The house didn’t feel like hers. Not with unfamiliar laughter echoing through the walls, not with glasses clinking downstairs, not with her mother’s voice sounding lighter than she’d ever heard it before.

A celebration.

That’s what tonight was supposed to be.

A new marriage. A fresh start. A new family.

She exhaled slowly, leaning against the upstairs hallway wall, fingers brushing the smooth paint as if grounding herself. Everything had happened too fast…one conversation, one announcement, and suddenly she was living in a house that already had a life before she stepped into it.

A life that included him.

She hadn’t expected that part.

Didn’t expect to walk in earlier...