Chapter 3

Paula's POV

When I woke up, the sterile smell of disinfectant filled my nose. I was in a hospital bed.

Nathan was sitting beside me. The moment he saw my eyes open, he clutched my hand, his voice laced with frantic guilt.

"Paula, thank God you're awake. Last night... I had too much to drink with a client. You know how those pharmaceutical dinners are. I was stupid. I didn't realize... The doctor said you were under too much stress lately, and with last night... the pregnancy was too fragile. The baby is gone. But it's okay. We're still young. We can try again."

He repeatedly kissed my knuckles, desperately trying to lock eyes with me to gauge my reaction.

But I had heard him.

He hadn't been with a client. He had come straight from the secret celebration of his engagement to my best friend, carrying her perfume on his skin, and when he took my body, he called her name.

I stared at the man I had loved for seven years. My stomach churned with intense nausea. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I quietly pulled my hand out of his grip.

"I want some water," my voice was like sandpaper.

"Of course, I'll get it right now. And I’ll buy you some soup," Nathan said, looking immensely relieved to escape the room.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, it was violently pushed open again.

Roxanne stumbled in, her eyes red and puffy. She threw herself onto her knees by my bedside, grabbing the edge of the mattress.

"Paula! Please, you have to help me! I have nowhere else to turn!"

Her makeup was smeared, and she was shaking. "Someone at the office... they compared my submission to your old sketches. They're accusing me of plagiarism! HR is investigating me. If this goes through, not only will I lose the promotion, but I'll be blacklisted from the entire jewelry industry!"

I looked down at her. "Then you shouldn't have stolen my work, Roxanne."

"Paula, we've been best friends since we were kids!" she wailed, tugging at my hospital gown. "Just tell HR you gave me the design! Tell them you sold it to me privately. One word from you, and I'm saved! Please!"

I was about to tell her to get out when my eyes locked onto her neck.

An emerald pendant hung from a delicate gold chain.

It was my mother Catherine's necklace—the only heirloom she had left me. Three months ago, it had disappeared from my vanity. I had torn the apartment apart looking for it and wanted to call the police.

At the time, Nathan had told me to drop it. "Paula, it's just an old piece of jewelry from a dead person. Why make a scene over nothing? Stop being so paranoid."

It hadn't been lost.

My mother's final memory was resting on the collarbone of my fiancé’s mistress.

A cold rage, sharp and absolute, surged through my veins.

"The necklace," I whispered, my voice trembling. "Where did you get that necklace?"

Roxanne’s face drained of color. She instinctively covered the pendant with her hand. "This... I just bought this at a flea market. It's a replica..."

"That was Catherine's!" I screamed, tears finally spilling over. "Roxanne, you stole my designs, you stole my fiancé, and now you steal my dead mother's things? Get out!"

"Paula, please lower your voice... I just borrowed it, I didn't mean any harm!" Roxanne panicked, reaching out to cover my mouth.

The door swung open.

Nathan stood there holding a thermos. Seeing my state, a flicker of guilt crossed his face. "Paula, what is going on?"

Roxanne sobbed loudly, and Nathan instantly dropped the thermos to lift her off the floor.

"Don't kneel there. Stand up. We can talk about this."

"Nathan... Paula won't forgive me. My career is over..." Roxanne wept into his chest.

I clutched my aching stomach, my voice raspy with agony. "Nathan! Look at her neck! That is Catherine’s necklace! You took it of your own accord and gave it to her, didn't you?"

Nathan's face hardened. "Paula, Roxanne has been depressed lately. She just wanted to wear it for a bit. Why do you have to use a word like 'steal'? It's ugly."

He reached over, unclasped the necklace from Roxanne’s neck, and tossed it onto my bed. The pendant hit the metal guardrail, and the emerald cracked, popping out of its gold setting and rolling onto the floor.

"And if you don't want to help her with the design, fine. But if Roxanne loses her job over this, you're a terrible friend. You've become incredibly selfish and vindictive lately."

I ignores the pain in my abdomen and lowered myself to the floor, piece by piece gathering the broken chain and the cracked stone.

My mother had set up a room in our house for Roxanne when her parents were fighting. My mother had gone to her parent-teacher conferences. She had comforted her when her own mother was black out drunk. Catherine had loved her like a daughter.

And we had stepped aside for her for twenty-nine years.

In the end, she stole my career, my relationship, and her mother took the medicine that could have kept mine alive.

Nathan pulled my credit card from his wallet and threw it on the bedside table.

"I’ll pay you whatever your design is worth. Just tell HR it was authorized. Let's end this."

"That's my card," I whispered.

"I manage our finances, Paula. I'm making the most rational decision for everyone."

Roxanne grabbed his arm, shaking her head. "No, Nathan, I can't take Paula's money. It's my fault. I'll apologize to her."

She turned back to me and dropped back onto her knees. "Paula, I'm sorry. Please. I can't lose this job."

"You don't care about the job," I said coldly. "You care about the title you stole."

Nathan’s jaw clenched. "That's enough. She apologized."

I looked up at him. "If I were the one who had stolen her design, and she was in this hospital bed, would you take her money and force her to save me? And four years ago... did Linda really need that medicine more than my mother?"

Silence stretched over the hospital room.

Nathan held Roxanne close, refusing to meet my eyes.

"The situation back then was complicated. Linda had no other treatment options. Catherine could still undergo chemotherapy."

"So Linda wasn't actually in a worse condition."

His silence was the only answer I needed.

He was never fair. He just believed that my mother and I could always afford to wait.

Nathan turned his back on me. "Call me when you've calmed down. Until you're ready to fix the design issue, we have nothing to talk about."

He guided Roxanne out of the room. The soup remained cooling by the door. He didn't look back once.

When I was discharged, I went back to the apartment alone. I packed my passport, my clothes, and my mother's broken necklace into a single suitcase.

For seven years, whenever Roxanne wanted something, I had to step aside.

I zipped my suitcase shut and walked out without looking back.