Chapter 22
Hope could feel it—something was between them again. After that night in the kitchen, when Stephen confessed he wanted to find Daia, everything changed. He became distant. Cold. Detached. He rarely came home. He didn’t message her. Didn’t call. She knew why. Stephen was out there, searching—chasing after someone who had already broken him once. And all the while, Hope stayed behind, slowly breaking herself. The warmth that once filled their home had vanished, replaced with silence and emptiness. She cried every night into her pillow, muffling the sound with blankets and clenched fists. There was no one to listen anyway. Maybe those women at the wedding were right. Maybe she truly was nothing. Just a stand-in. A convenient wife. A distraction. She had hoped—prayed—that Stephen wou
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