Chapter 2

To keep up the "separation," Nicole moved her things into the guest room of our brownstone. She laid out the new rules like a corporate memo.

"No public appearances together. No personal calls to my office. And you will not question my professional relationship with Wesley."

A few days later, a severe flu hit me. I was burning up, my body ached, and I could barely get out of bed for a glass of water. I called Nicole.

"Ryan, I'm on a work retreat," she said, her voice filled with annoyance. "You're being dramatic. Just take some medicine."

"I can't even get to the pharmacy, Nic. I feel awful."

"I'm too busy to deal with this," she snapped.

Then, I heard another voice in the background, muffled but clear. It was Wesley. "Nicole, can you help me with this tie?"

There was a brief, flustered silence on her end. "I have to go," she said, and the line went dead.

My fever-addled brain felt a cold clarity. A work retreat. With Wesley.

Later, I opened Instagram. The first thing I saw was their new profile pictures. Both Nicole and Wesley had changed theirs to the same image: a subtle, stylized logo from her campaign. A matching set. A public declaration.

The betrayal was no longer a suspicion, it was a fact.

I dragged myself out of bed and into my home office. I pulled a large trash bag from the kitchen and started clearing the shelves. Photos of us on vacation, the mugs we bought on our first anniversary, the framed blueprints of the first house I ever designed for us. Everything went into the bag.

When Nicole returned two days later, she found me sitting in the office, the full trash bag at my feet. The air around her smelled faintly of Wesley's expensive cologne.

"I called you a dozen times! Why didn't you answer?" she demanded, ignoring the bag.

"I was sick," I said calmly. "You were busy."

Her eyes finally fell on the trash bag. Her face twisted with anger. "What is this? Are you being petty and jealous again?"

She grabbed the bag and stormed out of the room. "You're so dramatic, Ryan!"

She threw the bag down the main staircase. I heard the sickening crash of glass. The framed photo of us on our wedding day, the one from the top of the pile, had shattered.

I didn't yell. I didn't react.

I just picked up my phone and calmly called my lawyer.

"I need you to draft divorce papers," I said.