Chapter 10 What Did I Do?
Nick POV
Two years had passed since the wedding that shattered everything.
Two years since I’d walked away from the only woman I had ever loved. I had told myself I was over it. Over her. I had built a life around pretending she didn’t exist.
So when I saw Thomas that morning, standing by the pumps at a gas station, I almost kept walking.
“Nick,” he said quietly. “I need to talk to you.”
I should’ve kept going. Every instinct told me to.
But something in his voice stopped me.
Tight. Strained. Desperate.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve,” I muttered. “What could you possibly—”
“It’s about Ashley.”
Everything in me went still.
For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
I hadn’t heard anyone speak it out loud in years. Everyone knew not to.
I forced my face into stone. “What about her?”
Thomas swallowed. “She didn’t do it.”
I let out a short, sharp laugh. “Really?”
“I’m serious,” he snapped. “It wasn’t her. Someone pretended to be her. Used her number. Used her photos. I didn’t know.”
My jaw tightened, but I didn’t let anything else show.
“Convenient,” I said coldly.
“I thought it was her,” he went on, his voice rough. “The messages, the calls… it sounded like her. Looked like her. I had no reason to question it. But it was not her.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” he insisted. “And I need your help… she’s missing.”
“What?”
“I tried to contact her after she was discharged from the hospital,” he said. “But her phone was off. Her mother claims she went abroad to ‘start fresh,’ but none of it adds up. She had hospital appointments—”
“Hospital appointments?” My chest tightened. “For what?”
He looked at me like I was the insane one.
“For the acid attack.”
I froze.
“What?” The word tore out of me.
“You didn’t know,” he breathed. “Shit. Nick… I thought you knew.”
“Of course I didn’t fucking know,” I choked. “No one told me anything.”
No one dared.
I turned away before the pressure in my chest crushed me from the inside. I needed to move. I needed to breathe. I needed to get away from him before I shattered where I stood.
If she hadn’t been the one sending those messages…
That night, I tore through my apartment like a man possessed. I reread every message that had made me hate her. The ones that had ended us. The ones I’d never questioned.
But now, with new eyes, something felt wrong.
Subtle at first.
Then obvious.
The phrasing was off. The tone didn’t sit right. It was close enough to fool me then, close enough to feel real, but now it scraped against everything I knew about her.
Ashley never spelled things that way.
She never used emojis like that.
How the hell had I not seen it?
I tore through my closet until I found one of her sweaters, shoved behind a box like I’d been trying to forget it existed without actually throwing it away. My hands shook as I dragged it out and pressed it to my face.
Strawberries.
Faint now, barely there, but enough.
It hit me all at once.
I broke.
I collapsed onto the bed, my body folding in on itself, rocking like I could hold something together if I just held on tight enough. My fingers twisted in the fabric, clutching it like it was the last thing tethering me to her.
Her sweater. Her scent.
The last piece of her I had.
And then the thought came, cutting straight through me.
Did she have my child?
Were they out there somewhere? Without me?
For the first time in years, I prayed. Not because I believed in anything, but because I had nothing left to hold onto.
By morning I was at a police station.
“I’d like to report someone missing. Her name is Ashley Richards. She’s been gone for two years.”
The officer raised his brows. “Two years? Why report it now?”
“Because her family says she’s abroad,” I said tightly, “but nobody has heard from her. And something is wrong.”
He took the statement, but I saw the doubt in his eyes.
People disappear.
Adults leave.
Police don’t chase ghosts.
On my way out of the station, I ran straight into Apple. Of all the people I hoped to never see again.
“Nick?” she said, grabbing my arm. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I pulled back, jaw clenched. My stomach churned. I thought I might vomit.
“I have to go,” I muttered.
“Nick—”
“I have a meeting,” I snapped, forcing myself to breathe. “Excuse me.”
I walked away from the woman I’d once tried to use to forget Ashley.
The second biggest regret in my life.
I hired a private investigator the same day.
A month later, he stepped into my office with a tight expression that told me everything before he even spoke.
“No luck, boss,” he said. “I found nothing. No records under Ashley Richards.”
My chest constricted. “Her phone? Credit cards? Anything—”
He shook his head.
“Her phone’s been dead for a year. Before that, only text messages. No calls. Cards haven’t been used in almost two.”
I loosened my tie, trying to breathe through the pressure crushing my throat.
She’d disappeared without a trace.
And it was my fault.
That night, I bolted upright in bed screaming her name.
"Ashley!" I’d jolt awake, turning to the right side of the bed, where she used to sleep.
Used to.
Because I hadn’t believed her. I had insulted her. Rejected her. Driven her away like she meant nothing.
I destroyed the love of my life.
I grabbed her old pillow and dragged it against my chest, burying my face into it like I could force something back that I had lost.
Nothing.
No strawberries. No trace of her.
Completely gone.
A sound ripped out of me, raw and broken. I fumbled for my phone, hands shaking so badly I almost dropped it, and dialed her number. It didn’t even ring. Just a recorded message telling me the number was no longer in service.
“No,” I whispered. “No, Ash, please... Please.”
I tried again.
And again.
Then I pressed my face into the pillow and screamed, the sound muffled and jagged, tearing through my throat until it burned.
“What did I do?” I choked. “What the fuck did I do?!”
My whole body felt like it was coming apart.
I deserved it.
Every second of it.
I deserved worse.
“I’m so sorry, my love,” I choked out, my voice breaking completely. “God… I’m so fucking sorry.”