All the romantic fantasies I had built up about Mark evaporated in an instant, replaced by a cold, sickening dread. Mark guided Chloe toward my station. He didn’t look flirtatious anymore; he looked grim. “I’m so sorry to do this at your workplace,” Mark said, his voice low and tight.

“But I didn’t know how else to approach you.” I backed up against my counter, my hands gripping the edge so hard my knuckles turned white. “What is this? Who are you?” Mark let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through the hair I had perfectly styled just a week prior.

“Chloe is my younger sister. And until about an hour ago, she was engaged to your ex-husband.” The room spun. I looked at Chloe, expecting to see the smug, home-wrecking woman I had vilified in my head for the past year. Instead, I saw a terrified girl.

She was trembling, clutching a bruised wrist tightly against her chest, her eyes wide and pleading. Mark stepped forward, keeping his voice a low whisper so the receptionist across the room wouldn’t hear. “David told Chloe that his previous marriage ended because you were wildly unstable.

He told her you were abusive, that you drained his bank accounts, and that you stalked him.

He used that narrative to isolate her, to make her think she was the only one who could ‘save’ him.” The pieces clicked together with horrifying clarity. The frequent appointments. The probing questions about my past. The intense curiosity about how my marriage ended. “You weren’t flirting with me,” I whispered, the realization tasting bitter in my mouth.