On our tenth anniversary, I came home with roses and the biggest deal of my career. I expected celebration. Instead, I found my husband in bed with my cousin. They looked at me like I was the one who had interrupted something that mattered. That night, I walked away from the man I thought loved me and the company I built. They thought I vanished. They rebranded everything in my absence, twisted the story, and erased my name from what I created. But I did not disappear. I became Juliana Cross. And I am not here to beg for what was mine. I am here to take it all back.
View MoreToday was supposed to be unforgettable.
I had just closed a thirty billion dollar contract, the largest deal my company had ever secured. It had taken months of negotiations, countless revisions, and a final pitch that stretched every ounce of energy I had. But in the end, I succeeded. The deal was sealed, signed before noon, and already making waves. I spent the rest of the afternoon in my office, replaying different ways I would tell Roman. I could already picture the way his smile used to stretch across his face when I accomplished something big. He always said no one could close a deal like I did, no one could turn numbers into poetry the way I managed to. Back then, he said it with pride in his voice. I wondered if he would say it again tonight. It was our anniversary, and for the first time in a long while, I felt proud. I felt like I had achieved something meaningful. Three years of marriage and ten years of shared history had shaped our lives. We had grown up side by side. We built something together, or at least I believed we did. After Roman lost his parents at a young age, my family took him in and treated him like one of their own. He was at every celebration, every milestone, and every awkward holiday dinner. He was the boy who stood beside me in school photos and the man who stood waiting at the altar on the day we exchanged vows. After college, I poured my soul into building my textile company from the ground up. I brought Roman into the company as a board member, not because he earned it, but because he was my husband. I trusted him. I believed in our future. I truly thought we were building something lasting. On the drive home, I had roses in the passenger seat and a smile on my face, one I hadn’t worn in months. But as I pulled into the driveway, a strange unease settled over me. The house looked exactly the same as always. The white walls stood pristine, the porch lights glowed warmly, and everything appeared untouched. Yet the silence pressed against the windows, heavy and unnerving. The air around me felt colder, as if something invisible was warning me to turn around. I stepped out of the car slowly. My heels clicked softly against the concrete, and the bouquet of flowers I bought him rested in my hand. When I reached the door, I noticed it was unlocked. That was strange. Roman never left the door unlocked. My heart began to beat faster, thudding hard against my chest. The living room lights were on, but he wasn’t there. There was no music playing, no scent of food coming from the kitchen, and no sign of his shoes by the entryway. I called his name, soft and cautious, wondering if he might be asleep somewhere in the house. There was no response. I walked up the stairs slowly, each step making my skin crawl with tension. Just before I reached the landing, I heard a low laugh. It was soft and familiar, unmistakably feminine. A sharp knot twisted in my stomach. I couldn’t tell whether the sensation was dread or anxiety, but every part of me was suddenly alert. My pulse began to pound in my ears, steady and deafening. Even though I didn’t want to believe it, I had already started to understand what I was walking toward. The door to our bedroom was partially open. I reached out and pushed it the rest of the way. That was the moment everything fell apart. Roman was in bed with Alessia. My husband and my cousin were tangled together on the sheets I had chosen for us, on the bed we once shared. My brain struggled to register the sight in front of me. I stood there, motionless, unable to speak, unable to think. Neither of them moved. They saw me. They didn’t flinch. They didn’t bother to cover themselves. They just stared at me, lounging across the bed as though I had barged in uninvited. As though I was the one who didn’t belong. Alessia sat up slowly, her long dark hair cascading over her bare shoulders. She didn’t reach for the covers out of shame. She didn’t look guilty or startled. She smiled, smug and calm. Roman met my eyes, then leaned back against the headboard. He looked at me with the same expression he wore when watching the news or waiting for a drink to arrive. Detached. Unbothered. For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe. “What is going on?” I asked, my voice barely audible. Alessia answered before he could say anything. That didn’t surprise me. “We’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said, her tone smooth and rehearsed. “It just never felt like the right time.” She stood from the bed and wrapped the sheet around herself, moving without any urgency. It was the Egyptian cotton set I had picked out myself. A wedding gift from my parents. “You were supposed to be at work,” she added, like my early return was the biggest offense in the room. Roman stood up with no apology in his eyes. “You’ve been so busy. The company takes everything from you.” I stared at him in disbelief. “So this is how you deal with it? You sleep with my cousin?” Alessia let out a quiet laugh. “Oh, please, Noelle. Spare us the drama. You’ve always acted like the world revolved around you. Your company, your deals, your reputation. You didn’t even see how miserable he was.” “I saw it,” I said, my voice firm. “I saw it in the way he stopped looking at me. I noticed when he began staying out late and blaming meetings that never existed.” Roman’s jaw tensed. “You never listened. You talked about contracts and expansion all day. You would come home and fall asleep before I could even say goodnight.” “And that gave you permission to betray me with my own blood?” I demanded. Alessia rolled her eyes. “You never appreciated what you had. You always made it seem like Roman was lucky to be with you, but you were the lucky one.” I turned toward her, the anger building in my chest. “You were a child when you came to us. My parents took you in when no one else would. You had nothing. We gave you everything.” “They loved me for it,” she replied coldly. “They loved me more than they ever loved you.” Her words struck hard. I felt them deep in my chest, like a blow I hadn’t braced for. I swallowed back the sting and stood tall. Roman stepped between us with his arms crossed. “We didn’t plan for this to happen. It just did. Maybe it’s what we all needed.” I laughed bitterly, the sound scraping my throat. “You really think this is a clean break? That this is your fresh start?” He didn’t speak. “I let you into my life. I let you into my company. I trusted you, and now you both stand there like you’ve achieved something.” Alessia narrowed her eyes. “Maybe we have.” My hand twitched at my side, the temptation to strike her almost overwhelming. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction. I wouldn’t let them see how much they had cracked me. I looked at the two of them. At the bed we used to share. At the life I thought we had. “You can keep the bed,” I said. “You’ll need something familiar when everything else is gone.” They didn’t respond. I turned and walked away. I descended the stairs in silence and stepped out into the night. The air was cool against my skin. For the first time in years, I felt entirely alone. I sat in my car, my hands trembling, my thoughts scattered. Everything I had built, everything I believed in, had collapsed in the space of a single moment. There was nothing to return to. I started the engine. I pulled out of the driveway and drove away without looking back. But just before I turned the corner, something made me check the rearview mirror. The upstairs bedroom light was still on. Their shadows moved behind the curtains. And then I saw her. Alessia stood in the window, her arms wrapped around Roman’s waist, her face tilted downward toward the street. She was smiling. She lifted her hand and waved at me. As if she had won. That was the moment my hands stopped shaking. That was the moment I knew I wasn’t going to cry. I was going to bury them both with everything they stole from me.The gallery still smelled faintly of fabric and wood when I returned the next afternoon to begin packing the pieces for shipment home. The air felt gentler than it had during the evening of the presentation, but the memory of it lingered in the walls. I could almost hear the soft footsteps of guests as they moved between the displays, the way they leaned in to examine a stitch or let their fingers drift lightly over the edge of a hem.Julian was near the entrance, speaking quietly with one of the organizers. They were discussing the logistics of returning the Kyoto silk to the boutique without any damage, as well as the insurance arrangements for the museum piece. I kept my hands busy, running them gently along the fabric to check for any signs of wear from curious hands the night before.It was the kind of morning I liked. No rush. No cameras. Just the work being cared for before it went back to its place.The sound of the door opening behind me did not match the stillness of the spa
The city looked different when you entered it slowly. I had been to Milan before, but always in the blur of shows and deadlines, always rushing from one venue to another, barely noticing the streets between. This time I stepped out of the car at my own pace, carrying nothing more than a small suitcase and the sketchbook I had brought from Kyoto.The air was warm but not heavy, the late afternoon light casting soft gold against the pale stone of the buildings. Julian walked beside me, our driver already taking our luggage to the small boutique hotel I had chosen instead of one of the larger ones the organizers had suggested. I wanted space that felt personal, not a lobby full of names and cameras.Inside the hotel, the reception was quiet. The woman at the desk welcomed us with a gentle smile and handed over a single key. The room upstairs was simple — white walls, wooden floors, a single vase of fresh flowers on the desk. I set my sketchbook there before looking out the window. From h
The letter from Milan stayed on my desk for three days before I even tried to answer it. I kept it beside the Kyoto sketchbook, where the pages still held faint traces of dye at the corners. Every morning when I sat down with my coffee, it was there, the embossed seal catching the morning light, waiting. Every evening, when I closed the sketchbook, the letter stayed in place, unread for a fourth or fifth time.It was not uncertainty about whether I would go. I knew I would. The moment I opened it in the boutique, I had felt that quiet pull in my chest. What I was still working through was how I would go, and on what terms.Julian found me on the fourth morning in the same spot, a mug cooling beside my hand. He was carrying two fresh mugs of tea, steam curling above them. He set one in front of me before taking the chair opposite the desk.“Still thinking?” he asked.“Yes,” I said, without looking away from the letter.“What’s left to decide?”“My pace,” I told him. “If I go as they ex
The morning after Julian’s speech, the boutique felt unusually still. There was no hum of early customers yet, no footsteps on the pavement outside, just the faint sound of the kettle coming to boil in the back. I had arrived earlier than usual, partly because I wanted the quiet and partly because my mind was still turning over the words Julian had spoken the night before.He had surprised me — not with what he said, because I knew those truths already, but with how openly he gave them to a room of strangers. He had always been steady, but his steadiness was often private. Seeing him put it into words had stayed with me in a way I had not expected.I was halfway through arranging the scarves near the window when Claudia came in. She was carrying a paper bag from the bakery down the street, the kind that always smelled faintly of warm bread even before it was opened.“Still thinking about last night?” she asked, setting the bag on the counter.“Is it that obvious?” I said.“You have be
I had not planned on going. The invitation had come weeks earlier from the local arts council, asking if I would be willing to speak about the boutique’s work with traditional artisans. Before I could even reply, Julian had already said yes — not for me, but for himself. It was the first time he had agreed to speak publicly about what we had built together.When he told me, I was surprised. Julian was not the kind of man who enjoyed standing in front of a room and delivering prepared remarks. His strength was in the work itself, the quiet persistence, the unseen decisions that shaped the direction of our life. Yet here he was, telling me with a calm certainty that it was time.The evening was cool when we walked to the small cultural center where the event was being held. The building was old but well kept, the kind of place that smelled faintly of wood polish and paper. Inside, the main hall had been arranged with rows of chairs facing a modest stage. A podium stood at the front, a s
I had not seen Celia in almost four years. The last time we spoke, it had been over a quick coffee before I left the city, back when my name was still circulating in places I no longer wanted to be. We had promised to keep in touch, but promises like that often lose their shape once life begins to pull you in different directions.She had sent a short message a week ago. Heard you are back in the city for good. Dinner? My treat. It made me smile because she had always been the kind of friend who thought a simple meal could stitch time back together.The restaurant was small, tucked into a side street with a single gold sign above the door. I arrived early and chose a table near the window. The air smelled faintly of roasted garlic and lemon. Outside, the streetlight cast a soft circle on the pavement.Celia walked in exactly on time. She looked almost the same, her hair pulled back, her stride quick and certain. She saw me immediately and came over, her smile widening as she reached f
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