Chapter 2

Alex POV

The first thing I did when I got home was open the closet.

My wedding dress hung there, entombed in plastic, a white specter of the day I thought my life began.

I didn't cry.

Tears felt too small, too insignificant for the crater Gavin had blasted in my chest.

I grabbed the dress, the plastic crinkling like a death rattle in the silent bedroom, and threw it onto the floor.

I found the sewing scissors in the drawer.

The sound of steel slicing through silk and lace was perversely satisfying.

Rip.

Snip.

Tear.

I destroyed the bodice first, then the long train that had trailed behind me down the aisle like a promise.

Within minutes, the symbol of our eternal vow was nothing but a pile of expensive white rags scattered across the hardwood floor like dirty snow.

I didn't stop there.

I stripped the bed.

I pulled down the curtains.

I went into the bathroom and swept every bottle of his cologne into the trash can.

I was purging him.

I was trying to scrub his scent, his presence, and his lie out of the air I had to breathe.

I was sitting on the edge of the bare mattress, staring at the wall, when the front door opened downstairs.

It was late.

Gavin walked into the bedroom, loosening his tie, looking for all the world like the weary, hardworking husband coming home to his wife.

He stopped dead when he saw the dress on the floor.

"Alex?" he asked, his brow furrowing in confusion rather than guilt. "What happened here? Are you okay?"

He stepped toward me, reaching out a hand.

I flinched so hard I nearly fell off the bed.

"Don't," I said.

The word was a bullet.

Gavin froze, his hand hovering in the air.

"You look pale," he said, his voice dripping with a concern that felt like slime. "Is this about the bank? Henderson called me. There was a clerical error, Alex. Don't overreact."

A clerical error.

He thought I was stupid.

He thought I was just the comfortable alternative who would believe whatever crumbs he tossed me.

"I'm fine," I lied, standing up and moving away from him.

He sighed, a sound of impatience masking itself as fatigue.

Without missing a beat, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a checkbook.

He scribbled something quickly, the pen scratching harshly against the paper, and tore it out.

"Here," he said, extending the slip of paper to me. "Go buy yourself something nice. Replace the dress if you want. I know you've been stressed."

I looked at the check.

It was for fifty thousand dollars.

That was the price of my dignity.

That was the cost of six years of my life.

He was trying to buy my silence before I even started screaming.

"You think this fixes it?" I asked, my voice hollow.

"Fixes what?" he snapped, his mask slipping. "Stop being dramatic, Alex. I have a headache. The company is in a crisis."

His phone buzzed.

He looked at the screen, and for a split second, his eyes softened in a way they hadn't for me in years.

"I have to go," he said, shoving the check onto the dresser. "Emergency meeting."

"At midnight?"

"Business doesn't sleep," he said, turning his back on me. "Oh, and by the way, Eliana might stop by tomorrow to see the twins. They get along so well. Try to be welcoming."

He walked out.

I went to the window and watched his car pull out of the driveway.

He didn't turn toward the office.

He turned toward the upscale district where Eliana lived.

The nausea hit me then.

It wasn't just emotional.

It was a physical upheaval, a wave of sickness that sent me running to the bathroom.

I retched into the toilet until there was nothing left, my body shaking, sweat beading on my forehead.

I sat back on the cold tiles, wiping my mouth.

Then I realized.

My period was late.

Three weeks late.

I had been so stressed, so busy with the twins, I hadn't noticed.

I opened the cabinet under the sink.

I had a box of tests left over from when we were trying, back when I thought we were building a family.

My hands trembled as I unwrapped the stick.

The three minutes of waiting felt longer than the six years of my marriage.

I flipped it over.

Two pink lines.

Positive.

I stared at it, the plastic stick mocking me.

A baby.

I was pregnant with the child of a man who called me a placeholder.

A man who was currently in bed with his "real" love.

A man who planned to kick me out and replace me.

I laughed.

It was a dry, broken sound that echoed in the empty bathroom.

Fate had a cruel sense of humor.

I stood up and walked to the trash can.

I threw the positive test right on top of the broken glass of his cologne bottles.

Then I grabbed three of his favorite shirts from the hamper and threw them in too.