His Honeymoon My Ultimate Ruin

My husband had been missing for a month. I was so sick with worry that I lost our baby.

But just hours after waking up from the D&C surgery, the cramping still twisting like barbed wire in my stomach, I opened Reddit.

A thread had gone viral: What do you do when you meet the love of your life when you have absolutely nothing to offer them?

The top answer read like a victory lap.

"I couldn't bear to drag her down with me, so I let her go chase her dreams. But I couldn't stand the thought of losing her entirely, so I married her childhood best frienda girl who was used to roughing itto keep me company while I built my empire."

"Now, my golden girl is back. I can finally give her the world she deserves."

"Honestly, I kept hoping my wife would catch me so I'd have an easy out for a divorce. But she's so clueless. I left my mistress's lipstick in her car, gave her a promotional freebie necklace... I even vanished for a month on a 'business trip,' and she didn't suspect a thing."

Lipstick. A freebie necklace. Missing for a month.

The words blurred. My fingers went numb against the screen.

"Thank God she came back to me," the poster continued. "I almost thought I'd have to spend the rest of my life with the Toad."

A high-pitched ringing pierced my ears.

The Toad.

It was the cruel nickname my childhood bullies had given me.

My blood turned to ice. I prayed to a God I barely believed in that this was just some sick, twisted coincidence.

Until I read the final lines.

"I pretended to go on a dangerous business trip to an earthquake zone and went off the grid for a month. In reality, I was taking my first love on our honeymoon."

"Just got a text from my wife saying she's in the hospital. Whatever. Taking my soulmate to that exact same hospital tonight for her prenatal checkup. Maybe we'll bump into her. Wish me luck."

I was violently shaking. Instinctively, I raised my head.

There, at the end of the corridor, just outside the maternity ward.

Connor. The husband who had been unreachable for a month. He was dressed in a sharp, tailored suit, his arm wrapped protectively around a petite, laughing woman.

He turned his head casually.

Across the sterile, fluorescent-lit hallway, our eyes met.

A flicker of panic crossed Connors face, but it vanished instantly, replaced by a chilling, dead-eyed calm.

I knew exactly what he was waiting for. He was waiting for me to lunge at them, to scream, to make a scene so he could finally demand the divorce he so desperately wanted.

I sat frozen in my wheelchair. I was shaking so hard I couldnt force a single sound past my throat.

"Connor?"

Blair nestled deeper into his chest, her voice sickeningly sweet.

"Come on, slowpoke. Do you think the ultrasound will show who the baby looks like yet?"

Connor didn't look at me again. He tightened his grip on her waist, guiding her toward the obstetrics wing as if she were made of spun glass.

"Hopefully," he murmured, "the baby gets your eyes, and my nose."

The phantom pain from my freshly emptied womb twisted so sharply I gasped.

Exactly one month ago, he had said those exact same words to me.

It was the day he insisted on flying out to the epicenter of the earthquake in Chile.

Natalie, if we can just secure this lithium contract, well finally have a real foothold in San Francisco, he had told me, cupping my face. I think Im ready for a baby. I want them to have your eyes and my nose. Im going to give you both the best life in the world.

Two weeks after he left, I took a test. I was pregnant. But his phone went straight to voicemail.

Frantic, terrified that he was trapped under rubble, I boarded a flight to South America to find him. I was caught in a massive aftershock. A falling piece of masonry struck my abdomen.

The doctors called his emergency contact number dozens of times. He never picked up.

And now I knew why. While I was bleeding out his child in a foreign country, he was busy making one with my childhood best friend.

I pulled the hospital blanket over my head and sobbed until I was choking on my own breath.

Suddenly, the blanket was yanked down.

Connor stood by my bed, looking down at me with mild detachment. "Natalie. Why are you admitted?"

My throat felt like it was lined with shattered glass.

"Why did you cheat on me? And out of all the people in the world... why Blair?"

His brow furrowed. His tone immediately shifted into a warning. "Don't refer to her as the other woman."

The sheer, breathtaking audacity of it forced a ragged, hysterical laugh out of my chest.

"She's not? Then what am I?"

He didnt answer the question. Instead, he pulled up a chair and told me a story. A very long, romanticized tragedy about him and Blairhigh school sweethearts, star-crossed lovers torn apart by ambition and circumstance.

"I'm a bastard. I know that," he said smoothly. He reached for a cigarette, remembered he was in a hospital, and dropped his hand.

"I only married you because you were Blair's best friend. I thought you'd keep me close to her. But honestly, you were a pretty terrible friend. You didn't even know where she was living or what she was doing. So, I don't really feel like I owe you anything."

He let the silence stretch, letting his cruelty sink into my bones.

"If you really think about it, Natalie... you're the third person in our relationship."

I bit down on my lower lip until I tasted copper. Blinded by grief, I grabbed the water pitcher from my nightstand and hurled it at him.

He didn't even flinch. He just let it shatter against the wall behind him.

"Natalie, we've been married for seven years. I still care about you. You can ask for whatever you want in the settlement. But..."

His eyes hardened, turning to obsidian.

"Do not go near Blair. I won't have you upsetting her."

The dam broke. I grabbed my glass, my phone, anything I could reach, screaming at the top of my lungs.

"Get out! Get the hell out of here!"

He left without a fight. On his way out, he even politely asked a nurse to come in and check my IV.

"Alright," he called over his shoulder. "Focus on recovering first. We'll talk when you're not so emotional."

I lay in that narrow bed, violently shivering.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face from seven years ago. The way his cheeks flushed when he handed me that cheap bouquet of daisies, telling me how much he loved me.

His eyes had been so bright. So earnest. How could a person fake that kind of light?

I stayed in the hospital for three more days in a narcotic haze. He never came back.

When I was finally discharged, the house was empty.

But the very next morning, my phone buzzed. It was Blair.

Nat! Im back in the States! Lets get lunch. I have a huge surprise for you!

A sick, masochistic curiosity clawed at my chest. I went.

As soon as I sat down, Blair grabbed my handthe same hand that had just signed my own babys cremation papersand pressed it against her slightly rounded belly.

"I'm three months along!" she squealed, her smile radiant and entirely devoid of guilt.

"We were long-distance through college, so you never got to meet my boyfriend. But now that were back together and it's permanent, I just had to have my absolute best friend give us her blessing."

Best friend?

A bitter, fractured smile touched my lips.

When we were five, her father used to hit her. I would sneak out to give her my lunch money and my favorite stuffed animals to comfort her.

And in return? When puberty hit and my face broke out in severe cystic acne, she was the one who started calling me "The Toad" behind my back. She cemented an insecurity so deep it crippled my entire adolescence.

"He's honestly so amazing to me, Nat. Even when we were technically broken up, he still took care of me while I was studying in Paris."

Blair pushed up her cashmere sleeve, revealing a faint, barely-there pink line on her wrist.

"I literally just slipped while cutting an apple. It was a tiny scratch. But he freaked out, flew all the way to France, and checked me into the most expensive private clinic in the city. He even bought this absurdly expensive crushed-pearl ointment for the scarring." She laughed, a light, tinkling sound. "It was just a scratch, but he dropped thirty grand on it like it was nothing."

I stared at the microscopic scar, the room tilting on its axis.

I remembered the early days of Connor's startup. We were drowning in debt. I worked night and day, courting clients, living on instant coffee. Once, running on three hours of sleep with a 104-degree fever, I missed a step and shattered my tibia.

The pain was blinding. I was in the back of an ambulance when I called him. He sounded stressed. Funds are tight, Nat. Im scrambling to make payroll. Whats going on?

I hadn't wanted to be a burden. I swallowed my agony and whispered, "Nothing. Just a little slip. Don't work too late."

I opted for the cheapest surgical steel plate available. To this day, my leg throbs whenever it rains.

Blair rested her chin in her hands, practically glowing.

"And last year, when some senior researcher stole my credit on a paper? I just complained to him over the phone. He flew out the next day and donated a million dollars to the lab just to secure my name on the final publication." She rolled her eyes playfully. "Men are so dramatic. Who throws away that kind of money over lab politics?"

My nails bit so deeply into my palms they drew blood.

Last year, my Nanamy sweet, dementia-addled Nanawandered out of her care home and was struck by a drunk driver.

The ER doctors demanded an immediate 0-00,000 deposit, and the surgery was going to cost another $25,000.

I emptied every savings account I had. I was short. Frantic, I tried to pull from our joint company account, only to find it frozen. The funds had been drained.

My parents died when I was ten. Nana was the only family I had left in the world.

I called Connor, screaming, begging.

He sounded so convincingly panicked. Nat, baby, breathe. Im overseas trying to fix a massive supply chain issue. I will wire the money. I promise, I will save Nana.

I sat in that waiting room for three hours.

I waited through her crashing on the table.

I waited as I signed away the deed to my childhood home to the loan sharks.

His money never came.

When he finally flew back, he held me in the hallway, his eyes red-rimmed. Nat, Im so sorry. I bet everything on a new product line and the supplier went under. I couldn't get the cash. I failed you.

Nana survived, barely.

I had been so relieved she was alive that I actually comforted him. "It's okay," I had whispered, holding him as he cried. "I have a little left over from the mortgage. Use it to save the company."

He had looked at me with such a strange, complex expression, pulling me tight against his chest. Natalie, I swear to God, Im going to give you the best of everything one day.

Now I understood that look.

He was probably marveling at how incredibly, pathetically stupid I was.

All the blood drained from my face. Blair suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth, looking contrite. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm not trying to rub it in your face! It's just... we were apart for seven years, and knowing he never stopped loving me for a single second... it's just overwhelming, you know?"

We had been together for seven years.

Every nerve ending in my body was screaming. I was seconds away from tearing the restaurant apart with my bare hands, but then the door to the private dining room opened.

Connor walked in.

He froze when he saw me, shooting me a lethal, warning glare.

Blair hooked her arm through mine, insisting we order. I sat there like a corpse, paralyzed by the sheer sociopathy of it all, until she excused herself to the restroom.

The second the door shut, Connor leaned over and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead.

"You look terrible. Are you still recovering from last week? I can get you a private doctor."

I violently slapped his hand away. Hot, humiliating tears spilled over my eyelashes.

"Don't touch me! Keep your fake fucking sympathy to yourself! You two have been sleeping together for seven years behind my back. Are you getting off on this? Watching me sit here like a moron?"

Connor sighed, a heavy, long-suffering sound, and reached out, pulling me into a forceful embrace.

"I know I'm a piece of shit. But if youre already depressed, why did you come here just to torture yourself? Love isn't rational, Nat. You just need to accept it."

"Stop crying," he murmured against my hair. "Whatever you want in the divorce, it's yours. It's been seven years. Seeing you cry like this actually makes me feel bad."

I thrashed against him, trying to push him away, just as the dining room door swung open.

Blair stood there, tears streaming down her face. She stormed across the room and slapped me across the cheek with everything she had.

"We've been friends for twenty years, and you're trying to seduce my boyfriend?! You cheap, homewrecking slut!"

Her diamond ring tore a long, bleeding gash down my cheek.

The commotion drew a crowd. Diners from the main floor were peering in, phones already out.

I was shaking with a rage so pure it felt like electricity. I raised my hand to hit her back.

"We've been married for seven years! You're the homewrecker!"

But before my hand could make contact, a violent force shoved me backward.

I hit the floor hard. The back of my skull slammed against the mahogany wainscoting. Black spots exploded in my vision, accompanied by a nauseating wave of pain.

Blair ran out of the room, sobbing hysterically.

Connor looked down at me, his hand twitching like he wanted to help me up, but panic won out. He turned and sprinted after her.

"Blair! Wait, she's lying!"

I lay slumped on the floor, the blood from my cheek dripping onto my collar.

The crowd closed in. The murmurs grew louder. The flashes from their camera phones blinded me.

Connor was the newest golden boy of the Silicon Valley tech scene. Blair was the gorgeous, Ivy League-educated researcher returning triumphantly from abroad.

It didn't take a genius to predict the fallout. By morning, the footage of our fight, coupled with the trending hashtag #WhoIsTheRealHomewrecker, was the number one story on Twitter and TikTok.

The internet was a warzone, but then Connor dropped the nuke. He released an official PR statement on his company letterhead.

"Blair and I have been deeply in love for a decade. There was no infidelity. There was no 'other woman'. I simply tried to look out for one of my partner's childhood friends, who was going through a hard time. I never expected my kindness to be weaponized and misunderstood..."

My brain short-circuited. The sheer volume of hatred directed at me was deafening.

Blair posted her own tearful video.

She stared into the camera, looking heartbroken, saying she never expected her best friend to try and steal her man while she was out of the country.

In a matter of hours, my phone became a weapon of mass destruction. The notifications blurred together into a river of vitriol.

"She tried to steal her best friend's man? Gross. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you."

"Keep your friends close and the sluts further away, am I right?"

"If youre so desperate for a man, just go walk the streets!"

The dull ache of my empty uterus throbbed in time with my pulse. My bones felt like they were made of lead.

I gripped my phone, desperately trying to compile a timeline, screenshots, photosanything to prove the last seven years of my life actually happened. To prove my innocence.

That was when Connor walked through the front door.

My voice was trembling so badly I barely recognized it.

"Connor, we were together for seven years!"

He looked away, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation.

"I already told you I'm a bastard. But Blair is the love of my life. Of course I'm going to protect her over you."

He paused, his tone shifting to that of a disappointed father scolding a toddler.

"Natalie, if you ever loved me, just compromise this one last time. Just admit you developed a crush on me and misunderstood our friendship. Blair is pregnant. She can't handle the stress of a scandal. Besides, you were bullied your whole life. You're used to people calling you names. You can handle this."

Smack.

I slapped him across the face as hard as I could.

Through the blur of my tears, I was suddenly thrust back into the past.

The Toad. That nickname had clung to me like a shadow. My acne eventually cleared, but the psychological scars never did. When I started my first corporate job, I still wore a medical mask most of the time, terrified to let people see my face.

The year I met Connor, he had looked at metruly looked at meand his eyes were full of nothing but adoration.

Nat, you dont even know, he had whispered the night he proposed. You are the most breathtakingly beautiful girl Ive ever seen. I will never, ever let anyone make you feel small again.

I had thought, Hes so good. Im so lucky.

My stomach violently heaved. I turned away, dry-heaving into the sink.

"Connor, I know you want out. Fine. I'll give you the divorce. I won't ask for a dime. Just go online, tell the truth, clear my name, and I'll disappear. You can have each other." I wiped my mouth with the back of a trembling hand. "But if you don't, I will."

His Adam's apple bobbed. He muttered a quiet, "I'm sorry."

"We can talk about the divorce later," he said softly.

Then, he made a phone call.

Within minutes, three burly men in suits entered the house. They systematically turned the place upside down.

Before I could react, one of them wrenched my phone out of my grip.

He was stripping me of my only way to defend myself.

I stared at the man standing in my kitchen, a man who felt like a total stranger.

"Connor," I whispered. "You are repulsive."

A flicker of something complicated crossed his eyes, but he quickly masked it.

"You don't look well. I'm having a nutritionist sent over. Take the next two days to cool off and think about what I said. Nat, I'm only giving you two days."

The front door slammed. The deadbolt clicked into place.

I was locked in.

Seven years of marriage, obliterated in an instant.

I raged. I cried. I held onto my last shred of dignity like a life raft.

But two days came and went, and Connor didn't return.

Instead, one of his private security guards unlocked the door.

"Mr. Shen had your grandmother transferred from her care facility this morning."

A bomb went off in my skull. I lunged for the door, screaming, but the men easily shoved me back inside.

I dropped to my knees. I threw away every ounce of pride I had left and begged them, sobbing, to let me go.

They stared at me like I was a piece of furniture.

"Mr. Shen gave strict orders. You aren't to leave the premises."

I sprinted to the kitchen, smashed a glass against the counter, and pressed the jagged edge hard against my own throat.

The guards panicked. One of them immediately dialed Connor and put him on speaker.

"Why did you take her?!" I screamed, the glass digging into my skin. "You know what that car accident did to her brain! She doesn't understand what's happening! Please, Connor, I'm begging you, send her back!"

The background noise on his end was deafeningthe hum of a massive crowd, the popping of camera flashes.

Connor was silent for a long time.

"I didn't have a choice, Nat. You wouldn't play ball. I need her to say a few words to the press to clear this up."

It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my skull.

I knew exactly what he was doing.

"Connor, please," I begged, my voice cracking. "She's not lucid. She can't handle a crowd like that. You can't do this to her!"

When Connor's startup was on the verge of bankruptcy, it was my Nanamy sweet, confused Nanawho had quietly sold her vintage gold locket, our only family heirloom, to give him the cash to make payroll.

"Connor, if you put her on that stage, I swear to God I will kill myself!"

There was a heavy pause on the line before he replied, his voice devoid of warmth.

"Relax, Natalie. I'm keeping an eye on her. She'll be fine."

The line went dead.

Every wire in my brain snapped.

I tore through the house, smashing everything in sight. I threw myself against the windows. Glass shattered, slicing deep into my forearms and my neck. Blood poured down my skin, soaking into my clothes, coating my hands.

In a blind, feral rage, I turned the bloody glass shard on the guards.

The sheer lunacy in my eyes made them step back.

I bolted out the door, my legs trembling so violently I could barely stand, and flagged down a car.

By the time I shoved my way into the hotel ballroom where the press conference was being held, I froze.

Connor was on stage, down on one knee in front of a massive media presence, proposing to Blair. The pink diamond in his hand had to be worth millions.

It looked nothing like the four-hundred-dollar sterling silver band he had let me pick out seven years ago.

Nat, I promise, one day Ill buy you the biggest diamond in the world, he had said with tears in his eyes.

I had worn that cheap ring like a badge of honor for seven years.

Now, he could effortlessly buy the most expensive jewel in the room. But what we had built was cheap. It would always be cheap.

I ignored the agonizing pain in my chest and scanned the blindingly bright room for my grandmother.

I couldn't find her.

Not until the proposal ended, and the crowd erupted into applause.

Connor stood up, took the microphone, and gestured to the wings. Staff members wheeled my Nana onto the brightly lit stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Connor announced smoothly. "This is the biological grandmother of the other woman involved in this unfortunate rumor. We felt it would be most persuasive if she cleared the air herself."

My heart stopped beating.

My fragile, tiny grandmother stared out at the sea of flashing lights, her legs visibly shaking. She had clearly been drilled on exactly what to say, and she began reciting the words mechanically, her voice trembling.

"I... I failed to raise my granddaughter right... It was her fault... She tried to ruin their beautiful relationship..."

Watching the only person who had ever truly loved me being paraded out like a circus animal to parrot her own granddaughters destruction...

It felt like a giant hand had reached into my chest and crushed my organs. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stand.

But suddenly, Nana blinked. The confusion cleared from her milky eyes, replaced by a fierce, maternal panic. She gripped the microphone stand and wailed.

"No! My Natty is a good girl! Shes married to him! She didnt ruin anything!"

The ballroom erupted.

Journalists, smelling blood in the water, surged forward like a pack of wolves, shoving microphones and cameras right into my grandmother's face.

Connors face contorted in panic. He lunged forward, grabbing Nanas arm, trying to force her back to the script. "Nana, you're confused, tell them you misspoke"

Between Connors harsh reprimands, the aggressively shouting reporters, and the blinding strobes, the stage devolved into pure chaos.

The sensory overload shattered whatever fragile grip Nana had left on reality. She began to scream, thrashing wildly. A dark stain spread across her trousers as she lost control of her bladder in sheer terror.

She turned and tried to run.

But the press wouldn't let her. They formed a human wall, pushing closer, desperate for the shot.

I fought my way through the thick crowd, screaming until my vocal cords tore.

"Leave her alone! Stop! Please!"

But my voice was drowned out by the mob.

And thena sickening, hollow thud echoed over the sound system.

The room went dead silent.

The crowd parted.

Nana lay at the bottom of the stage stairs. Her head was resting at an unnatural angle. A thick, dark pool of blood was already spreading rapidly from beneath her white hair.

I dropped to my knees beside her. I placed trembling fingers against her neck.

Nothing.

The world went completely, terrifyingly quiet. I couldn't hear the gasps, the shouting, the sirens.

Someone called 911. Paramedics rushed in.

I followed the stretcher out of the hotel like a wind-up toy, moving without feeling.

Connor ran after me, his face the color of ash.

"Nat..."

I turned and looked at him. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Connor," I said, my voice dead. "You've been wanting that divorce, right?"

"You've got it."