From Ruin to Romance

On the night of their third wedding anniversary, Nora Payne and Ethan Stanley ended up in a police station due to a physical fight.

He had been partying with women at a club until after midnight, and Nora had caught him red-handed.

Inside the precinct, Nora's lips trembled. "Ethan, do you even care about me?"

Ethan lounged back, the skin of his neck smeared with lipstick prints. "After all these years, you still don't know who I am?"

Nora's eyes reddened. Of course she knew.

In the city, he was the most notorious playboy, drifting from woman to woman, day and night. No respectable family wanted their daughter married to a man so dissolute.

Yet the Ethan she had once known had not been like this. She had personally witnessed the depth of his love for another woman.

Even after that woman died, and Nora became his wife, he treated her with courtesy, granting her every dignity due the Mrs. Stanley.

Then, in the second year of marriage, Ethan suddenly began to indulge every appetite, turning cold toward Nora. She pleaded, argued, raged, but nothing altered his course.

The memory of earlier tenderness kept a small hope alive inside her that he might change.

One day he abandoned the fleet of luxury cars in his garage and began riding the city bus to work.

Before she could rejoice, she received photographs of Ethan and the female bus driver entwined on the back seat.

When she looked closely, the woman shocked her. She bore a striking resemblance to his first love, a woman dead for years yet still living in his heart. Rosalyn Harper.

"Ethan, get off that bus!" Nora stood in front of the windshield, the stinging sunlight nothing beside the pain of seeing him pressed against another woman. "Come down or I'll report you for misusing public property!"

The door hissed open and a disheveled Ethan stepped down, his usual careless smile gone, mouth set in a hard line.

His almond eyes narrowed, anger barely leashed. "Nora! If you want to die, don't do it in front of me! I bought this bus. You have no authority here."

Nora tried to look inside, but he seized her collar and pulled her away.

Impatience flared in his gaze.

"Keep this up and I'll have you arrested."

The vehicle was empty except for the driver, who now adjusted her uniform and descended.

For the first time Nora saw the woman's face clearly.

Panic flickered through her, but she forced it down. "Ethan, snap out of it. She isn't Rosalyn!"

The driver, Lilah Harper, eyes wide, pointed at Nora. "Ethan, is that Miss Payne? I remember my sister met her the day she jumped."

At those words, Ethan's eyes turned bloodshot. He stared at Nora like a maddened beast.

"So it was you!"

Shock washed through Nora, all her fury collapsing into bitter hurt. For years Rosalyn's name had been forbidden, yet he condemned her on the strength of a single sentence.

Her voice cracked. "Because she looks like Rosalyn, you believe her? Rosalyn has been dead ten years!"

The slap rang out like a gunshot.

Ethan's palm sent her sprawling, her skull striking the metal door with a hollow clang. The blow shattered every scrap of pride she still wore.

He had never raised a hand to her, no matter how fierce their fights.

Today he did, on nothing more than a wild accusation.