001: The perfect lie

Anastasia's POV

I heard them before I saw them.

The sounds coming from my bedroom made my stomach drop and I stood frozen in the hallway of my own apartment. I was holding a box of gingerbread cookies in one hand and a cup of latte in the other, listening to sounds of very intense moans coming from the other side of my bedroom door.

For a second, I tried to convince myself nothing could be wrong. Maybe Lucas was watching p**n or maybe there was some other reasonable explanation for the sounds of a woman moaning in my bedroom at three in the afternoon.

But it didn't really sound like a movie though.

I closed my shop early today to surprise my husband Lucas because things had been quite bad between us for months. We barely speak anymore and when we do, every conversation feels like walking on broken glass. I thought maybe if I did something sweet, something that reminded him of when we were happy, we could fix it. So I spent two hours baking his favorite gingerbread cookies, the ones I used to make when we first started dating, back when he used to kiss my forehead and tell me I was magic, back when he still looked at me with all the love in his heart.

I walked down the hallway toward our bedroom door and each step felt like I had weights tied to my ankles. My hands started shaking and the cookie box rattled.

The bedroom door was cracked open and a slow sensual music played inside, perfect mood for having sex. I recognized the song because it was one of Lucas' favorites.

I pushed the door open.

There the harsh truth stared back at me. Lucas was on our bed, with a woman underneath him and her long blonde hair was spread across my pillow. She had her legs on his shoulders as he plowed in and out of her, making her moan louder by the second, obviously out of pleasure. The box of cookies slipped from my hand and hit the floor.

The sound made Lucas turn his head and he looked right at me. Our eyes locked and I waited for his reaction, shock or guilt or horror, anything that looked like remorse. But his face just showed irritation and anger, as if I had interrupted something important.

"Seriously?" he said. "What are you doing home by this time?"

His voice was like he was angry, like I had walked in on him watching TV instead of cheating on me.

The woman turned to look at me, and I couldn't believe my eyes. She sat up and pulled the sheet around herself and I felt like the ground was ripped from beneath my feet.

Jennifer. My cousin Jennifer.

My brain refused to process it because this could not be real. Three weeks ago Jennifer showed up at our door crying because her boyfriend dumped her and she begged for a place to stay. I felt sorry for her so I gave her our guest room and made her breakfast and listened to her cry about her broken heart.

And now she was in my bed with my husband.

"Ana," Jennifer said brightly, like we had just bumped into each other at the mall. "This is awkward."

I could not breathe and my throat felt as if it closed up completely. My chest felt like someone had reached inside and crushed my lungs.

Lucas climbed off the bed without any hurry and walked to the dresser to pull out his pants like this was a normal Tuesday afternoon, like I had not just caught him destroying our marriage.

"How long?" My voice came out small and broken.

Lucas did not even look at me as he opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a folder. "Does it matter?"

"How long?" I asked again because my whole body was shaking now.

He threw the folder onto the bed between us. "Long enough."

Jennifer laughed as they both exchanged loving looks. The sound made bile rise in my throat. "Oh Ana, did you really think he loved you?"

The words hit me like a slap and my face burned. Tears blurred my vision but I blinked them back.

"Shut up, Jen," Lucas said, but he sounded bored, not angry.

Jennifer leaned back against my headboard looking smug. "He only married you because he thought you had potential, before you became so boring and ordinary. At least that's what he told me."

I felt like I was tongue tied and I couldn't even find my voice to respond to her.

Lucas picked up the folder again and walked toward me, stopping close enough that I could smell his sweat mixed with his cologne, the same cologne I bought him last Christmas.

"I would have loved to serve you divorce papers Anastasia, but imagine my surprise when the universe made things even easier for me. Our marriage has always been fake, Anastasia," he said.

I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself as I started feeling nauseous. "What are you talking about?" I said, finally finding my voice.

Lucas opened the folder and pulled out papers covered in official stamps and fine print. "We got married drunk in Vegas, remember? We thought it was so romantic but turns out the officiant was not even licensed. The whole thing was never legal."

I stared at the papers but could not focus on the words because they swam in front of my eyes. Marriage certificate, invalid, null and void.

"You're lying," I whispered.

"I'm not." Lucas shoved the papers toward my face. "I found out six months ago when I wanted to file for a divorce and I was going to tell you but honestly, why bother? I had a cook and a cleaner for free. I thought of the situation as a blessing. This way its cleaner, no divorce, no lawyers. We were never really married so there's nothing to end."

Six months. The words echoed in my head because he knew for six months that our marriage was fake and said nothing. Six months of me cooking dinner and trying to make conversation, six months of me wondering why he seemed so distant, six months of me blaming myself for not being enough anymore for him.

My knees felt weak and I locked them to keep from falling.

"So that's it?" My voice cracked. "You just pretend none of this happened?"

"Pretty much." Lucas crossed his arms. "I want you out by tomorrow because this is my apartment and it has my name on the lease. You have no legal claim to anything here."

The words landed like punches because suddenly in a matter of minutes my life as I knew it was over. I had no husband, no marriage, no home, nothing.

Jennifer giggled from the bed. "This is better than reality TV."

"Shut up!" Lucas snapped at her before turning back to me. "Did you hear me, Anastasia? Pack your things and get out by tomorrow."

How could three years of my life suddenly go down the drain. I shaped myself into what I thought he wanted all these years and I tried so hard to be enough for him.

And none of it mattered because none of it was real.

"You're a coward," I said with a shaky voice as I forced the words out.

Lucas' expression darkened. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Something hot and sharp was building in my chest. "You're a coward and you could not even end things honestly. You had to cheat with my own cousin in my own bed."

"Our arrangement is over, Anastasia, accept it and move on."

"Arrangement?" The word felt like acid on my tongue. "Is that what I was to you? An arrangement?"

Lucas stepped closer and his voice dropped low and mean. "What did you think you were? You really thought I married you for love? Please, you were a project, a fixer-upper. I thought I could make something out of you but you stayed exactly the same, small, simple, boring."

My vision blurred with tears and my chest ached at the cruelty of his words. How could the man I love hurt me so deeply in such a wicked manner? I felt like I could barely breathe through the pain.

Jennifer spoke up and her voice dripped with fake sympathy. "It's not your fault, Ana, some people just are not meant for this kind of life. You should go back to your little bakery and forget about all this."

“Both of you have a lot of nerve to do this right on my bed!” I snapped at both of them.

I looked back at Lucas and at his smug expression, at the way he stood there like he had every right to destroy me and feel good about it like I never mattered at all.

“Fuck you and your whore! Fuck you and your marriage!” I screamed at Lucas. My next move shocked me as much as it did him. The cup I was holding the whole time flew from my hand in a perfect arc through the air.

It hit Lucas square in the face and splashed down his bare chest.

He screamed.