They Won’t Let Me Go

For my birthday, my husband, Don Damien, gave me his dead wife’s pearls.

I wore them to the dinner party. My enraged stepson, Leo, doused me in red wine.

I became the laughingstock of the party.

“You whore,” he hissed. “You think wearing my mother’s jewelry makes you her?”

He stared at me, his eyes cold as ice. Then he screamed. "Get out of my house."

But his mother died when he was a baby. I raised him.

Someone had whispered poison in his ear. They told him I was the one who killed his mother. Now he thinks I'm a scheming bitch who tricked his father.

And his father? My husband?

He never saw me. He only saw Krista’s ghost.

My heart didn't break. It shattered.

They didn't love me. They didn't even care. So I walked.

Then why, after I was finally gone, did they come crawling back, begging me to return?

On my birthday, the stepson I’d raised from a baby emptied a glass of red wine over my head. He screamed at me to get the hell out of his house.

For years, I had been a substitute for a dead woman. Now, I was a monster to the boy I had raised as my own.

I had endured enough.

"You bitch! Don't you dare think you can replace my mom just by wearing her jewelry!"

My eight-year-old stepson, Leo, stood before me. His little face was twisted with rage.

Before I could move, cold, sticky wine soaked through my dress.

The next second, his hand shot out, closing around the pearls at my throat. He yanked.

The string snapped. Pearls skittered across the marble floor, a hundred tiny, white tears.

Damien had given them to me just this morning. He’d looked me straight in the eye and said they were made for me.

I thought he was finally seeing me.

I never dreamed the pearls belonged to his dead wife, Krista.

The ballroom fell silent.

Every guest stared. Some whispered. Others pulled out their phones to take pictures.

"Leo." My voice was dangerously calm. "Your father gave me this jewelry."

"I don't care!" he screamed. "You're just copying her! You'll never be my mother!"

I looked at the child I had raised. A sharp pain shot through my heart.

Eight years ago, Damien’s wife, Krista, was killed in a rival family hit.

She took a bullet meant for their son.

That same year, my father’s business was failing.

He saw an opportunity.

My father’s plan: seduce the grieving Don.

Everyone knew how much he’d loved his wife. I wanted no part of that mess.

But my father pushed.

He arranged for me to be at a gala.

I never expected what happened next. The moment Damien saw me, his grief turned to obsession. He had to have me.

Because I was a dead ringer for his dead Krista.

For eight years, I played the part of a dutiful wife and stepmother. I took care of