Chapter 3

Audrey

I stared at his text message, completely numb.

I didn't reply. I was too downright exhausted to even type a single word.

He didn't actually care why I left. He just hated that I was making a scene and ruining his mood.

Before I could even lock my phone, a new notification popped up at the top of my screen.

Declan had just posted a new Instagram story.

I clicked on it, and it immediately showed me exactly what he was doing while calling me dramatic.

He was at Daisy's place.

The coffee table was littered with takeout boxes and empty beer bottles. A huge group of his friends was gathered around the living room.

They were all mock-gasping, pointing their phones at Declan and Daisy sitting in the center.

Daisy's cheeks were flushed. She looked tipsy, playfully tugging at Declan's cheek.

Declan was looking at the camera with a helpless, entirely indulgent smile.

There was no caption. But it said everything.

Declan's entire social media feed was basically dedicated to Daisy.

To find a single picture of me, you had to scroll back seven years to the night he proposed. And he only posted that because I had begged him to.

He always claimed he hated taking pictures.

Yet, he had hundreds of photos with Daisy, documenting their whole lives together.

I glanced at the comments section.

Insiders were teasing them. Outsiders were congratulating them, genuinely thinking they were a couple.

No one remembered me. In Declan's world, I was a ghost.

I fell back onto my bed, letting my mind plummet into the past.

Back to the years I spent helping Declan build his tech empire from the ground up here in Seattle.

Back then, I was the only one by his side.

We faced maxed-out credit cards, pitched to investors out of our beat-up car, and worked ourselves into the ER from pure exhaustion.

We had laid in side-by-side hospital beds just laughing like idiots.

We suffered so much back then.

So much that looking back now, even those sweet memories left a bitter, rotting taste in my mouth.

I couldn't even remember what Declan looked like when he actually loved me.

As our lives got better, the distance between us grew wider.

The very first thing Declan did when his company finally took off was fly Daisy back from overseas.

That was when I finally learned she even existed.

Declan was arrogant to his core. As his circle of wealthy friends grew, that arrogance completely took over.

He stopped checking in with me. He hated when I asked where he was.

I had to play the perfectly obedient fiancé in public and in private. Only then would he give me a little bit of affection.

Affection that Daisy got effortlessly, while I had to destroy my own self-worth just to beg for scraps.

For years, I naively thought he would eventually change back into the man he used to be.

But I completely overestimated my place in his heart.

Buzz.

My phone vibrated, yanking me back to reality. More comments had piled up under his post.

But it was the last few replies that caught my eye.

Chase: Are you two still going to Cabo San Lucas this month?

Declan: I'm down for whatever. It's up to Daisy.

My brain short-circuited. I stared at the screen, unable to process the words.

Cabo San Lucas. A tropical resort town in Mexico, famous for its cloudless beaches and blazing, blinding sunshine.

Wasn't Daisy supposed to be confined to a shaded clinic? Didn't she have a severe, life-threatening UV allergy?

Another friend chimed in.

Mark: Speaking of, it's been fifteen years. You still not marrying Audrey? If she finds out the truth, she's actually never going to forgive you dude.

Declan: I'm not done having fun yet. What's wrong with delaying it?

Declan: If Audrey wasn't constantly suffocating me about getting married, I wouldn't have had to fake Daisy's UV allergy. I just wanted some freedom.

I stared at those words until my vision blurred.

They were like razor blades, slicing open my throat as I swallowed them down with the metallic taste of blood.

My fingers trembled furiously as I typed a direct reply under his comment.

Audrey: What is this supposed to mean?

Almost instantly, the screen flashed and refreshed. “This content is unavailable.”

He had deleted the picture. He was running away.

I threw off my blankets, stormed into his home office, and flipped open his MacBook.

I tried a dozen different passwords. Nothing worked.

Finally, my fingers typed out Daisy's birthday.

Click. The laptop unlocked.

The desktop wallpaper immediately popped up.

It was a picture of Daisy on a white sand beach, laughing radiantly under the blazing sun, holding a fresh coconut.

The timestamp in the corner read exactly one year ago. April.

The exact same month she claimed she was suffering from a life-threatening UV reaction, forcing Declan to cancel our anniversary to stay by her side.