As Fletcher once explained, “I’m afraid I’ll forget what Ashley looks like. If I run into her one day, I might not recognize her—and I won’t forget what she did to me.”

Fletcher had never stopped hating me.

He would give anything to watch me die with his own hands.

“Fletcher.”

June walked in, carrying a bowl of hangover soup.

She found him half-drunk, her brows knitting in concern as she held his shoulders.

“Why did you drink this much again?”

Her gaze drifted to the shredded wedding photo and she pressed her lips together.

“That was the last one. It’s time to throw it away. Fletcher, our wedding’s next month. You promised me—you’d let Ashley go and let yourself go too.”

Over these five years, Fletcher had ordered copy after copy of that wedding photo—filling even his office with them.

When people saw it and asked who the woman was, he would always answer darkly, “An enemy.”

In his circle, most people thought he and his childhood sweetheart June were a match made in heaven.

But only a few knew the truth…

That his hatred for me came from love.

The deeper he had loved me back then, the deeper he hated me now.

He hated that I broke our wedding vows.

Hated that I aborted the child we’d both been waiting for.

And hated most of all that I never even said goodbye—just vanished into thin air. Which is why, for the past five years, Fletcher had been pouring a fortune into a private search team.

All for the sake of finding one person—me.

Fletcher closed his eyes and stayed silent for a long time.

“All right. Throw it away.”

“June,” he said, “from now on, I’ll marry you and I’ll never mention Ashley again.”

June smiled, took his hand and gently pressed it to her cheek like a kitten curling up for warmth.

“I knew you’d work through it. We’ll have our own life, our own marriage… and our own children.”

That night, June had changed into a brand-new piece of lingerie she’d just bought and even dabbed on perfume.

But before she could throw herself into his arms, Fletcher’s phone rang.

It was his assistant, sounding breathless with excitement.

“Mr. Reynolds, we’ve found news about Ashley again!”

Fletcher’s expression instantly darkened, his grip tightening on the phone. He shot to his feet.

“What did you just say?”

Even I, floating nearby, was stunned.

I’d been dead for five years.

How could they possibly have news about me?

Could it be… they’d discovered where my body was buried?