The Perfect Fiancé Was My Missing Husband

1 In the quiet conference room of the hospital’s organ donor liaison wing, the woman standing across from me broke down, bowing her head in a gesture of frantic, weeping gratitude. "Ms. Hastings, thank you," she sobbed, clutching a wadded tissue against her chest. "Thank you for giving my mother a second chance at life." Beside her, a tall man draped a protective arm over her shoulders, leaning down to press a soft kiss against her hair. "Don't cry too hard, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice rich and soothing. "You’ll ruin your eyes. Remember, we have our engagement photos scheduled for this afternoon." My breath snagged in my throat. That voice. It was the exact cadence, the exact low baritone that had murmured through my phone screen late last night across a supposed seven-hour time difference, whispering how desperately he missed me. The woman leaned into his chest, looking up at me with tear-bright, radiant eyes. "This is my fiancé," she said, her voice brimming with pride. "Honestly, if it weren’t for him taking care of my mom these past three years, I never would have survived it. The minute my mom is fully discharged and recovered, we’re getting married." Our eyes met. Standing in the fluorescent glare of St. Jude Memorial was my husband, Garrett Cross. The man who had supposedly been stationed in Singapore on an overseas corporate assignment for the past three years. Garrett’s entire posture locked. His fingers, still resting on the woman's shoulder, went dead and slipped away as if he’d been burned. In a heartbeat, the warmth vanished from his features. He rebuilt his face into an expression of polished, bureaucratic sympathy, the kind an insurance adjuster offers a stranger at a crash site. "My condolences," he said. Two hollow syllables. A stranger’s phrase. It hit me like an ice pick beneath the ribs, draining the warmth from my veins. Three years. For three years, my husband had been a ghost in our marriage, living in another corner of the same state, playing the devoted, model son-in-law to another woman's dying mother. The woman noticed the silence, glancing at the empty chairs beside me. Her expression softened with pity. "Are you here all alone? Don’t you have a partner? A husband?" My gaze dropped to Garrett’s left hand. There, gleaming on his ring finger, was a platinum pavé band—an exact match to the engagement ring sparkling on the woman’s finger. "I do," I said evenly. "He’s a serial cheat." I held Garrett’s gaze, watching the blood drain from his neck. "I’m in the middle of filing for divorce." The woman—Hailey, according to the donor paperwork—froze, blinking in bewilderment before glancing up at Garrett. Garrett’s jaw was clamped so tight the muscle twitched beneath his skin, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets, knuckles straining against the fabric. "Oh," Hailey murmured, looking mortified. "I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pried." I gave a faint, detached shake of my head. Hailey, however, immediately flared with indignation on my behalf. "Even if you’re parting ways, how could any decent man skip his mother-in-law’s final donor release? That’s just sociopathic." She let out a heavy sigh, shifting closer to Garrett and looping her arm through his with an unselfconscious, possessive ease. "It honestly terrifies me how callous men can be nowadays. I almost gave up on marriage entirely—until I found someone who actually has integrity." She looked at him like he was carved out of gold. "Ms. Hastings, I’m really not trying to rub it in or pick at your wounds, I swear. It’s just... Garrett is one in a million. He doesn’t even have female friends on his social media. The second he clocks out from work, he comes straight home, or he’s at the clinic sitting with my mom. My entire family, all my coworkers—they all tell me I must have saved a bus full of children in a past life to end up with a man like him." Garrett’s mouth thinned into a pale, bloodless line. I looked at them both and offered a quiet, flat response. "Congratulations." Hailey’s smile bloomed wider, oblivious. "He’s just so meticulous. He never misses an anniversary, always sends flowers, remembers both my parents’ birthdays down to the hour. Over the last three years, my mom’s been in and out of the hospital over a dozen times. Garrett found every specialist, handled the hospital admissions, even built an Excel spreadsheet detailing her sodium intake and daily medication schedules." She tilted her head against his bicep, her eyes shining with absolute devotion. "If he hadn't carried us through these last three years, my mom and I wouldn't be standing here today." A cold, hollow numbness spread through my chest, carving out whatever raw grief had been left. Three years ago, we had stood in the county clerk’s office, signed our marriage license, and kissed under the fluorescent lights. Before we could even plan a reception, his company supposedly promoted him to head their regional expansion abroad. The first year, my birthday came and went in silence. Days later, he texted that he had lost track of the dates due to the time difference. The second year, I reserved a venue for the formal wedding reception we never had. He told me his executive visa wouldn't permit leave, that we had to wait for next year. This year, my mother’s congestive heart failure deteriorated into the end stages. She spent her final weeks hooked to a ventilator, holding on just to see his face one last time. He claimed he was locked in non-disclosure arbitration overseas and couldn't get a flight out. Three whole years. While he was performing the role of the saintly, selfless son-in-law for another family, I was sitting alone in an empty dining room, nursing cold tea, counting down the days until his next scripted FaceTime call. Hailey clung to his arm like a child leaning into a parent. "Even this transplant—Garrett was the one who pulled strings, consulted his network, and tracked down every medical lead to get her bumped up the priority tier. Ms. Hastings, I am so deeply grateful to your mother. If hospital policy didn't strictly forbid sharing donor identities beforehand, I would have brought flowers to her bedside while she was still breathing..." She wiped a tear, letting out a breathy laugh. "It’s pure providence that the surgery happened in the same hospital wing. That’s the only reason the donor liaison gave us permission to meet and say thank you." My heart felt as if it were being dragged across broken glass. My mother had suffocated in a sterile ICU room, weeping for a glimpse of the son-in-law she loved. And all the while, he was working the back channels of this very hospital system, packaging my dying mother’s beating heart to hand it over to another woman's family. Garrett’s skin was the color of chalk. He gave Hailey’s wrist a sharp, discreet squeeze. "Hailey, let's not... let’s not drag this out." "You always do this," Hailey said, turning to him with an adoring pout. "You always say you’re just doing what any partner should do. But we’re not even officially married yet! For you to carry my family like this... it means everything to me." She turned back to me, looking bashful. "I’m sorry. Once I start bragging about him, I can’t stop. He’s just... he really is worth loving." She reached out, gently covering my cold fingers with her manicured hand. "Ms. Hastings, when you’re ready to date again, please keep your standards high. It’s never about how much cash a man drops on dinner. It’s about the labor he puts in when life gets hard." I gently, deliberately slid my hand out from under hers. The corners of my mouth curved into a faint, bitter smile. "You’re entirely right," I said. "You can never judge a man by the surface. Until the curtain gets pulled back, you never really know whether you’re looking at a human being or a monster." Garrett’s knuckles cracked as his fists clenched inside his pockets. Every drop of color had abandoned his face. The liaison nurse stepped into the room carrying a clipboard. "Ms. Hastings, I have the final anatomical gift release for your signature." My fingers trembled violently as I took the pen, but I forced my signature across the dotted line. A moment later, the transplant coordinator approached Hailey with a stack of post-op care directives and hospital release authorizations. Hailey didn't even look at them; she naturally, casually handed the clipboard straight to Garrett. Garrett scanned the documents with practiced familiarity, then leaned over the counter and signed his name under the authorized family representative block. Hailey watched him with a glow of domestic bliss, then turned back to me, offering a conspiratorial whisper: "By the way, Ms. Hastings—just some unsolicited girl advice. If a man takes your heart, make damn sure you take his wallet. When you finalize that divorce, don't let him walk away with a single cent." I let out a soft, dry laugh. "Don't worry. He won't. He's at fault. He walks away with nothing." Without looking at the gray, suffocating terror on Garrett’s face, I turned on my heel and walked out of the room. Behind me, Hailey’s voice drifted down the corridor, dripping with tender pity: "God, she’s so pathetic. Her mother just passed, and now she has to deal with a scumbag ex... Garrett, baby, maybe we should offer to help her..." The automatic glass doors slid open, letting in the brisk, biting autumn air. A humorless smirk curled on my lips. Being cheated on was a wound. But being paraded as a fool in front of the world? That was a tragedy waiting to happen. After coordinating the transport of my mother’s body to the mortuary, I drove back to the suburban townhouse. The house was cavernous and silent. Perhaps because Garrett had been absent for so long, the shock of betrayal had already cauterized the immediate weeping. What remained was a cold, acidic disgust at the sheer waste of it all. Five years together. Two years of intense, inseparable dating before we signed the papers at City Hall. Back then, he had remembered every anniversary. He had driven my mother to her oncology checkups. My aunts and cousins used to sigh with envy, telling me I had struck gold. And so, for three long years, I had waited. I had endured the silence, swallowed the loneliness, made excuses for him to anyone who asked. And my reward was finding out he was staging a second life twenty miles away, playing the white knight for Hailey Miller. I dragged an empty Samsonite suitcase from the closet and began clearing out his things. There wasn't much left. Over the past three years, whenever his "colleagues" supposedly flew out to his foreign office, they had dropped by to pick up his suits, his watches, his favorite coats. The closets held only remnants from three years ago: an old jacket, outdated tax forms, and framed photographs of us. The breadcrumbs had been there all along. He had methodically dismantled his presence from my life, piece by piece, while I chose to remain blind. I took the framed photos from the mantel. One by one, I pulled the prints from behind the glass and tore them into strips, letting our smiling faces flutter into the trash can. A sharp electronic chirp echoed in the hallway. The keyless deadbolt turned. The front door swung open. Garrett stepped inside. His shoes finally crossed the threshold of the home he hadn't touched in a thousand days. He stared at the suitcase sitting open on the hardwood floor, his voice raw and gravelly. "Nora. What the hell is this?" I didn't stop my hands. "It’s fairly self-explanatory, isn't it?" In three strides, he crossed the room and caught my wrist in a bruising grip. "Are you out of your mind? You’re actually divorcing me?" I looked up slowly, meeting his bloodshot eyes. "If I don't divorce you, Garrett, what's your plan? Bigamy?" His breath hitched. The air rushed out of him in a ragged gasp. "It isn't what you think. I never planned to marry her—" "You didn't plan to marry her?" I ripped my hand from his grip, the sarcasm dripping from my tongue. "Then why did you hire an engagement photographer for this afternoon? Why have you spent three years building spreadsheets for her mother? Why didn't you correct her when she introduced you as her fiancé to the entire hospital ward?" He opened his mouth, stammering, before clutching his temples. "Could you stop being so damn aggressive for five seconds? Can we just sit down and talk through this like civilized adults?" "Aggressive?" A sharp laugh tore from my throat. "I didn't scream at you in that conference room. I didn't rip that ring off your finger. I didn't drag her by the hair and tell her she was sleeping with my husband. That was me being civilized, Garrett. How much more generous do you want me to be?" His face went rigid. "Nora, please. That’s not what I came here to talk about." "Then what did you come here to talk about? If I hadn't happened to walk into that room today, were you planning on juggling two households forever?" "I never meant to keep you in the dark!" he snapped, his voice rising in defensive frustration. "Hailey's mother was in critical condition. She had end-stage heart failure. Hailey was completely falling apart—I couldn't just walk away and leave her!" "And you could leave me?" I stepped into his personal space, my voice dropping to a deadly, lethal whisper. "My mother was dying too, Garrett. Where was your spreadsheet for her? Where was your white knight routine when I was spending nights sleeping in a hospital waiting chair? While she was taking her final breaths, you were popping champagne in the ICU across town because you had finally secured a heart match! My mother spent her last lucid moments asking if you were on a plane home. You signed every admission form for Hailey's mother, while I had to sign my own mother's death certificate with hands so numb I couldn't feel the pen!" Garrett flinched as if struck. His eyes darted away. "Nora... I didn't know the donor was your mom..." "So that makes it clean in your head, does it?" He swallowed hard, his shoulders slumping as he tried a softer, cajoling approach. "Nora, listen to me. Your mother has passed away. There's nothing we can do to change that. But the living still have to go on. Hailey's mother just came out of a six-hour transplant surgery. Any sudden emotional shock could trigger an acute rejection episode—" The sheer absurdity of it washed over me, draining away my anger and leaving only a vast, freezing void. "So what's the proposal, Garrett?" I asked quietly. "You want me to be the bigger person? You want me to safeguard your new mother-in-law's recovery? Should I play the smiling sister-wife, attend your wedding, and send a sterling silver tea set as a gift?" His jaw tightened. "Do you have to make everything sound so vile?" "You're the one who committed the vile act!" I grabbed his suitcase and shoved it toward the open door. It clattered loudly against the baseboard. "You haven't lived in this house for three years. You don't get to step back into it now. I'm emailing the uncontested dissolution petition to your inbox tonight. Tomorrow morning, nine o'clock sharp. You meet me at the county clerk's office." His composure cracked into panic. "I am not signing divorce papers, Nora! We can work through this, we just need time—" "Time for what? Time for your wedding invitations to go out? So you can turn me into the secret mistress of your first marriage?" He stood frozen, unable to form an answer. I turned the knob and pulled the front door wide open, gesturing to the porch. "If I don't see your car parked outside the municipal building at nine o'clock tomorrow, I will hand-deliver our certified marriage license to Hailey Miller's front door." His throat bobbed. He stared at me for several agonizing seconds before grabbing the handle of his suitcase and walking out into the dusk. I slammed the door behind him and locked the deadbolt. Through the peephole, I watched him stand on the porch for a long, hesitating minute before dragging his luggage down the driveway. The moment his taillights disappeared around the corner, I pulled up the keypad settings on my phone and erased his fingerprint and access code forever. Then, I sat down at the kitchen counter and called my attorney, Marcus Ward. The terms were non-negotiable: Garrett would sign an uncontested separation and marital dissolution agreement, waiving all equity. He was leaving with nothing. Not that there was much to split. The down payment on the townhouse had come entirely from my mother’s savings. I had serviced every single monthly mortgage payment out of my own salary while he claimed his foreign income was tied up in offshore accounts. The joint checking had barely three thousand dollars left—I would keep it as compensation. The next morning at nine o'clock, Garrett was already standing in the hallway outside the County Clerk’s Office. When the clerk pushed the dissolution paperwork toward him, his pen hovered over the signature line, trembling. "Nora," he murmured, his voice desperate. "Is there really no way back from this?" I signed my own name across the petitioner block without a second’s hesitation, not even bothering to look up. "The day you fabricated an overseas transfer, Garrett, there was no way back." His jaw clenched. With a heavy, defeated scrawl, he signed the agreement. All that was left was the mandatory thirty-day statutory waiting period before the judge signed the final decree. We walked out of the government building in silence. But as soon as we crossed into the concrete municipal parking garage, a sharp clicking of heels echoed off the pillars. Before I could turn, a figure lunged out from behind an SUV. Smack. A searing, violent slap caught me across the left cheek, snapping my head to the side. "Nora Hastings, you shameless, disgusting bitch!" Hailey stood before me, chest heaving with fury, her manicured finger inches from my nose. "I knew the second I saw you at the hospital you were bad news! You haven't even finalized your own divorce, and you’re already trying to seduce someone else’s fiancé? I bet your husband didn't even cheat on you—you were probably the whore cheating on him!" The metallic taste of copper bloomed inside my mouth. I pressed my tongue against the inside of my burning cheek, staring at her with lethal calm. "Who did you say was seducing your fiancé?" "I saw it with my own eyes! You want to deny it?" Hailey screeched, pulling out her iPhone and unlocking the screen to shove an image into my face. It was a telephoto snapshot of Garrett and me walking through the courthouse security turnstiles ten minutes ago. "Look at this! My mom is barely stabilized in the ICU, your own mother just died, and you’re out here chasing after my man? Does your mother's sacrifice mean that little to you?" The sheer absurdity of her hysteria made a cold laugh bubble in my chest. "Hailey, take a good look at the sign above the entrance. This is the county records and dissolution office. I came here to sign a divorce." "Then why the hell did you drag my fiancé here with you?" I looked at her, entirely exhausted by her stupidity. "Maybe that’s a question you should direct to your perfect fiancé. I don't owe you an explanation." I moved to walk around her, but she lunged forward, grabbing my trench coat sleeve. "I treated you like a sister! I thanked you! And you try to steal the love of my life? You don't leave this garage until you explain yourself, or I swear to God I will go to your corporate HR and ruin you!" Her voice bounced off the concrete walls, drawing the attention of people heading to their cars. "What's going on over there?" a woman muttered, slowing down. "Did she say she's chasing someone else's man during her divorce?" "Her mom just passed away and she's pulling this?" another bystander whispered. "Jesus, that’s vile." I looked at Hailey, my voice dead and clear. "Hailey. Garrett is here with me because he is my—" "Hailey!" Garrett’s voice shattered the air. He sprinted from the elevator bay, throwing his body between us and wrapping his arms around Hailey, pulling her tightly against his chest. "Hailey, what are you doing here?" Hailey melted into his arms, instantly dissolving into loud, theatrical sobs. "Garrett! Why were you with her? You promised me! You swore I was the only woman in your world! Tell me the truth—did she throw herself at you? Did she manipulate you?" Garrett stroked her hair, his voice hushed and frantic. "Baby, please, calm down. It isn't what you think—" "Then what is it?" Hailey cried, pulling back to show him her hands, where her nails had dug bloody crescents into her palms. "Look at me! You only met her yesterday! Don't tell me this is a coincidence! You walked in together, you walked out together—do you have any idea how much it took for me not to run up and tear her apart in the lobby?" Garrett’s face twisted in agonized sympathy. He caught her bleeding hands, lifting them to his lips and blowing softly on the cuts. "You foolish girl," he murmured, his tone thick with sorrow. "You know how much I love you. Why would you hurt yourself like this? Don't you know it breaks my heart?" He didn't spare a single glance for my swelling, crimson cheek. Watching him cradle her fingers like fragile porcelain, whatever lingering ember of memory I had carried from our early years turned completely to ash. Hailey buried her wet face in his designer coat. "Garrett, I love you so much. I can’t breathe if I think about you looking at anyone else." "I love you too," Garrett whispered into her ear, his eyes closed. "There is no other woman. Only you." "Then why were you in the government center with her? What are you hiding from me?" Garrett stiffened. He glanced over Hailey’s shoulder, meeting my cold, unwavering eyes. A flicker of cowardice crossed his features before he hardened his jaw. "I came by the records office to file our marriage license pre-application," he lied smoothly. "Running into her was a total coincidence." Hailey snuffled, looking up at him through wet lashes. "Then why were you walking so close to her?" Garrett’s gaze swept over me, utterly devoid of humanity. "That was her doing. I didn't cross any boundaries." Hailey spun around, glaring at me with venomous triumph. "Did you hear that, Nora Hastings? My fiancé has zero interest in you. Put away your disgusting, desperate schemes and stay the hell away from him!" I stared at the two of them, and an incredulous laugh broke from my throat. "I think you're the one who needs to stay away from my husband—" "Nora!" Garrett shouted, his face darkening with panic. "Hailey is young and emotionally exhausted—stop trying to provoke her!" "Did I say something incorrect?" I asked, holding his gaze. "As of this second, you and I are still legally married—" "Enough!" Garrett barked, cutting me off with a venomous glare. "Nora, I appreciate that your mother donated her heart to save Hailey's mom. But you cannot use that moral debt to extort me into a relationship! I am never going to give you what you want. From now on, act like we’re strangers. Stop embarrassing yourself and confusing my fiancé!" Without giving me another second to respond, he wrapped his arm firmly around Hailey’s waist and hurried her toward his Lexus, shielding her like a precious gem. I stood alone in the dim, exhaust-choked garage, tasting blood, stunned by the sheer, unbridled audacity of his cowardice. The poison didn't stop there. Two hours after I got home, my phone began to buzz incessantly. A close friend sent me a direct link to a trending post on TikTok and Instagram Reels. The video was taken from the parking garage security angle Hailey had filmed from her car, selectively clipped to show only the end: me standing cold while Garrett shielded a sobbing Hailey, followed by Garrett’s booming voice: "You cannot use your mother's heart donation to extort me into a relationship!" The caption Hailey had written read: "Donor’s daughter weaponizes her mother’s death to steal my fiancé. Extortion in broad daylight. I will never believe in human kindness again." The comments section was already a feeding frenzy: — "Just because your mom donated an organ doesn't mean you own other people’s partners! Trading your dead mom for a husband? Psychotic." — "She’s disgusting. The man clearly adores his fiancé, and this home-wrecker is still clawing at him." — "The girl says she’s currently going through a divorce too. Hope her ex-husband sees this and strips her of every dime in court." — "Rotten daughter, rotten mother. That donated heart is probably tainted too. The bride-to-be needs to get her mom a clean donor so she isn't infected by this family’s trash karma." Under that specific comment, Hailey had publicly replied: "Thank you all for the love. Honestly, knowing whose heart is inside my mother makes me sick to my stomach, but she’s too weak to survive another surgery right now. We just have to bear it." And pinned right beneath her comment was a verified response from Garrett’s personal account: "Don't be afraid, baby. Let your mom heal first. If another donor match is ever needed, I’ll move heaven and earth to find one for her." The internet erupted in applause: — "What a real man. Sister, you won the lottery." — "A loyal, protective fiancé like this is extinct nowadays. Protect him at all costs!" — "If all men were like this, homewreckers wouldn't stand a chance." I sat at my kitchen table, my entire body shaking with a violent, freezing tremor. My mother had laid down her life, her body sliced open on an operating table so Hailey’s mother could draw breath, and this spoiled, venomous girl was calling my mother’s heart a disease on the public internet. I didn't waste time typing an emotional defense in the comments. Instead, I took screenshots, archived the video files, and forwarded the link straight to Marcus Ward. Marcus, I typed. The video has crossed five hundred thousand shares and five million impressions. The threshold for criminal defamation and harassment is met. Send the cease-and-desist and serve the summons. Garrett, you wanted to play the noble protector? You wanted to construct a fortress of lies? Then let the legal system tear the walls down around you. Within minutes of my attorney filing the notice, Garrett’s call blasted through my phone. I picked up. His voice came through the speaker in a strangled, furious hiss. "Nora, have you lost your goddamn mind? Are you trying to destroy my life?" "My lawyer's letter is very clear," I replied calmly. "You didn't show much mercy when you allowed her to smear my dead mother across the internet." He exhaled sharply, struggling to keep his temper in check. "Nora... retract the legal filing. Right now. We can settle this privately." "There is no private settlement. Talk to my lawyer." I severed the call. Before I could set the phone down, an unknown number lit up the screen. I answered. Hailey’s screech pierced my ear. "Nora Hastings! You dare serve me with a lawsuit? You think a piece of paper from a lawyer scares me? I will drag you through every platform on the internet! I will march into your office, scream to your bosses, and make sure you are fired and completely blacklisted from society!" I held the phone an inch from my ear, listening to her breath hitch. "If you aren't afraid," I said quietly, "then do it. You don't need to announce it to me." I hung up and blocked the number. The next afternoon, the chapel at Oakridge Memorial was filled with the soft scent of white lilies. At the center of the altar sat a framed black-and-white portrait of my mother. In the picture, her eyes crinkled with gentle kindness, her lips curved in the warm, quiet smile that the illness had slowly stolen away during her final year. Her former colleagues from the public library, old neighbors, and our relatives occupied the mahogany pews, gathering to pay their final respects. I stood alone in the family receiving line, wearing a simple black dress, enduring the pitying whispers and sorrowful glances of the crowd. The pastor had just concluded the opening prayer when the heavy double doors at the back of the chapel were slammed open with a violent bang. Hailey Miller marched down the center aisle, followed by three local independent lifestyle bloggers holding high-end camera rigs and gimbal mounts. "Nora Hastings, drop the grieving daughter act!" Hailey screamed, her voice echoing off the vaulted chapel ceiling. "Your mother isn't even in the ground yet, and you’re out here blackmailing my fiancé to marry you! Today, everyone is going to see the monster you really are!" The chapel erupted into gasps. Every head turned. Hailey held up a large digital tablet, looping the maliciously edited garage video on maximum volume. "Look at her!" Hailey shouted to the bewildered mourners. "She files for divorce, and the first thing she does is try to wrap herself around my fiancé! She told him that because her mother gave her heart to my mom, he owes her his body and a wedding ring! I posted the truth online, and she slapped me with a lawsuit! Where is the justice?" She turned toward my mother’s coffin, pointing an accusatory finger. "Even at the organ procurement meeting, she was giving him bedroom eyes while her own mother was lying cold in the morgue! How do you live with yourself?" A suffocating silence descended over the room, followed by the rising tide of murmurs from the pews. "Divorce?" my aunt whispered, clutching her husband’s arm. "Isn't her husband still working in Singapore? Did he cheat on her?" "Nora," an older cousin called out, looking troubled. "Is this true? Did you actually use Aunt Martha’s heart to corner this girl’s fiancé?" Hailey thrust the tablet higher, playing to the lenses of the streaming cameras. "Of course it’s true! It’s all on tape! My fiancé said it himself!" Disapproval and embarrassment rippled through the older relatives. "Even if her marriage failed, she shouldn't go chasing after an engaged man..." "Martha was a saint her entire life... to have her funeral turned into a circus like this, she won't rest in peace." "To think she'd use her own mother’s organ donation as leverage... what happened to her morals?" Hailey adopted an expression of martyred grace, lowering the tablet slightly. "Nora Hastings, I know you’re mourning, and I know your divorce is messy. But that gives you no right to try and take what’s mine. Your mother’s heart saved my mom, so I won't ruin you completely. All you have to do is get on your knees, apologize to me in front of these cameras, and sign a sworn affidavit promising you will never contact Garrett again. Then, and only then, will I drop the internet campaign." I didn't flinch. I didn't raise my voice. I simply stood by the casket, watching her theatrical performance with cold, dead eyes. "Are you finished?" I asked quietly. Hailey blinked, momentarily thrown off by my lack of tears. "What?" I took a slow step forward, looking past the camera lenses directly into her eyes. "If you’re finished," I said, every word dropping like lead onto the chapel floor, "then it's my turn." I paused, letting the silence stretch until you could hear the air conditioning hum. "Did your perfect fiancé happen to tell you... that he is my husband?"