HHWM | Chapter 8: A Beautiful Nightmare

Six years later…

The afternoon sun bled through the blinds as Saya moved frantically, her desk a chaotic graveyard of briefs and urgent memos. She was losing the battle against exhaustion.  She prided herself on keeping her personal wreckage separate from her professional life, but today, the weight followed her into the office like a shadow.

She paused, pressing her palms against her eyes to steady her breath, before forcing her focus back to the page. The door opened, and the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly.

Greg entered.

At forty-one, he carried himself with a sharpened maturity that commanded attention. He was the picture of executive grace—his suit tailored to perfection, his presence radiating quiet responsibility. Even the simple rhythm of his stride toward his desk projected a man who was firmly in control of his world.

Saya followed him, her hands trembling slightly as she set a stack of documents before him for signature. Greg worked through them with his usual methodical precision—calm, thorough, and efficient. When he finished, he didn’t look back at the papers; he looked directly at her.

“Saya,” he said, his voice soft but resonant with concern. “If you need to handle something personal, take a few days off. I’ll clear it.”

“S-sir? No, I’m fine. I’m okay.” She forced a smile, but it was brittle and didn’t reach her eyes.

Greg slid a few pages back toward her. “I sent revisions on Telegram this morning. You missed them. I need these reprinted.”

“I’m so sorry, Sir,” she stammered, grabbing the papers with clumsy fingers. “It won’t happen again—”

“Saya,” he interrupted gently. “I know how you work. We’ve been a team for years. You don’t have to perform for me.”

The dam broke. The kindness in his tone was the one thing she couldn’t defend against.

“I feel more worthy here, Sir,” she whispered, her voice cracking.“Working… it makes me feel like I matter. More than I do at home. More than I do to him.”

She didn’t need to elaborate. Greg knew about her boyfriend—the man who dangled marriage like a carrot, always with a condition. “Wait until you’re pregnant,” he would say, as if her value were tied solely to her utility.

Greg rose from his chair and walked around the desk. He didn’t overstep, but he offered a steadying presence. He placed a light, fatherly hand on her shoulder—a gesture of pure, platonic solidarity.

“You’ve been together a long time,” Greg said firmly. “But if the joy is gone, perhaps it’s time to choose yourself. You don’t deserve to be broken like this.”

Saya closed her eyes as the tears finally fell. In her mind, she couldn’t help but compare. Greg had stayed by Mayette’s side through years of infertility, never wavering, never making her feel “less than.” And now, they had the family they had dreamed of. He was everything a man should be—responsible, loving, loyal.

She let the tears flow, realizing that Greg was the standard she had been too afraid to demand for herself.

When Greg arrived home that evening, the heavy air of the office vanished. He hadn’t even stepped out of the car before the two most important people in his world appeared at the door.

“Daddy!”

His five-year-old son, dressed in dinosaur pajamas and clutching a toy truck, sprinted across the driveway. Greg knelt, catching the boy in a practiced hug, lifting him high against his shoulder. Behind him, Mayette leaned against the doorframe. She looked tired, but the smile she wore was full of a soft, enduring tenderness.

“How’s my little champ?” Greg asked, ruffling the boy’s hair.

“You’re late again, Daddy! I told Mommy you were lost,” the boy teased, giggling.

Greg laughed, pulling Mayette into the circle of his arm to press a lingering kiss to her cheek. Life felt good. Since his promotion to Senior Executive, he had built them a sanctuary—a sprawling home with a playground and a basketball hoop, a fortress for the quiet life he had promised them. He had buried the past so deep he almost believed it had never happened.

“I brought something for you,” Greg whispered, pulling a remote-controlled truck from a bag.

The boy’s eyes went wide. “Yehey! You’re the best, Daddy!”

But a few yards away, beyond the manicured hedges of the subdivision, a black sedan idled in the shadows of a Narra tree.

The tinted window slid down an inch. From the darkness of the interior, a face emerged—pale and stone-cold. Her eyes were like shards of ice, tracking every movement of the man laughing in the driveway.

She watched the “perfect” family. She watched the illusion of the man who thought he had escaped.

A dark, predatory satisfaction curled in her chest.

Not yet, she thought. She would let him savor the lie a little longer. She wanted him to feel completely safe before she tore the sky down around him. She wasn’t here for a reunion. She wasn’t here for love.

She was the reckoning.

She would dismantle the world he had built, brick by brick. She would crush the father, the husband, and the “good man” until there was nothing left but the sinner she remembered.

Greg hadn’t escaped the fire. He had just been waiting for her to bring the match.