Chapter 3

I paused, then let each word drop like stones between us. "Your heart's already with your first love. So fine—I'll set you free. We're getting divorced. Go chase your 'rekindled romance' or whatever fairy tale you've convinced yourself this is."

"What the hell are you talking about!" Edward's face flushed red, his chest heaving. He looked like I'd just stepped on his tail. "I don't have feelings for Sophia anymore! I invited you because I didn't want you getting the wrong idea! Joanna, you're being completely unreasonable!"

"Whether you have feelings or not—you know the truth." I was done arguing. I turned toward the bedroom. "I'll have my lawyer draft the divorce papers. Don't worry, I'll only take what's mine. I'm not going to screw you over."

"Joanna—stop right there!" Edward's voice rang out behind me.

I didn't stop. I walked straight into the bedroom and slammed the door shut.

The wood was cold against my back.

On the other side, his fists pounded against the door, his voice furious. "What the hell are you so upset about? Get out here and talk to me. You're going to destroy our marriage over some paranoid fantasy? Do you have any sense of responsibility? Joanna—open this door."

His voice buzzed through the wood—harsh, agitated, threaded with disbelief that I'd dared to defy him.

He'd probably never imagined that his "understanding" wife would say the word divorce so coldly, so finally.

And he definitely hadn't expected me to rip open that secret restlessness in his heart—the one he maybe hadn't even fully admitted to himself—and lay it bare between us.

I closed my eyes and drew in a slow breath.

His cologne still lingered in the air—that aftershave he always wore. It used to make me feel safe. Now it just made me feel like I couldn't breathe.

The shouting outside my door went on for several minutes. Maybe he finally realized I wasn't going to open it. Or maybe he remembered that "important meeting" he had to get to.

Either way, his footsteps retreated—heavy, angry thuds that echoed down the hallway. Then came the slam of the apartment building's front door, so forceful it rattled the walls.

Finally, silence.

I slid down to the floor, the cold tiles seeping through my thin loungewear and into my skin.

I didn't cry.

My chest just felt hollow. Empty. And yet somehow also weighted down by something massive and frozen, like a boulder of ice had settled where my heart used to be.

Five years of my life flickered past like an old movie on fast-forward. The defeated look in his eyes when we first met.

The secret thrill I'd felt when I said yes to his proposal. His distracted smile at our wedding. All those nights he came home late. The messages that would light up his phone—greetings from across the ocean. That name he'd mumbled when he came home drunk.

Every single detail had been a warning sign.

I'd just been too blinded by "being understanding" and "love" to see them. I'd chosen to ignore what was right in front of me.

I pushed myself up off the floor and walked to the window.

Down below, Edward's car peeled out of the parking lot with an angry roar.

I watched his taillights disappear into the distance. Then I pulled out my phone and, without a moment's hesitation, dialed.

"Hello? Attorney William Smith? It's Joanna. I need you to draft divorce papers for me. Yes, as soon as possible."

I hung up and looked around at this "home" I'd spent five years carefully building.

Every piece of furniture, every decorative touch—I'd poured my heart into all of it. Each one had carried my hopes for our future.

God, how pathetic.

I walked to the study and opened the computer.

Edward must have forgotten—or maybe he just didn't care—that all our devices at home were logged into his social media accounts, including his tablet.

It took me less than a minute to find his chat history with Sophia.

What I found there made last night's message look tame.

Sophia sent: [Edward, the winters here are so cold. I miss the way you used to warm my hands.]

Edward replied with a hugged emoji. [Take care of yourself.]

Sophia: [I heard you got married? Is she good to you?]

Edward: [Yeah. She's very understanding. Takes good care of the house.]

Sophia: [That's good. Not like me—I was always so difficult, always making you worry.]

Edward: [That's all in the past.]

Sophia: [Yes, all in the past. Sometimes I wonder if things had been different back then—]

Edward responded with just a few ellipses.

More messages followed—photos Sophia had sent him. A beach at sunset. An empty art gallery. Each one captioned with melancholic little phrases. And Edward had replied to every single one, his words careful, concerned, tinged with a longing he thought he'd hidden.

"Understanding?"

So that was how he saw me. That was what I meant to him.

I was just a placeholder. A caretaker. The perfect, undemanding backdrop that let him pine for his first love without any complications.

My face stayed blank as I took the screenshot, saved it, and backed it up.

Then I pulled up his credit card statements from the past year.

Several luxury handbag purchases jumped out—each one timed perfectly with Sophia's birthday and Valentine's Day. The shipping address was Sophia's address.

There were numerous international wire transfers too—significant sums, all going to one name—S.L., Sophia Lane.

He'd been using our marital assets to support his first love overseas this entire time.

Meanwhile, I hadn't bought myself a single decent piece of clothing in months.

Something inside me finally broke, not with a dramatic snap, but with a quiet, definitive crack.

What remained was no longer grief or hurt. Just cold, brutal fury. And an absolute certainty about what came next.