She paused, surprise flickering across her face before her expression softened. “There’s no indication of that in your records.”
But I knew. I had heard them. I felt it—in the aching emptiness deep inside me. My chest tightened, my womb felt unbearably hollow. Tears slid silently down my temples.
“What about… my husband?” The word tasted bitter even as I said it. Dominic wasn’t my husband. Just the man I had loved. The man who carried Adrian’s heart. The man I had trusted with everything.
“Did anyone come to see me?” I asked.
The nurse hesitated before shaking her head. “No. You’ve been unconscious for three days. No visitors.”
I forced my lips into a fragile smile. “Please… I want to be alone.”
Once she left, the silence crushed me.
That was when the real pain settled in—not the physical agony, but the kind that gnawed relentlessly at the soul. I had mistaken familiarity for love. I had believed five years of devotion meant commitment. I had convinced myself that his care was genuine.
But to him, I had never been love.
I was convenience. I was pity. I was a substitute.
And I was foolish enough to mistake borrowed warmth for permanence.
My thoughts drifted back to Adrian.