003

CHAPTER 3

Sophia's Point of View

I stared at him for a long time. The words hung in the air, completely detached from the man who'd had his hands on my hips twenty minutes ago.

I laughed — a breathless, almost manic sound that echoed against the marble tiles.

"You're joking," I said, setting the cake box down on the island so I wouldn't drop it. "Please tell me you're joking. That's a horrible joke, Daniel, even for you."

"I'm not joking, Sophia," he said. His voice didn't rise. It was the same level tone he used when reviewing quarterly reports, when explaining to a subordinate why their proposal wouldn't work. "We've been trying to have children for five years. Every doctor, every treatment, every cycle. It's failed. An open marriage is the only solution that makes sense right now."

The laughter died in my throat like I'd swallowed glass. "Daniel, what the fuck are you saying? Is this the surprise? You want to open our marriage?"

"Yes," he said, nodding once with the same efficiency he brought to every decision at the office.

I gripped the edge of the marble island to stay upright. "So you're telling me you want to sleep with other women. And you want me to sleep with other men. Is that it? We just throw away five years of marriage, ten years together?"

"I want children," he said simply, leaning his hip against the counter as if we were discussing paint colors for the guest room. "And looking at it, you can't do it."

He said it the way he'd once told a supplier their contract wasn't being renewed — matter-of-fact, already three steps past the conversation, already living in whatever came next. I thought of every specialist we'd sat across from together, every clipboard, every time he'd held my hand in a waiting room and told me it didn't matter how long it took, that we were in this together. Apparently "together" had an expiration date I hadn't been told about.

The cardboard box slipped from my hand. It hit the counter edge, tilted, and the whole cake slid off onto the floor, the layers splitting open, white frosting smeared across the tile. I didn't even glance down. Two hundred dollars of chocolate ganache, and I couldn't have cared less.

"What did you just say to me?"

"You heard me." He picked up his wine glass and swirled it, casual, dismissive, the way he talked to associates over a golf game. "It's either this, or we file for divorce."

"Then we divorce," I said, my voice shaking but my chin lifted. "Fine. Do it. Find your fertile someone else and write off five years as a regret."

The words tasted like glass leaving my mouth. I meant them to sound like a woman with nothing left to lose, but underneath the bravado, part of me was still waiting for him to catch me, to say he'd never actually let it get that far, that this was some cruel test he regretted the moment it left his mouth.

I said it to call his bluff. I expected him to flinch, to soften, to admit this was some cruel test of how far he could push me before I fought back. Instead, something flickered across his face — quick, involuntary, gone before I could name it. It wasn't hesitation. It was recognition, the look of a man who'd already rehearsed this conversation with someone else in mind.

"There's someone else," I whispered. It wasn't a question anymore. "Isn't there?"

He didn't answer. He didn't blink. The silence was louder than any confession he could have shouted.

"You stupid piece of shit," I said, the numbness finally breaking into fury. "You've had someone else this whole time, haven't you? Why did you let me keep going to those clinics? Why did you let me think it was my fault?"

"Because I thought something might happen," Daniel said, without a hint of shame. "But now I know I should have done this a long time ago. I waited too long out of sentimentality."

"Sentimentality," I repeated, the word tasting like poison. "Thank you for your immense sacrifice. How noble of you."

He crossed the kitchen, his bare feet sticking to the frosting on the floor, and stopped in front of me, using his height the way he always had — to loom, to dominate.

"That doesn't change the fact that you're my wife," he said, softer now, reaching for my cheek. "I still love you, Sophia. No matter what happens. You have to believe that."

I jerked back before he could touch me.

He turned and walked toward the hallway, then stopped, tilting his head back over his shoulder without turning around fully.

"You have until Friday to decide."

"What if I fight you, Daniel? What if I tell you to go to hell?"

He came close enough that I could smell the steak still on his breath. "Then we divorce," he said. "I'll find someone else. Someone fertile. And this entire five-year experiment will be written off as a regret."

He walked out. I stood there in the wreckage of the cake, doing the math I'd been avoiding for months — every late night he'd claimed was work, every trip that ran a day longer than it should have, every time he'd stepped out of the room to take a call. I'd built a career out of reading people who wanted to lie to me. I'd simply never thought to point tha

t instinct at my own husband.