He Forgot My Birthday for Her Anniversary Again novel Chapter 105

Chapter 8

I laughed. “Same playbook you used.”

I’d spent forty-two days in this room. The whole time, Zoe kept sending me photos.

Zoe and Justin all over each other, kissing, holding hands.

I’d been furious at first. Then I went numb.

I never expected karma to come for her so quickly.

Two days later, Justin finally showed up at the recovery center.

He’d barely been there five minutes before I heard them screaming at each other. Then his voice cut through,

sharp with disgust.

“If you’re going to embarrass yourself everywhere we go, then stop calling yourself Mrs. Hayes.”

Once the honeymoon was over, he turned on her the same way he’d turned on me. Zoe cried harder than I

ever had.

He stormed out, expression dark and stormy. I was updating a coworker when I caught his eye.

I looked away immediately.

I finished up and headed for the elevators. Justin was still standing there.

He hadn’t even pressed the button. He was waiting for me.

I hit the down button. He grabbed my wrist.

“Sarah. I made a mistake.”

He went off about Zoe, about how she’d turned into a total control freak. No female colleagues in his car. No women on his staff. Period.

Secretaries, assistants, all of them had to be men.

She personally screened every housekeeper and cleaner. God forbid a young woman got too close.

And if he pushed back, she’d show up at his office and cause a scene.

Zoe thought she’d bulletproofed her marriage. If she cut Justin off from other women, she’d never end up like me, blindsided and humiliated.

He let out a long, tired sigh. “She wasn’t like this when we first got together.”

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He couldn’t pin down when she changed, or what flipped.

His voice dropped. Hoarse. He looked exhausted.

“She told you everything, didn’t she?…I’ve been regretting it.”

“Zoe and I haven’t been good in a long time. That thing with the secretary? It didn’t mean anything to me. I

was drunk. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I’ll handle it. She’ll take care of it.”

I yanked my wrist back like I’d touched a hot stove. “This is between you and Zoe. Don’t drag me into it.”

The doors opened. I stepped in.

All I saw was the day I walked in on them in my bed six years ago.

How they’d clung to each other, swearing it was real, swearing they couldn’t help it. Begging me to

understand.

Six years later, this was all they had left. All that passion, that burning need for each other. Marriage killed it.

Now they’d spend the rest of their lives hating each other, tearing each other apart.

The staff gossip reached me that Justin never came back after that day.

Zoe started to unravel. She took it out on the staff every day, screaming at Justin on the phone whenever she

could.

One of the staff heard her, her voice shaking with rage.

“Why the hell did you pay double for that house? The one you two lived in?”

“She’s married now. She’s not coming back to you. It’s over!”

The woman who told me looked exhausted.

“We should’ve turned her away from the start.”

“She screams all day. She’s acting like she’s lost her mind. The other clients are furious. We’re getting complaints nonstop.”

“We had a psychiatrist come in because we were worried she might hurt herself. She threw him out.”

A few weeks later, Parker and I went to my parents’ graves. It was the anniversary of their deaths.

They were buried next to Harry. Someone had left white gardenias on both graves.

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Just like the last two years.

The flowers looked untouched, still wet with dew. I could smell them, faint and sweet.

I stared down at them, and my mind went back to when I was a kid.

We’d just finished visiting the graves one year. Mom was teasing Dad about what happens when you die.

She said it right in front of us kids, no filter. “I hate lilies. White gardenias are my favorite.”

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