My billionaire husband is a CHEAT

I GRAB my husband's mistress by the hair. Feel my nails scrape against her lily-white scalp. Wrench her extensions the way I discard tufts of dandelions from my rose garden.

She shrieks like a banshee. Like some otherworldly monster, clawing out of the grave. Out of hell. A devil wrapped in my robe, sipping from my wine glass. In my freaking house.

I throw my weight and my words around. Cohesive sentences broken by expletives. Dark obscenities. Vicious threats.

The woman manages to slip out of my grasp like the worm that she is.

Big brown eyes blink in my direction, filled with shock and pain.

I give her a once-over. Make side-by-side comparisons in the space of three seconds.

Jerrison really lowered his standards with this one.

She's young. The kind of young that believes her opinions matter even though she lacks experience. The kind with shelves of participation trophies and awkward photos of herself in lingerie, celebrating the years before gravity sags everything and the sun carves lines into her face.

Blonde. From the bottle. Her roots are showing. Black. Darkness creeping on light.

Her body's lanky–if I'm being harsh. Willowy if I'm being kind. But her tits are like watermelons. She must have back problems. There's no way her scrawny frame was built to support that.

Fake hair. Fake eyes. Fake tits. Airhead Barbie. As plastic as the dolls I used to play with in childhood.

Jerrison lurches to his feet, his thick blonde eyebrows slashing over startling blue eyes. "Harriet? I thought you were going on a business trip?"

There's an edge to my smile. I feel the rage building and building, galvanized by his ridiculous question.

He wants to know why I'm here. Like this isn't my house.

Like my name's not on the mortgage.

Like he wasn't sipping wine beside another woman, giggling and cuddling her five seconds before I busted in.

I ball my fingers into fists. Fight the lump that forms in the back of my throat, a lump that always precedes my tears.

Beyond the anger, frustration and disappointment is a secret hope.

Please let this be a dream.

Nightmare. Reality.

I never thought it would come to this. That I would fake a business trip just so I could catch my husband in the act.

I wanted evidence. Proof beyond whispered phone calls in the night. Socked feet tiptoeing out when he thought I was asleep. Empty sides of the bed. Strange credit card purchases. Hotels. Lingerie. Flowers that never came to me.

My marriage fell on the rocks and capsized, but I stubbornly believed it hadn't come to this point. It took effort to ignore the signs when I was bombarded with fragments of the truth. Nudges from my intuition. Whispers from my co-workers, friends, and family-those who loved me enough, who were brave enough, to bring their concerns to me.

"I noticed your husband with someone last week..."

"I thought you should know..."

"Is Jerrison seeing someone...?"

I didn't want to believe it. Even if I knew I was no longer his priority, even if the nights he reached for me, slid inside me, moved over me had dried up to nothing. Even if we never said 'I love you' or went on dates or exchanged more than the necessary conversations about bills, politics, and schedules, I believed in our marriage vows. To love and to hold. To honor. To respect.

I was there when Jerrison made those promises in front of everyone. Love shining in his eyes. Chest puffing out in a double-breasted suit with a flower clipped to the lapel.

He held my hand. Squeezed my fingers. Repeated after the priest in a giant cathedral that echoed with prestige and old money. The kind of religion people fought wars over.

'I will always love you, Harriet'.

Except Jerrison didn't warn me that his love came with strings. With business suits carrying the subtle scent of perfume. With lipstick stains on wrinkled napkins. With callers that go silent and then hang up when I answer the phone instead of him.

Today, I summoned the courage to see for myself, but there was no preparation for this moment. No motive beyond an urgent desire to prove I wasn't crazy.

I wanted my husband to face me. To see me.

To watch me watching him.

And I wanted remorse. Knees hitting the hardwood floors. Tears gushing from his incredible blue eyes. Hands up, rasping together in pleas for understanding.

But my husband did not receive my script because he's not following the lines.

It's been five minutes since I burst into the house, caught him with Blondie and grabbed her hair.

Five minutes.

I have yet to receive an apology.

"J-Jerry!" Barbie whispers, reaching for Jerrison. Bracelets dance up scrawny arms, clanking loudly against her elbows.

My gaze drags back to her. The way my voice carries through the room sounds like a gun without its safety. "Touch him and die."

She snatches her hands back. Looks at me with fear and trembling. I am her end.

And she knows it.

Jerrison does too. He moves in front of her. "Did you lie to me about the business trip?" He has the audacity to look annoyed as he pieces everything together. "You set me up. There wasn't any emergency at HQ, was there?"

Something ugly knots inside my chest. A twisted, ravenous evil. The side that society beats out of us. That school and eight-hour jobs in hot cubicles told us was wrong.

Conform. Restrain. Hold it in.

Do not let them see you explode.

Jail time. Police escorts. Assault charges.

Choose peace over violence. Choose conversation over fists. My dad taught me that when he taught me how to box. 'You have power and now you have a responsibility to use that power wisely.'

Whoever made those arbitrary rules has never been cheated on. Never walked in on their husband with another woman. Never had to choke down the acidic bile that starts in the stomach and rises to the throat.

I feel like a soda bottle shaken to within an inch of its life. A volcano spitting ash, a precursor to the lava.

Our breaths hit the air and damages the silence. No one moves.

It's like we're stuck in time. Each of us a cast member in a ridiculous set piece, moved around by a Higher Being that we don't understand. That couldn't possibly be benevolent.

"Harriet..." Jerrison says my name like an adult would to a misbehaving child in the middle of aisle four. 'No, you can't have that cereal, baby. It's too expensive'.

"Shut up."

"You need to calm down."

"And you need to move." It's all I can say through clenched teeth. Every muscle in my body coils. Flames lick at my skin and neck. Sweat beads on my upper lip.

"No," Jerrison says. "Let's talk about this like rational adults."

The Blonde begins to smile. She's got painfully thin lips that threaten to disappear completely from her face. The kind of lips that will probably land her in a plastic surgeon's office, asking for fillers and holding up a picture of a woman who looks like me.

I hate her.

Every inch of her. I want her to die.

Jerrison's eyebrows jerk a little closer together. He takes a step toward me. Hands outstretched. Eyes narrowed. Animal control approaching a rabid raccoon. Here, kitty kitty.

I can't look at him. Can't breathe from the pain that snaps at me like a shark out for blood.

There's no remorse in my husband's face.

No shame.

He's still tense, still acting as if he's got the upper hand. As if I should be ashamed for interrupting him.

I get the sense that I'm messing up his day. That I'm moving away from his script. That I should fold myself into a little box while he plays with his tramp. Make way until he's finished. Because isn't that what a good wife does? Step aside while her husband screws his girlfriend?

Bastard.

The betrayal barrels into me. A boulder on my back. Shackles on my feet.

I refuse to cry. She's still here. The other woman. I'm going to burn that robe. With her still in it.

"Fine." I whirl around and stomp to the mud room. Grabbing the bat we store on our shelf of prized junk, I stalk back to the main hall.

Barbie shrieks when she sees the bat. "Jerrison, she's going to kill me!" My husband stares at me with wide eyes.

I swing the bat over my shoulder and give him a cold smirk. "Excuse me a minute."

"Harriet..."

I throw the front door open. Her cherry convertible is pretty. Svelte. Just like Barbie. Not a scratch on its red paint. She takes good care of this thing.

Good.

The first swing of my bat smashes against a rearview mirror. Glass shatters into a million pieces and feeds my rage. I bash the hood like a madwoman. Jump on the trunk and beat the roof. Gorilla stomps. Blown tail lights. Cracked windshield.

Jerrison yells at me. Barbie wails.

I don't stop and neither of them come close enough to grab me. Smart idiots. They know I'll exchange metal and glass for sinew and flesh.

When I'm done, my straight hair sticks to my cheek and my hands hurt from gripping the bat so tightly. Something sharp stings my hand. I think some glass shards might have sailed through the air and scratched me.

My boots thump the concrete driveway. The bat rolls from my fingers and clanks to the ground, sliding back and forth before coming to a stop at one of my rose bushes.

Barbie's crying and so am I. The tears leak out of my eyes without permission.

I face the other woman. "You have ten seconds to get the hell out of here. If you ever come back to this house again, I promise you I won't show the restraint that I have today."

Her heels clack on the ground as she limps off. I'm surprised when her car starts. I'm surprised when it speeds out of the gate, the muffler scraping pavement and the side mirrors swinging in the breeze.

My attentions shifts to the man standing in the doorway of our home. The love of my life.

The man I pledged my world to. My cheating husband.

"Did she grab your hair too?"

I glare at Patrick Riche. "You don't have to sound so excited."

My best friend and business partner flashes a grin. The gold watch on his hand glints just as brightly as his wolfish smile.

He slips broad fingers around a shot glass. "I don't see any bruises on that pretty face of yours, Jer."

"Screw you." I flip him off.

"Come on. Don't act like you're not scared of her." He pauses. Leans forward. "Doesn't your wife box?"

"She enjoys the sport, but she's never competed."

Scrubbing his thick, black beard, Patrick muses, "I'm sure I saw her at competitions before you two got together."

"Her dad's a trainer. It's how we met." I remember that moment with startling clarity. Harriet stood outside the ring, wearing sexy shorts, heels and a bulky red jacket. Her dark fingers curled around the ropes and she was shouting at her boxer to get up.

I couldn't take my eyes off her. Couldn't stop thinking. Scheming. Dreaming up ways to approach the spitfire with the long hair, dark skin, and red jacket.

"Harriet's tough as nails." Patrick grabs my shot glass and knocks it back like medicine. His face crumples as the bitterness hits his tongue.

"You're acting like I don't know that." I scoff.

"So why didn't she beat you up after ruining Cindy's car?" He gives me a once-over. "You should be in the ICU right now."

"I told her we'd talk later and then I drove off."

"She hasn't called you?" "Harriet?"

"The other girl." Patrick arches an eyebrow. "To warn you she's suing your wife for damages. Sounds like she could even press charges for assault."

"I think she's too scared to do anything." My shoulders lift in a half- hearted shrug.

Knowing Cindy, she doesn't have the guts to go toe-to-toe against my wife. She's the type with a million shallow causes, but there's nothing that she would die for.

"Poor thing," Patrick murmurs. "You feel sorry for her?"

"For you. She was hot and now you'll have to break up with her."

"No need for a breakup. We didn't have that kind of understanding anyway, so it wouldn't be worth the hassle. For her or for me."

"You heartless bastard." Patrick gestures to the bartender.

"Nah. She'll be fine. She's young." Besides, I don't really care about Cindy right now.

"Sounds like she wasn't all that." Patrick slides a refilled shot glass at me, amusement clear in his expression.

"She was fun." Cindy's stamina was something to behold. She could bounce on top of me, doing all kinds of amazing things with her tongue... "She was great in bed. Loud. Flexible." My heart jumps just thinking about the positions I twisted that girl into. "But her conversations were getting absolutely painful."

Patrick burst out laughing.

"I'm serious!" Talking to Cindy was like listening to nails on a chalkboard. It wasn't just her voice, although that was so high-pitched, it often felt like I was pounding into a cartoon rather than a real-live woman, but her interests were so far removed from mine we were the walking example of an age gap.

I'm too old to care about the latest social media trends and celebrity gossip. Her immaturity made me lose brain cells. After a while, I told her not to talk around me. She thought it was some kind of kink, but I needed to stay geared up to bed her and hearing her prattling on was the equivalent of a cold shower.

"I suggest you rethink that strategy and talk to her." Patrick waves a hand. "Women are emotional nutcases, man. If you don't go after her now, she'll think you didn't 'choose her' or whatever."

"Nah, I'm cutting my losses." "You mean that?"

I stare forlornly at the counter. "I've got bigger things to worry about than Cindy. Harriet's pissed off. I'm not sure what she's thinking and I need to focus on this storm before I go chasing new ones."

"So..." "So what?"

"So what happens next, homey?" Patrick nudges me with his elbow. "What you gon' do with your wife?"

"I'll go back home and talk to her. When she's no longer the She-Hulk." Patrick bursts out laughing. "She-Hulk. That's rich."

"Pat, it was like a horror movie." My eyes narrow. "I've never seen her lose it like that. She was crying and smashing rear view mirrors..." I exhale loudly. "That woman is nuts."

Patrick fixes his gaze on me. "You almost sound worried." "I am worried."

"For more than your life," he amends. Lifting a hand, he inspects the wedding ring on his finger. "It sounds like you care about her."

"The hell does that mean?" I straighten in my chair and stare him down in challenge. "If I didn't care about my wife, I would have divorced her long ago."

He presses a fist to his thick lips and studies me. Patrick's a tall, intimidating man with skin so black it's almost blue. He wears his hair cropped close to his head and meticulously forms every wave with gel and a wooden brush.

He used to work as a bouncer at a popular club in the city. He did such a good job keeping the riff-raff out, they promoted him to manager. Patrick is scary good at taking one look at a person and predicting whether they're trouble or not.

I meet his sharp perusal with a glower of my own. "You got something to say?"

"Why'd you get caught?"

The sigh that rushes out of me is loud enough to get the entire bar's attention. Heads whip around to observe the idiot who couldn't keep an eye

on his wife.

Patrick slaps me on the back. "If you care that damn much about Harriet, then you need to stay one-step ahead so drama like this doesn't happen." He waves his hand wildly as he lectures me. "My old man always told me 'learn to control your women'."

"I don't need your lessons."

"Clearly you do," he says with a cocky toss of his head.

"No one can control Harriet," I mumble, running a hand through my hair. "Trust me."

"Not your wife, homey." He smacks my chest with the underside of his hand. "Your women. The ones who need to stay out of sight so you can have a happy life."

My voice climbs. "Didn't you hear what I said? Harriet set a damn trap for me. I didn't plan to expose anything."

"Nah, that's not on your wife. That's on you." Patrick sticks a finger out in my direction. "You were obviously sloppy about your movements and that's what led to today's events. In the future, you've gotta be more subtle. Take me for example." He stabs a finger on his chest, rustling one of his five gold chains. "I don't play those 'lock my cell' games. I've got two phones. One for my girl. One for my wife. She can check that number anytime. It builds trust."

I roll my eyes. "That's it?"

"I wasn't done." He lifts his index finger and thumb. "I've got two different credit cards-one my wife knows about and one she doesn't."

"Some of us don't want a complex system just to talk to a woman, Patrick. You're living a double life like that's freaking normal."

"All men are living a double life, J. You think anybody's sticking with their wives anymore? Nah. Even if it's just porn, they're thinking of other women." He chuckles and twirls his shot glass around. The clear liquor sloshes through the cup. "Politicians. Movie stars. Deacons. Hell, pastors have a long, holy history of bending their secretaries over the desk." The bar's overhead lights glitter in his black eyes. "It's not that complicated unless you make it so." He taps his finger on the counter. "Our job is to give our wives the illusion of being the only one and, in exchange, they take care of our homes, help run our businesses, and have our children."

Something about his words leave a film of mud on my skin. "I don't know, Pat."

"Trust me. It's foolproof." His lips quirk up as he pops his collar. "I make sure I shower real good, change my clothes, and have a smoke so my wife can't smell nothing on me." Leaning back, Patrick hoists his chin in the air. "Wifey don't have to know, man. But it's your fault if she finds out."

His words rattle around in my head when I catch a cab back to the house.

The lights are on and my throat immediately tightens with nerves. Harriet's home.

I step inside and listen to the quiet. My eyes sweep the foyer and land on a pile of suitcases sitting primly at the door like trash waiting to be taken curbside.

Tension locks my shoulders until their stiff. "Harriet, what the hell is this?"

"What the hell does it look like, Jerrison?" My wife storms out of the kitchen, her sharp eyes looking just as dangerous as the knife in her hands. She smiles cruelly. "Did you think I'd take that sitting down?"

"Harriet, put the knife down and stop acting crazy."

"You bring a woman into my home." Her voice drops to a threatening whisper. "You put your hands around her. Drank wine with her. And who knows what you would have done to her if I hadn't come home?"

"Listen to me." I raise both hands. "You totally misunderstood."

The lies pour out of me almost as easily as breathing. I've defaulted to repair mode and all I can focus on, in this moment, is putting this marriage back together with tape.

Harriet takes a step toward me. She's wearing a long, white dress with flowers all over it. The fabric flows gracefully down her curves.

She's gained a little weight since we got married. Gotten pudgy around her arms and shoulders. Even her cheeks have a little more on them than the woman I married.

But she's still sexy as hell. Those light brown eyes are the color of honey in the morning. Dark hair frames her heart-shaped face. Most of her lipstick smeared off, revealing her plump brown lips.

Hell no. I don't want to trade my gorgeous wife in for a Cindy and that truth hammers into my heart with the force of a hurricane.

Harriet stops right in front of me and I stare into her eyes, not flinching or backing away.

Her chest rises and falls with every breath. "Those suitcases are empty."

My body tightens even as relief flows through me. I got tricked. Again. "But," Harriet lifts the knife, "if you continue on like this, I'm leaving.

Do you understand, Jer?"

I grab the hand holding the knife and caress it lightly, ignoring the way my body hardens at the touch of her skin. Turning swiftly before she sees how turned on I am, I pick up her suitcase and, wordlessly, take them up the stairs.

MY HEART IS IN PIECES. Just like the shattered glass sitting on the driveway.

I broke both of Barbie's side mirrors and I'm paying for it dearly with glass shards that keep clinging to my skin. Demons the size of specks. I've been picking at them for almost an hour.

There's one stubborn splinter I can't get at no matter what. It's embedded in my flesh like an invisible terror. I'm torn between giving up on it or continuing with the tweezers.

I give it another shot.

Wielding the tweezers from my non-dominant hand results in too much pinching for my tastes. Exhaustion and anger make me shake too much anyway. I toss the tweezers and groan, barreling my head into my palms. Wave after wave of frustration crashes over me. The urge to drop to the ground and bawl my head off creeps forward.

I hold myself back.

Jerrison's here. Shuffling inside our bedroom. I can hear him moving around. Can picture him reaching for a change of clothes in the giant walk- in closet. Stripping out of his shirt and jeans. Folding them on the bed-the man's obsessed with being tidy.

I can picture him pushing his brawny arms into the T-shirt. Leaving his boxers on because he prefers to go to bed in them rather than in pajama bottoms.

It's a dance I could recite by heart. I know him. Know every part of him. I ignored his secrets because I didn't want to face them, not because I lacked awareness.

A drawer slams shut. He's probably reaching for his glasses. Settling into the mattress.

He came home to me.

At least that's something.

I thought he wouldn't. I thought he chased after Cindy to comfort her. If I wasn't so busy slashing the couch like a madwoman, I would have noticed he left without his phone and his wallet.

When the door opened and he stepped through tonight, I felt a little better. A little calmer. It helped that, when Jerrison passed me, he didn't smell like cheap perfume. He smelled like vodka and whiskey.

I relaxed, some part of me celebrating when I realized he had let Cindy flee without consolation.

It's not much of a prize.

Right. It's not.

Hell, how low have I fallen that I'm considering such a paltry offering a win? My husband didn't run after his mistress after getting caught. Who's going to give him the freaking trophy?

I groan and bite harder on my lip as the tears prickle my eyes. My life is falling apart. So much has gone wrong.

But I can't leave him. Not yet.

We've been married for so long...

Even so, I'm no doormat. I think I've made it clear that I won't put up with any more.

My husband does not get three strikes. One more time, and I am leaving.

The bathroom door opens as I sit, hunched over, on the toilet, moaning about the glass in my finger.

Jerrison moves confidently toward me. He's always been that way. Cocky. Charismatic. Whenever he entered a room-whether it was a snooty business conference or an urban cookout, he just... fit.

No, he did more than that. He dazzled.

There was a time when I genuinely believed my husband glowed. Otherworldly. Supernatural. Could any man be that handsome and that approachable at the same time?

His blue eyes, the color of the sky bursting with glory, could tear a woman's heart apart and have her begging for the privilege. His cheekbones were slashes on his face, too aristocratic to belong to someone without some kind of fancy title-Lord, Duke, or Prince. His smiles were easy, charming, the kind that could make people on the peripherals press in close so they could get in on the joke too.

Everyone wanted to be around him. To be with him. Be like him.

And then I was chosen. I got the ring.

I got one year of the fairytale before I realized it was a horror show.

Movies and books lied to me. As a child, I spent so much time daydreaming about my perfect life, my perfect wedding. As a teenager, I thought marriage was the ultimate form of love.

Wrong. All wrong.

Marriage is two people signing a meaningless piece of paper. Marriage is strangers trapped in mindless infatuation, a passion that putters out when real life responsibilities change the equation.

Marriage is like doing meth. A destructive force with a few, brief glimpses of happiness.

And weddings are the gateway drug.

The ceremony that I'd been gushing about, agonizing over, obsessing into the wee hours of the night, the details, the planning-who should sit where, picking the food, the cake, the flowers-it was a sham. An empty shell. A prize where opening the box reveals only disappointment inside.

And here I sit, facing the reality that all women eventually come face to face with.

My husband is cheating on me.

The pang that hits my heart sends a rush of tears to my eyes again. "You okay, Harriet?" Jerrison asks.

I bite my lip to hold the tears in. "Get out."

"I heard you hissing and moaning from outside." He crouches in front of me, wearing a look that's far too tender after everything that was revealed today. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I press my hand into the sink to push myself up. In doing so, I unwittingly agitate the annoying glass in my finger. "Ouch."

Jerrison bursts into action as if he's the one feeling the pain. Grabbing my arm, he holds it still and stares at my dark palm. "Did you get hurt?"

"It's fine." I snatch my arm back.

He whirls around, his movements urgent. Sinking to his knees, he throws the cupboards open and finds the first aid kit.

"What are you doing?" I snap.

"There's no baking soda here. I thought we kept it in the kit." "It's downstairs."

"Oh." The wrinkles between his eyebrows smooth away. He rushes out the door. I hear his footsteps pounding the stairs.

Not in the mood to wait around for him, I get up and wash my hands again, hoping that it'll ease the irritation in my finger.

It doesn't.

Jerrison blows the door open and strides toward me. He's holding the baking soda along with a plastic cup. I watch in mild amusement as he pours the baking soda into the water and stirs the liquid.

"My dad used to get splinters all the time. He worked in window installation, so that was a given." Jerrison sets the cup on the edge of the sink and wraps his hands around my wrist.

I resist him. "I told you. I'm fine."

"Just let me do this, Harriet," he responds firmly. My shoulders tense, but I decide not to fight him. Jerrison nods to my hand. "Where's the splinter?"

"Here." I show him my finger. "Somewhere. But it's not at the surface. His head bends in concentration. All I can see is the top of his thick hair.

"This is a nifty little trick that mom used to do for him." Tenderness rings from his touch and from his voice. He wraps up the area in a bandage and straightens. "That should cause the splinter to rise. I'll pluck it out tomorrow." His eyes linger on me and then flit to my lips.

I scoff and brush past him, stomping back to the bedroom. He got caught cheating a couple hours ago and he's giving me those bedroom eyes? Does he have any idea what he's done to me? What he's damaged?

I flounce to the bed and get in on my side. Turning my back, I stare at the wall. Hanging from the eggshell paint is a giant picture of us on our wedding day. Bright smiles. Hands locked. Eyes filled with love and promise. Clueless fools who would break apart soon after pledging their lives.

The mattress dips as Jerrison gets into bed. He says nothing about the blonde, about his cheating, about me seeing them together.

The silence is stifling, but it's not unfamiliar. We haven't talked about much. The connection's been lost for a really long time.

"Harriet," Jerrison says, his voice sounding distant even though he's lying in the same bed.

I don't bother turning around. "What?"

"I'll make sure you don't have to pay for what happened today." My nostrils flare. "What did you just say?"

"I'll make sure you don't get sued." His voice carries the somberness of someone who really thinks they're making a difference. "And I'll handle it if there are any charges against you because of what happened today. Don't worry about it and get some rest, okay?"

My fingers dig into the pillow and, for the first time in my life, I consider murdering my husband in his sleep.