Chapter 3

Maeve's POV

"You didn't come home at all? You never set foot in this house?"

My teeth chattered as I stared at the utterly exhausted Soren standing in the foyer.

"Jesus, Maeve, why would I lie to you?" He threw his briefcase on the sofa and moved to hug me. "The clinical data for the new drug was totally botched. I didn't shut my eyes once. I spent the entire night at Caldwell!"

My face went entirely pale. My stomach twisted in knots.

If he truly wasn't home, then the bastard who pinned me down and fucked me half the night... who was he?!

It absolutely wasn't a dream. I could still feel the soreness between my thighs, could still feel the damp chill of the sheets soaked in sweat and bodily fluids.

"Don't touch me!" I screamed, swatting his hand away.

"What is wrong with you?" He furrowed his brows. In his eyes, there was a flash of something foreign—impatience, mingled with that same condescending, clinical scrutiny.

It was that look that utterly obliterated the last shred of my sanity.

He wasn't lying. He really wasn't home.

Which meant there had been a stranger hiding in my house. Climbing into my bed every night. Raping me.

"Get away from me!" I shoved his chest violently, my body trembling. The final string of my sanity snapped. The world went black.

When I opened my eyes again, blinding white lights pierced my retinas.

"Her condition is not optimistic, Soren."

A woman's voice. Dr. Voss, the top clinical psychologist at Caldwell Institute.

"Her vitals are entirely normal. Why the sudden syncope?" Soren's voice was tight with worry.

"Her nerves are pushed past the breaking point," Dr. Voss said coldly. "You mentioned yesterday that beyond the chronic insomnia and nightmares, she actually believes a stranger perfectly identical to you is hiding in the house?"

"Yes. She actually believes the man is trying to assault her." Soren paused, his tone laced with agony. "I really thought it was just PTSD from losing her aunt."

"Don't be naive, Soren! When she can't even distinguish a hallucination from having actual sex with her husband, that's not stress—that's severe paranoid schizophrenia!" Dr. Voss's tone was ironclad. "When she wakes up, we mandate immediate psychological intervention. If she deteriorates further, we'll have no choice but to commit her."

Committed to a psychiatric ward?!

I fought desperately to open my eyes, to grab that bitch by her collar and scream that I wasn't crazy. But my body felt like lead, and a violent wave of vertigo dragged me back into the dark.

When I woke up next, it was deep into the night.

Soren was asleep, slumped beside my hospital bed. The second I twitched my arm, he jolted awake.

"Maeve, thank God! You're awake!" His face lit up with relief. He grabbed my hand and leaned in to kiss my forehead. "Are you feeling better? Does anything hurt?"

Looking at this impossibly considerate, loving face, the suffocating terror and injustice inside my chest violently detonated.

I snatched my hand back, glaring at him with bloodshot eyes.

"I am not crazy, Soren, and I sure as hell don't belong in a psych ward!" I grit my teeth, massive tears splashing onto the pristine white blankets. "You told me you weren't home today—but last night, a man was inside me for three straight hours!"

"What are you rambling about now?" Soren's jaw tightened dangerously, that familiar look of pitying a madwoman creeping back into his eyes.

"You think my brain is broken? You think I don't know the difference between a dream and getting fucked?!" I completely discarded any sense of shame, my fingernails digging deeply into my palms. "When we were doing it last night, I saw it clearly. You have a small mole on the right side of your groin! I even laughed and asked how we've been married this long without me noticing it—"

"You kissed my neck! You laughed and said, 'Because I haven't been looking close enough'!"

"Tell me, Soren—if I am completely insane, how the hell could I hallucinate a detail like that?!"

All the oxygen was sucked out of the hospital room in an instant.

Soren stood paralyzed as if struck by a physical blow. The color drained from his face inch by inch until he looked like a corpse, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks...