The night before my birthday, I discovered that the man I had loved for 3 years had been keeping score of every time he made me cry—and less than an hour later, he dropped to one knee in front of two hundred people and asked me to marry him.
Chapter 1
For one terrible second, I almost said yes because I still didn’t understand what I had found.
Ethan Vance had invited me to the private upstairs room of an expensive downtown restaurant. Roses covered the tables, a jazz trio played our favorite song, and every friend he had ever introduced me to seemed to be waiting with a phone in hand. When Ethan knelt before me and opened a velvet box, the diamond caught the chandelier light so brightly that I heard someone behind me gasp.
“Hazel,” he said, smiling up at me, “will you marry me?”
Three years of memories rose inside me at once. The vacations, the Sunday mornings, the apologies after arguments, the nights he held me after one of his jokes had gone too far and promised I was the only woman he had ever truly loved. Despite everything I had read on his phone only forty minutes earlier, my heart betrayed me.
I whispered, “Yes.”
Confetti exploded from the ceiling.
Everyone cheered.
Then the giant screen behind Ethan flashed white.
PRANK SUCCESSFUL.
HAZEL TOOK THE BAIT.
TIME: 45 SECONDS.
The room erupted in laughter.
Tyler nearly fell over his chair. Mason pounded both fists on the table. And Chloe Bennett, Ethan’s childhood best friend, doubled over laughing so hard that tears ran down her face.
Ethan stood and casually tossed the ring to Chloe.
“You should’ve seen your face,” he said.
She caught the eighty-thousand-dollar diamond and slipped it onto her index finger.
“Honestly, it looks better on me.”
Everyone laughed again.
I didn’t.
Only forty minutes earlier, while looking for my phone in Ethan’s study, I had picked up his by mistake. A Snapchat notification appeared from a group called Hazel Betting Pool.
I opened it.
Three years of my relationship were there.
Every humiliation.
Every panic.
Every tear.
March: How long until Hazel cries when Ethan disappears for a week?
May: Chloe, get in bed with Ethan. Let’s see if Hazel loses it.
August: Fake pregnancy test. Two grand says she cries before five minutes.
October: Tell Hazel Ethan was in a car accident.
December: Leave her at the highway rest stop and drive around the block. Start the timer.
I had remembered those moments as crises we survived together.
They remembered them as entertainment.
And Ethan wasn’t merely participating.
He was usually placing the largest bet.
I looked across the room at him now. He was laughing, completely relaxed, as if asking the woman he claimed to love to marry him and then publicly humiliating her were simply another charming story we would tell someday.
Chloe waved her hand in front of my face.
“Hazel? Hello? You’re not actually mad, are you?”
I held out my palm.
“Give me the ring.”
Her smile faltered.
“Seriously?”
“Give it back.”
She slid it off and tossed it toward Ethan. “God, you’re sensitive.”
Ethan caught it and frowned at me.
“Come on, babe. You’ve known Chloe forever.”
“No,” I said. “I’ve known her for three years.”
He laughed uncertainly. “Okay?”
“And apparently I haven’t known you at all.”
The room quieted.
I picked up my purse.
Tyler grinned. “Oh, I get it. Counter-prank.”
That gave me an idea.
I smiled.
“You’re right.”
Ethan relaxed.
Then I looked straight into his eyes.
“Here’s mine. We’re done.”
For two seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Tyler burst out laughing again.
“Damn, Hazel. Finally learned how to play!”
Ethan reached for my cheek as if I were a child pretending to be angry.
I stepped away.
His hand remained suspended between us.
“Hazel?”
“I’m serious.”
Something changed in his expression.
Not grief.
Annoyance.
“You can’t be serious over a joke.”
“It wasn’t one joke.”
His jaw tightened.
I left before he could answer.
Outside, the November air hit my face like cold water. My hands shook as I called the one person I had been too ashamed to call for almost three years.
My older brother, Liam.
He answered on the first ring.
“Hazel?”
Hearing his voice almost broke me.
“I want to come home.”
There was no I told you so. No anger. No question about Ethan.
Liam simply said, “Then come home.”
I closed my eyes.
Three years earlier, I had walked away from my family for Ethan. My father had warned me that Ethan enjoyed power more than love. My mother had cried. Liam had stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, too angry to say goodbye.
I had chosen Ethan anyway.
Admitting I had been wrong felt harder than enduring another year of humiliation.
Until that night.
At one in the morning, I was packing when Ethan stormed into our apartment.
Chloe came behind him.
She saw the suitcase and groaned.
“Oh, come on.”
I kept folding clothes.
Ethan planted his hand on the suitcase lid.
“Enough.”
I looked at his hand.
“Move.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“This is your home.”
“Not anymore.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Hazel, when we were teenagers, Ethan once locked me in a men’s restroom for twenty minutes. I poured a drink over his head afterward, and we were fine. Normal people joke.”
“Then the two of you are perfect for each other.”
She stiffened.
Ethan grabbed my passport from my purse.
I stared at him.
“Give me that.”
“You’ll get it when you calm down.”
For the first time that night, I felt no urge to cry.
I took out my phone.
“Give me my passport, Ethan, or I’m calling the police.”
His face darkened.
“You’re threatening me now?”
“You love watching me panic. Maybe you’ll enjoy seeing what happens when you’re the one who has to explain yourself.”
He threw the passport onto the table.
As I picked it up, Chloe muttered, “She acts like she’s royalty. Those pictures weren’t even that special.”
I froze.
“What pictures?”
Silence.
Ethan looked at Chloe.
Chloe looked at Ethan.
My stomach dropped.
During our relationship, I had sent Ethan a few private photographs. Nothing obscene, but intimate enough that I had trusted only him with them.
“Why has Chloe seen my pictures?”
Ethan rubbed his forehead.
“She went through my phone once.”
Chloe shrugged. “We look through each other’s stuff. We’ve been friends since kindergarten.”
“Delete them.”
Ethan sighed.
“Hazel—”
“Give me your phone.”
Something in my voice must have warned him because he handed it over.
I deleted every photograph I could find.
Then I dragged my suitcase toward the door.
Behind me, Ethan said quietly, “If you walk out tonight, don’t expect me to chase you.”
I opened the door.
“I’m counting on it.”
I thought that was the worst thing Ethan could ever do to me.
By noon the next day, I would learn just how wrong I was.
