Chapter 1

Madison's POV

Twenty minutes of silence passed before my phone blew up with messages.

“That’s impossible!

“I would never do such a thing! This isn’t who I am!

“My heart belongs to you, Madison. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Don’t you remember that we—”

I didn’t bother to read on.

By then, the sweaty bedroom workout was over.

Julian Lorde slicked his sweat-drenched hair back and ruffled the woman’s hair.

“Trish, my wife is back. Say hello.”

Trisha Walker turned and greeted me sweetly.

Her gaze, sparkling with smugness, met mine.

Not responding to her aggression, I simply stepped out of the room.

About ten minutes later, Trisha emerged, properly clothed.

While brushing past me, she sneered under her breath, “It’s so sad that you have to make way for your husband to sleep with another woman.”

I said nothing, my expression blank with a familiar, habitual numbness.

My phone showed ninety-nine messages from the Julian of five years ago.

The last text all but screamed that Julian was falling apart.

“Kick her out, please? Madison, please. Don’t look. It’s filthy…”

I tapped the screen and typed a response with composure.

“She’s not the first woman you brought home and definitely not the last.

“If I had to go out of my way to kick out every woman you slept with, I’d be exhausted.”

The younger Julian pleaded in anguish, “But how could this happen? I’ve been trying to date you for five years. I would never dream of hurting you.

“There’s no way in hell I would ever cause you pain!”

Speaking of which, I glanced at the man stepping out of the bathroom before dropping my gaze to type on my phone.

“Do you know who the last woman you cheated on me with was?”

The silence stretched on, as though he were fighting a fierce battle within.

Young Julian texted back probingly, “Who was it?”

“Cammie, my school bully.”

…

A split second later, my phone buzzed relentlessly.

His cracked voice boomed from the receiver, bordering on a sob.

“There is zero chance I would ever get involved with Cammie. Madison, I hate her more than anyone in the world.

“Do you know how much it hurt me to see you shaking when I rescued you from the sports storage room?

“At the time, I wanted to kill her so badly.

“How could I ever end up with a woman I hate to my very core?”

I listened quietly before filling in the rest of the details.

“After graduation, you ran into Cammie getting roughed up in an alley near a bar.

“You felt sorry for her, so you took her home.

“I remember it vividly. It was April 27th.”

The line went dead for a while.

Julian’s voice came back on, his tone laced with a sliver of hope amid his despair.

“That was your birthday. Surely, I must have remembered to prepare a surprise for you.”

I grinned.

“You certainly did.

“You spent the night with Cammie, on the bed we were supposed to share as husband and wife.”