Chapter 16
Cedric’s Epilogue
After Kimberley died, one question consumed Cedric like a slow–burning fever.
What had been going through her mind when she signed those organ donation papers, ensuring that even in death, she would remain beyond his
reach?
He never imagined that the day he dragged Katie away would be his final glimpse of Kimberley. In his mind, there would always be time–for explanations, for apologies, for the truth to finally surface.
She had watched their confrontation with that familiar detached expression that had become her armor over the years–seemingly unbothered, as always, by evidence of his betrayal. But something in her eyes that day haunted him. A finality. A door closing that would never reopen.
Though the medical staff described her death as peaceful, Cedric was certain that it was in that precise moment–watching him defend the pregnant mistress–that something essential in Kimberley had given up the fight.
That’s why she hadn’t waited for his return. Why she’d slipped away to die alone. Why she’d denied him any chance to explain what had actually happened.
The hospital harvested her organs within hours of her death, following her explicit instructions. No funeral. No burial. No graveside for him to visit with flowers and regrets. He couldn’t even secure a handful of ashes to keep close.
Kimberley’s final act had been the ultimate severance–a surgical removal of herself from his life as complete as the extraction of her viable organs.
On his darkest nights, he paced the empty apartment, half–mad with the knowledge that pieces of her lived on in strangers while he was left with nothing but memories corrupted by his own cruelty.
He tortured himself with hindsight, wishing he’d explained immediately that while Katie was indeed pregnant, the child wasn’t his. The truth was both simpler and uglier than the story Katie had concocted.
That night at the bar, after their latest argument about his continued obsession with Kimberley, Katie had drowned her frustration in vodka tonics. By closing time, she was barely conscious. A business associate Cedric barely knew had offered to “help her to a cab” and instead taken advantage of her condition in the back hallway.
By the time Cedric tracked them down, alerted by a suspicious bartender, it was too late.
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Katie, ever the skilled manipulator, wove the incident into a narrative that implicated Cedric in her trauma. “I only drink when you make me feel worthless,” she’d sobbed. “This would never have happened if you weren’t so fixated on your dying wife.”
Cedric recognized the emotional blackmail for what it was. Yet watching her tears, something in her vulnerable state had unexpectedly reminded him of Kimberley in their early days–before the hardness, before the walls between them had become impenetrable.
His resolve crumbled.
He ensured her attacker faced charges, paid for therapy, gave her money for whatever decision she made about the pregnancy. But that was all he could offer–not his name, not his future, not the place in his life she’d been angling for.
He’d always thought Katie was fundamentally manageable–spoiled by his indulgence, perhaps, but ultimately aware of the transactional nature of their relationship.
He never anticipated the calculated cruelty of her final play–using her pregnancy to deliver the deathblow to a dying woman.
“Kimberley must have died hating me,” he whispered to the empty bedroom they’d once shared.
Then, with the swift mood changes that increasingly characterized his mental state: “But she abandoned me first, didn’t she? She left when I had nothing. What right did she have to hate me after that?”
In his dreams, which grew more vivid as his grip on reality loosened, he repeatedly cornered Kimberley in hospital corridors that stretched infinitely.
“Why did you really leave me back then?” he would demand, his dream–self alternating between rage and pleading. “Just admit it—you loved me. You always loved me.”
Chapter 16
Invariably, dream–Olivia would materialize between them, her fury incandescent. “You fucking coward,” she’d spit. “She tried to explain when it mattered, and you refused to listen. Now she’s dead, and you’re still making it about you? Pathetic doesn’t begin to cover what you are.”
Then Cedric would jolt awake, heart hammering against his ribs with such force he sometimes wondered if it might be trying to escape his chest.
It wasn’t Olivia’s condemnation he feared–it was hearing Kimberley confirm his deepest dread: that her love had died long before her body, that his decade of revenge had been exacted upon someone who felt nothing for him at all.
His cardiologist detected arrhythmia, prescribed beta–blockers, and advised against “excessive emotional distress.”
“I’m perfectly calm,” Cedric assured him with the practiced smile that had closed billion–dollar deals. “I’ve even taken up gardening.”
On the apartment balcony where Kimberley had once tended her plants, he discovered the desiccated remains of her succulent collection. Despite their reputation for being nearly impossible to kill, they’d withered in her absence–as if they, too, had given up once she was gone.
He developed an obsession with reviving them, reading botanical texts, installing special lights, measuring water by the milliliter.
Each evening he’d crouch beside the plants, talking to them in low, confessional tones–things he should have said to her instead.
He’d witnessed Kimberley doing the same once, on a sun–drenched afternoon. She’d been so absorbed in her one–sided conversation with the plants that she hadn’t immediately noticed him entering the apartment with another woman draped possessively against his side.
The memory made him slap himself with such force that his palm left a perfect imprint on his cheek.
Increasingly, he began rewriting history–inserting himself into all those lonely moments when Kimberley had suffered alone. In these revised scenes, he held her through the night terrors, kissed away her tears, remained steadfastly devoted.
Reality and fantasy blurred dangerously.
Later, at an industry event, he brutally assaulted a colleague who bragged about cheating on his wife.
His former social circle turned on him: “What the hell is wrong with you?” they demanded. “You had a different model on your arm every week while your wife was at home! If cheaters deserve a beating, why aren’t you in the hospital?”
He snapped, destroying the private dining room, insisting they were conspiring against him.
“I loved my wife,” he shouted as security dragged him away. “Everything I did was for her!”
When someone projected photos of him kissing Katie onto the wall, displayed time–stamped from Kimberley’s hospitalization period, he froze in disbelief before fleeing.
He convinced himself there had been some elaborate setup. The photos were doctored. Katie had orchestrated the whole thing to drive a wedge between him and Kimberley.
He needed to get home immediately to explain before his wife heard these vicious rumors. It wasn’t good for her condition to be upset.
Rushing to the penthouse, he exited the elevator to find a heavily pregnant woman waiting at his door. Through the distorted lens of his deteriorating mind, he barely recognized Katie.
Panic surged through him–had she already confronted Kimberley? Had she upset his wife with her venomous lies?
He grabbed her by the hair, dragging her into the stairwell, snarling threats that didn’t fully register in his conscious mind.
He gripped her throat, forcing her backward step by step.
Until she missed her footing and tumbled down the concrete stairs.
Watching blood spread across the steps, Cedric smiled with genuine relief.
Perfect. No one could come between him and Kimberley now.
Two weeks later, after a psychiatric evaluation ordered by the court, Cedric was committed to a private mental health facility.
His behavior appeared largely normal to the casual observer. He was articulate, well–groomed, capable of discussing business or politics with perfect lucidity.
Chapter 16
Except for one disturbing peculiarity: his constant one–sided conversations with a broken triangolo doll–the one that had once sat on his desk, the one Kimberley had tried to reclaim before her death.
He’d recovered it from the office trash, meticulously gluing the shattered pieces back together. It remained badly damaged–covered in visible cracks, with a jagged hole in its chest where a fragment had been lost.
Cedric kept it by his bedside, speaking to it with tender reverence.
“When are you coming to visit me, darling?” he would ask, straightening its tiny fabric dress. “The doctors say I’m making excellent progress. I’ll be home soon.”
“Do you miss me as much as I miss you?”
After the inevitable silence, his eyes would fill with tears. “I forgot,” he’d murmur to himself. “Those without hearts can’t understand longing.”
The realization would hit him anew each time, fresh as an open wound.
Long ago, he had lost Kimberley’s heart–and with it, any chance of finding his way back to the man he might have been.
Chapter 1
