Chapter 10
She took the paper to the proper authorities and filed for divorce. The process would be completed at the end of the month. Once the seal was stamped, she and Nicholas would have no legal tie left between them.
The rain grew heavier by the time she walked back alone to the estate.
Her dress was soaked through. Her shoes rubbed raw against her skin. The servants at the gate stared in alarm.
“Mrs. Padilla, weren’t you out at the gardens? What happened to you?”
Katherine shook her head. She had no strength to answer. The moment she stepped through the doorway, the world went black.
She fainted.
In her fever, she dreamed.
Fragments of the past rose and broke apart in her mind, each one another memory of Nicholas choosing Samantha over her.
On her birthday, he had promised to have dinner with her. She waited until midnight, reheating the food again and again, only for a servant to return with a message: Samantha was upset, and Nicholas had gone to the mountainside chapel with her to watch fireflies.
When Katherine fell ill with a bad cough and only wanted him to sit beside her for a while, he left town with Samantha for three days because Samantha claimed she’d been plagued by nightmares.
A sachet Katherine embroidered for him with her own hands ended up in Samantha’s room because Samantha had once remarked that the stitching was lovely.
When Katherine’s father was dying, she begged to go home to see him. Nicholas told her Samantha wasn’t feeling well and the house needed Katherine’s help. By the time she finally got permission, her father was already gone.
There were too many moments to count.
Too many small disappointments, each one a dull blade carving away at her heart.
Until the forced miscarriage.
Until the cliff.
Until at last, the heart she had spent years offering him finally shattered beyond repair.