Chapter 151

Emma's POV

I felt a bile rise in my throat. How could I have been so blind? The signs were there, plain as day. He’d never struggled. He’d never worried about money. Everything had been a facade, and I’d been too in love, too wrapped up in the fantasy, to see it.

I stumbled back to my bed, collapsing into the center of it. I stayed there, curled into myself, my eyes burning, my stomach twisting, my mind racing with the enormity of my stupidity.

How could I have been so naive?

I had trusted him. And now, I didn’t know who to trust anymore—not him, not myself.

Everything felt like it was crumbling around me, and I was powerless to stop it.

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I had planned to arrange a dinner together, but it was already half done, so I started making it half-heartedly.

The dinner was almost ready, a task now fully completed out of some sense of duty to maintain normalcy. As I placed the last dish on the table, my mind was far from the meal I had prepared. My hands moved mechanically while my t