last saw him, and he had already grown almost to my shoulder.
I was grateful he was alive. But the arms he opened weren't reaching for me. They were a barrier, a wall meant to keep me out.
Charlie and Jack stood before me.
Both of them were protecting her from me—afraid I would hurt the mistress who had once been my best friend.
"Don't come any closer!" Jack warned me. "I helped Dad with everything because I wanted to. I don't want you as my mom anymore. I like Mommy Yolanda. She's sweet and gentle—nothing like you. You're crazy!"
Pain twisted in my chest, but I still forced the words out. "Jack, I'm your real mother."
Yet the only thing I saw in his eyes was disgust. He looked at me like I was someone who wanted to destroy the woman he loved.
Yolanda moved slightly, revealing half of her face while one hand rested protectively over her belly.
Then she began to cry, "Emmy, it was all my fault. If you can't forgive me, I'll end my life right now. I'll give everything back to you."
She barely took half a step before Charlie and Jack rushed to pull her back.
"Mommy Yolanda, I can't lose you. The person who should die is this horrible woman!" Jack aimed his toy gun at me. "We were happy before. Why did you have to come back?"
His face was scrunched up in anger.
When he was younger, Charlie had once forgotten to bring me flowers, and Jack had looked exactly like this when he blamed him.
But now, those same words were aimed at me. He was saying I deserved to die. My nails dug painfully into my palms.
For two years, I had cut my arms again and again, drowning in guilt because I thought I caused their deaths.
But while I was trapped in my own nightmare, they had been playing happy family without me.
Charlie walked toward me, his expression cold. "Emma, if you're angry, take it out on me."
The second those words left his mouth, my palm struck his face.
He stared at me with the same cold gaze. It was the exact look he had given me two years ago when we divorced, a look that said I was someone who should never have existed in his world.
But when we were 18, he was the one who ran into me in the crowd, who waited outside my dorm every day just to see me, who brought me the cupcakes I loved.
"I was the one who asked Yola to help me fake it." His Adam's apple bobbed slightly, as if he was discussing something meaningless.
"If there's anyone to blame, blame yourself. You refused to let go and pushed everyone to the breaking point. This was the only solution I could think of. Jack loves her, and I love her too. Your leaving gave all of us the life we wanted. You shouldn't have come back."
Right. My leaving had been the perfect ending.
I never should've returned, because there was no place for me here.
