Chapter 2

2.

When I got home, the artisanal ice cream cake on the table was melting.

I had spent a month taking classes just to make it for her from scratch.

I opened the gift box I had dropped earlier. Inside was a diamond ring.

Today was Seraphina’s birthday, and it was also the day she was officially cleared by her doctors.

I thought everything was finally getting better.

I was ready to propose and end our fifteen-year long-distance run toward marriage.

Instead, she gave me the biggest surprise of my life.

Every breath felt like a stab wound in my chest as I sat on the sofa.

Seraphina finally came home, the sound of her prosthetic leg thumping against the floor.

There were fresh hickeys on her neck that felt like acid in my eyes.

In all our years together, we had never been that close.

She told me she didn't want to do those things because they were disgusting.

She once said, “I hate the idea of a man’s scent lingering on my skin. It’s gross.”

But after she lost her leg in that accident, she went to Caleb Ryker over and over again.

Once, I even saw them huddled together in her hospital room.

She whispered things to him she had never said to me.

That was when I realized the woman I thought was cold and distant was actually capable of deep passion.

She just didn't feel it for me.

She had only known Caleb for two or three years, but she gave him everything.

She had known me for a lifetime, and I was still a stranger to her body.

She didn't say a word to me. She just sat down and took a bite of the cake.

“This is disgusting.”

With a casual flick of her wrist, the cake I spent three hours decorating landed in the trash.

Seraphina wiped her hands with a wet wipe, her face full of revulsion.

“I told you I don’t like sweets. Did you forget?”