Chapter 1 Let's Have An Open Marriage

Elena's Point Of View

I stared at him like I didn't understand English. Like the air around me had collapsed into silence, and I had no oxygen left to breathe.

The dining room was quiet. Too quiet. The type of quiet that didn't feel peaceful, but surgical. Like the kind of silence you'd hear just before the first incision of a knife.

The walls were white. The table was glass. And my husband... Graham Sinclair sat across from me in his three-piece suit like we were discussing stock options, not the destruction of our marriage.

And then he said it. Again.

"It's an open marriage, Elena. It's the only solution that makes sense."

I blinked slowly, my spine rigid in the sleek gray chair, arms folded on my lap like I was back in boarding school, being punished for speaking too loud.

My lips parted, a soft exhale leaving me, but the words didn't come. I couldn't find them. Because what do you even say when the man you've been married to for five years calmly, coolly tells you he wants to sleep with other women?

Wants you to sleep with other men. Wants to share your marriage bed with the entire goddamn world.

"I'm sorry," I croaked, finally. "What did you just say?"

He didn't even flinch. His eyes were as cold as ever, those perfect, storm-cloud gray eyes that once made me fall so stupidly in love. Back when I thought I mattered to him. Before the ring. Before the tests. Before the cruel quiet began.

"You heard me," he said simply, swirling the wine in his glass like this was casual. Like we were just chatting over dinner. "It's either this... or we file for divorce."

My stomach dropped. Hard.

"But... Graham..." My voice cracked, heart pounding like it was trying to claw its way out of my chest. "The last doctor we went to said there's a solution. That I can get pregnant. We just need more time. You promised..."

He cut me off with a flick of his hand, calm and uninterested. "I'm not asking, Elena," he said sharply. "I'm just letting you know." I sat there frozen, eyes burning. "So you've made the decision already."

He raised a brow. "I've made the decision to stop wasting both our time. We've tried. We've waited. Five years of failure is enough. And I want a child, Elena. Not when you're forty. Now."

His words hit harder than any slap. "Failure..." I repeated, stunned. "Is that what I am to you?"

Graham leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. His fingers tapped lazily against the stem of his wine glass.

"Emotionally? No. Biologically? Yes." I choked on my breath. "You arrogant, heartless..."

"Don't," he said, his voice suddenly razor-sharp. "Don't make this emotional. It's not. This is about logic. About legacy. I need an heir. I need someone who can carry the Sinclair name. You can't, so I'm adjusting."

Adjusting.

Like I was a broken piece of furniture. "Graham," I said, my voice trembling, "I'm your wife."

"And?" he challenged coolly. "That means I should sacrifice my future because of your defective womb?"

My whole body stilled.

I stared at him, at the man I once called my soulmate, and for the first time, I saw nothing human in his eyes. Just cold calculation.

My mouth was dry. My chest tight. "You never even considered adoption, or surrogacy..."

"Surrogacy is an option. But not with you as the genetic mother." His tone cut like acid. "If I wanted to breed failure, I'd buy a dog with hip dysplasia."

I stood up so fast my chair screeched across the floor. "How dare you talk to me like this!"

He didn't even blink.

"Sit down, Elena. Screaming won't change your blood."

I was shaking now. With rage. With pain. With the sting of being reduced to less than a woman in the eyes of the man I once gave my whole life to.

"You're sleeping with someone already, aren't you?" I accused, voice sharp. "This isn't about a child. You just want to fuck whoever you want and blame me for it."

He stared at me like I was stupid. Like I was beneath response.

And then, calmly... cruelly,.he said,

"If you agree to the terms, I'll make sure you're taken care of financially. I won't throw you out like trash. You'll still have your title. You'll still be my wife... legally."

My lips trembled. "You mean I'll be your puppet." He tilted his head. "If that's how you want to frame it." My mind was spinning. My heart in shreds. "You're joking, right?"

"No." He said. Not a flinch. Not a blink. As if what he just said wasn't a blade to my throat. "I need an heir, Elena. My mother has been asking questions. My father's growing impatient."

"And what if I say no?" I asked, then he looked me dead in the eye.

"Then we divorce. I'll find someone else. Someone fertile. And this entire five-year experiment will be written off as a regret."

Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

"You never loved me," I whispered.

He shrugged. "Maybe I tried. Maybe I just wanted to. But we are where we are, Elena. It's better to be honest than to keep playing pretend."

I clutched the edge of the table to stay upright. "There's no honesty in betrayal," I said hoarsely. Graham finally stood, straightening his cuffs, brushing imaginary dust off his sleeve.

"It's not betrayal if you consent."

He turned to leave the room. "You have until Friday to decide."

"Graham," I called, my voice breaking. "Don't do this."

He paused at the doorway.

And without turning, said the last thing I'd ever expect from a man who once held my face and told me I was his world:

"This is me... choosing my world." And just like that, he was gone. The silence he left behind wasn't just quiet, it screamed.

My knees buckled, and I sank slowly onto the nearest chair, fingers gripping the edge like it could stop the room from spinning. My eyes burned. But no tears came yet.

My mind reached for something... anything to keep me from falling apart. And it landed on him.

Not the man who walked out the door, but the one who once stood under soft golden lights, hands trembling as he lifted my veil.

The air had smelled of peonies and clean linen. Graham's hands had been warm... nervous, even, as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his thumb grazing my cheek with reverence.

"I promise you the world, Elena," he'd whispered with that crooked smile that made my heart leap. "Everything I own, everything I am. You're it for me."

He'd kissed my forehead that day like I was made of glass, like loving me was something sacred. His voice had cracked during the vows. And when he looked at me, he didn't see a wife, he saw a forever.

We danced under a thousand fairy lights, barefoot and tipsy on champagne and hope. He'd held me close and murmured against my ear, "If we never had a child, I'd still love you till my last breath. You're enough, Elena. Always."

But that was before.

Before the tests. Before the hushed conversations. Before the way he started looking through me instead of at me.

The sound of my own shallow breathing dragged me back to the cold, sterile room. The same chair I was still clinging to. The same man who had just left.

The warmth of that day felt like a cruel dream now. My throat tightened. And for the first time since he said it, my lips finally moved.

A whisper. Broken. Fragile. "What changed?"

"What happened to the man I married?"