His Fake Illness, Her Real Heartbreak The Betrayal I Never Saw ComingChapter 1
My husband had a strange illness.
When it flared up, he could recognize everyone around him—everyone except me.
He'd point at a flower girl on the street and say, "That's my wife, Maud Fox."
Yet he'd completely ignore me, the woman being harassed by a drunk, begging him for help.
He'd mistake total strangers for me.
But the moment someone called me by my name, he'd come at me with a knife.
"You think you can impersonate my wife?"
To cure him, I tried everything. I prayed at every temple, knelt at every altar, and spent two full years chasing down every folk remedy I could find.
Until this time.
I walked in and saw it with my own eyes—Caspar Stephens tangled up in bed with my best friend, Ebony James.
His arm was wrapped around her waist. "Maud, you've gotten thinner since last time."
I stared at them. My face was calm. I didn't scream. I didn't cry.
When Caspar came to his senses, he dropped to his knees in front of me and slapped himself across the face, over and over.
"I'm sorry, Maud. That night—I got confused again. I thought she was you."
"Hit me. Scream at me. Whatever you need to feel better..."
I had forgiven him ninety-nine times. But I was tired now.
I set the divorce papers in front of him. "Let's end this."
……
I still couldn't get the image out of my head.
The moment I pushed open that door.
My husband. My best friend. In our bed.
Ebony James tugged her shirt back up over her shoulder, her expression dripping with provocation.
"Girl, if you'd shown up any later, your husband and I would've been done already."
A vicious pain tore through my chest. I closed my eyes in despair.
Two years ago, everyone in Harbor City knew that Caspar Stephens loved his wife more than life itself.
He'd crossed an ocean to bid on an East Bay pearl for me at auction when the accident happened, leaving him with Capgras Delusion.
In recent months, the person he most frequently mistook for me was my best friend, Ebony.
He gave her the new nightgown he'd just bought.
He nearly wandered into her bedroom in the middle of the night.
It put me in an awkward position, and I finally brought it up with her.
"Ebony, maybe you could stay at one of my other houses for a few days?"