Chapter 1

The storm outside had been raging for hours, but it was nothing compared to the storm inside of me. Rain flowed down the tall windows of our mansion, the droplets racing each other until they blurred together like tears. The candles I had lit hours ago had melted into shapeless wax, their flames fighting for life just as desperately as I was fighting for love from my husband.

Dinner sat on the long, beautifully dressed dining table, untouched and getting colder each minute. I had laid everything out with the kind of care only a hopeful wife would show—his favorite wine, the dishes I knew he once loved, and the cutlery polished until it gleamed. And yet, none of it mattered. He acts like they were all meaningless to him.

I sat there, my back straight, my hands folded tightly on my lap, staring at the empty chair across from me. Alexander Reed’s chair, my husband, and my everything.

I whispered his name into the silence, with a wish deep down that he would appear right in front of me. 

But even I knew wishes and even actions to prove love had no place in this marriage.

The sound of the front door unlocking jolted me upright. My heart leapt the way it always did, foolish and desperate, as though this time he might walk through the door and see me, really see me. He sees me always, but I don't feel seen because of how he does. I feel snubbed entirely; it always feels like I live in our mansion alone.

The door creaked open, and there he was. My heart had an extra beat.

My tall and immaculate husband's face again. A storm of his own. His black coat clung to his broad shoulders, the rain glistening against the fabric. His hair was damp and messy but no less beautiful than ever. He was looking so handsome as the husband I always wished to marry, and I finally got him.

Just like winter, he offered me no warmth, like he always did.

His gaze slid over me, nothing more than a passing glance. Indifferent and detached. As if I were a piece of furniture in his home rather than his wife. I always felt like that, like I'm nonliving.

“Alex,” I breathed, my voice cracking with a hope I hated myself for still caring. “You’re home; I kept dinner for you.”

“I already ate.”

The words dropped from his lips like stones into a bottomless well. His tone was dismissive and final. He wasn't slow and didn’t pause to see how those words hollowed me out. He just brushed past me, the faint scent of his cologne lingering in the air like the echo of everything I once loved.

The ache in my chest burned hotter. His words kept coming to my head: "already eaten," meaning "already chosen elsewhere."

I swallowed hard, gripping the edge of the table in order to balance my pain. My lips trembled before the words slipped free, too fragile, too desperate.

"Was it with Vanessa again?" I asked with the last drop of courage in me.

The silence that followed was more terrifying than an insult. He stopped mid-step, his tall frame tense and rigid, as though my voice had struck him like a blade. Slowly, he turned to me; his look was as fierce as he had ever been.

I wasn't surprised because I did mention her name.

“Don’t say her name,” he said, his voice sharp enough that it cut me through. “Not like you have the right to.”

The breath caught in my throat. My heart seemed to shatter all over again, though by now it should have been used to breaking. No, right? I was his wife. His wife. Yet in his eyes, I was nothing but a shadow.

“I’m your wife, Alex,” I whispered, my voice cracking under the weight of my own pain. “Don’t I deserve at least that respect?”

For a heartbeat, his eyes locked on mine. Cold, piercing, and merciless. I wanted him to soften, even just for a second. I wanted him to remember the girl who had loved him long before rings and vows, but there was nothing. Only silence.

Until he spoke words that stripped me bare, leaving me standing in ruins.

“You were never my choice, Emily. You were a mistake forced on me. And I’ll never forgive you for it.”

The room tilted. My knees weakened. My chest tightened until I couldn’t breathe. A mistake. That was all I was to him. Three years of waiting, three years of trying, three years of sacrificing every piece of myself to a man who only ever wanted someone else—dismissed in a single sentence.

Thunder cracked outside, rattling the windows. But inside, the silence was deafening.

I pressed a trembling hand to my chest as though I could hold together the pieces of my heart. Tears blurred my vision, spilling hot and fast before I could stop them. My lips trembled as I forced out the words I had been choking on for far too long.

“All these years… I begged you to look at me. To see me. To love me, even just a little. But I was never enough, was I?”

He didn’t answer. His silence was answer enough.

The man I had loved since I was a girl, the man I married with dreams of forever, had just made it clear—there was no forever. Not for us.

Something inside me broke that night. Something fragile and hopeful that had clung to him all these years. And as it shattered, something new began to take its place. Not strength, not yet. Just resolve. A quiet, painful resolve.

I straightened my back, wiping at my tears with the back of my hand. My voice, when it came, was small but steady.

“Then tonight,” I whispered, staring at the man who had forsaken me, “I stop begging.”

He didn’t turn and didn’t follow as I walked past him. He didn’t even call my name.

And with every step I took down the long hall of our loveless home, I realized this was the night everything changed.

This was the night I would walk away.