Emily's POV

On our fourth wedding anniversary, I asked Ethan Taylor for a divorce.

"You're divorcing me because I went to check on my sister-in-law instead of staying with you tonight?" He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "Emmy. We've been together eight years."

I made a small sound. Not quite a laugh.

"There's a lot of reasons." I said. "Tonight's just the one that finally broke it."

The night before, I'd flown in a private chef from Napa and had dinner ready three hours early. I'd ordered Yves Piaget roses from Ode à la Rose. Four years running, this was how we did our anniversary.

I even bought a brand-new La Perla lace robe just for tonight.

We were in the middle of it — his hand on my last tie, both of us breathless — when his phone rang.

A woman crying on the other end.

"Hey? What's wrong?" His voice went tight in an instant.

A second ago it had been low and rough with wanting me. Now it was all nerves, stretched thin. "Don't cry. Send me the address. I'll be there in ten."

He hung up and lunged for his jacket. He didn't look at me once.

"Ethan." I couldn't stop myself. "It's our anniversary."

His hand froze on his sleeve.

"Emmy, I'm sorry." He came back fast, cupped my face in both hands. "Noah's at 103. Anna's alone with him, she's probably losing it. I'll get his IV going, wait till his fever breaks, and come straight home. Okay?"

"How long is 'straight back'?"

"An hour. Tops. Wait up for me."

Then he was gone.

I waited up all night. He never came home.

What came instead, at three in the morning, was a text from Anna. With a photo attached.

Ethan, holding Noah, sitting beside a hospital bed.

I stared at the way he was looking at that kid. Soft. Focused. Like nothing else in the world existed.

Why did he look at Noah like that? Like a father looks at his own son — not an uncle looking at his dead brother's kid?

The message under the photo made it worse.

Anna: [Go to sleep, sweetie. Ethan's just worried sick about Noah — probably because he flew all the way out to be with me when I gave birth. He's always treated Noah like his own. He's staying the night.]

I read it once. My brain didn't process it.

I read it again.

He was there. When she gave birth.

Three years ago, his brother died. Out of nowhere. Anna said she needed to get away, needed to grieve somewhere else, so she left the country.

A few months later, she found out she was pregnant. She stayed overseas for the rest of it.

That whole last month before she was due, Ethan had been "traveling for work." Over and over.

Now I knew what that travel actually was.

The tears hit the phone screen before I even felt them coming.

So this was how far back it went. This was how long he'd been building a life with the two of them, right alongside the one he had with me.

No wonder. No wonder every time Anna so much as called, he was out the door, not even looking back.

And every time, the same excuse:

"Noah's my brother's only kid. He's gone. Somebody has to step up. You get that, right, Emmy?"

I used to tell myself: he's a good man, his brother is dead, of course he has to help.

I told myself that for years.

Tonight, I couldn't say it one more time.

Was any of it ever really about Noah?

Or was it always her?

I got up, opened the drawer, and pulled out the divorce papers I'd already had ready.

I almost made it to the door. Then I stopped.

Our wedding photo was still on the wall. I was smiling so wide my eyes had gone crescent-shaped.

Four years dating. Four years married.

And now, just this. A stack of paper in my hand.