Chapter 1

Estelle’s POV

When I brought out the birthday cake, ready to surprise my husband Harrison who had just come home from work with the news of our baby, he slapped it from my hands, frosting splattering across my face as he demanded, “How long have you been fucking my friend?”

“What—” I wiped the frosting from my face, confused.

“You and Michael,” he snarled. “How long!?”

“There’s nothing going on, you’re getting it all wrong!” I said, watching the vein beside his Adam’s apple twitch as he swallowed hard.

He pulled out a stack of photos and threw them at me. They slid down my chest and fell to the floor. I hesitated, then crouched to pick one up.

It showed Michael and me sitting at a café downtown. His hand was on mine across the table, our fingers nearly interlaced. He was leaning in close, close enough that someone watching might think we were having an intimate conversation.

I’d never been to that café in my life. I’d never held Michael’s hand. The last time I even saw him was last year.

“That’s not real,” I said. “Harrison, that photo is fake. That never happened.”

“Really?” He laughed. “Because it looks pretty clear to me.”

“It’s fabricated! Someone made this. I don’t know how, but I’ve never—I would never—”

“I trusted you,” he said coldly as I stared wide-eyed at him. “I thought you were different from the other women. Virtuous. Loyal to your vows. Turns out you’re just as fickle and wanton as everyone else.”

“That’s not—” I had to stop and breathe. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” He walked past me. “I want a divorce.”

The word didn’t make sense. I heard it, but my brain wouldn’t process it.

“What?”

“You heard me.” He was pulling out his phone again, scrolling through something, not even looking at me.

“No. No, Harrison, you can’t—”

“Can’t?” His eyebrows went up. “I can’t divorce my cheating wife?”

My eyes welled. “I didn’t cheat! That photo isn’t real! Harrison, I’m begging you, please.” I took a step toward it. He moved back. “Please just give me some time to find out who took that photo, why they’d want to make it look like something it wasn’t—”

“You know what the worst part is?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want him to say whatever he was about to say.

“We’ve been married for three years now. Three whole years, and you still haven’t managed to give me a child.”

My hand twitched toward my stomach before I could stop it. I’d been about to tell him exactly that. That’s why I’d made the cake in the first place, why I’d been waiting by the door with a smile.

The pregnancy test was in my purse right this second, sitting on the kitchen counter just a few feet away.

“Do you still love me?” I croaked.

“No.” He didn’t even blink. “After this? No. I don’t.”

My chest seized up. I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste blood. “What if we had a child?”

“A child? Right now, you want to talk about having a child?” His lip curled up. “After what you did with Michael? Even if you told me you were pregnant right this second, Estelle, how the hell would I ever know if it was actually mine?”

The sob ripped out of me before I could stop it. I pressed both hands over my mouth hard but it didn’t help at all. My shoulders started shaking with the force of trying to hold everything in.

He left me sobbing there and disappeared into his office without a backward glance. I heard the sounds of drawers being yanked open, papers rustling as he searched for something.

When he emerged again just moments later, he was holding a folder filled with documents that were already prepared and waiting.

My hands trembled violently as I wiped my tears. I took the pen he offered and signed.

Harrison signed right after me.

His phone suddenly vibrated against the coffee table between us. The screen lit up and I saw the name displayed there before he could snatch it away. I froze.

Lyndsey.

His ex-girlfriend. The woman he’d dated for five years before he’d ever met me. The one his mother had absolutely adored and talked about constantly even after Harrison and I got engaged.

She was the most important person in his life.

I looked up at him slowly. “This was never really about the photo at all, was it?”

He didn’t deny what I’d said. He didn’t even try.

He just picked up his phone and silenced the call.

“You wanted an excuse to leave,” I rasped. “You needed some kind of justification so you could go back to her without looking like the bad guy.”

“Don’t be so dramatic about everything.”

“Dramatic?” I scoffed. “You just destroyed our marriage over a fake picture and now she’s calling you within seconds of us finishing the signatures.”

He grabbed his jacket. “I’m leaving now.”

“Of course you are. Of course.”

He walked to the door and pulled it open. He stepped halfway through the doorway and then suddenly stopped.

His hand tightened around the doorknob. He stood there frozen for what felt like an eternity, his back still turned toward me so I couldn’t see his face.

“What was it?” he asked without turning around. “That news you said you wanted to tell me earlier. What was it?”