006

GERALD

My hands began to tremble as I continued scrolling, and then I came across one photograph that made something inside me break in a way I couldn’t explain.

She wasn’t merely kissing him in that picture; she was looking at him with an expression I had spent weeks convincing myself she still reserved for me. There was affection in her eyes, along with a tenderness that made it painfully obvious she wanted him.

Perhaps she even loved him.

My chest tightened until I struggled to draw a proper breath, and although my assistant seemed to be saying something beside me, his voice faded into the background as my mind dragged me back to the past.

Years ago, I had stood in almost the same position after discovering that Ophelia had cheated on me for the first time, and I remembered the humiliation, the anger, and the devastation that had followed me long after she was gone.

I remembered promising myself that I would never allow her to hurt me that way again, yet there I was, staring at another collection of photographs that proved I had made the same mistake all over again.

Not because she had forced me to trust her, and not because I hadn’t known what she was capable of, but because I had wanted so desperately to believe that she had changed.

I had chosen her.

I had believed her.

And I had thrown Calista away to do it.

My eyes closed as a painful breath escaped my lips, and for the first time since I had received the photographs, I felt something far worse than anger settle inside me.

Regret.

“Get out,” I muttered.

My assistant froze. “Sir?”

“Leave.”

He didn’t argue or ask another question before stepping away, and once the office door closed behind him, I was finally alone with the truth I had been trying so hard to avoid.

I stared at the photographs again, hoping that the longer I looked at them, the less real they would become, but nothing changed because there was no excuse this time, no misunderstanding, and no way to convince myself that I was simply allowing an old wound to cloud my judgment.

Ophelia had cheated on me.

Again.

And somehow, her betrayal wasn’t even the most painful part of it.

Calista was.

I could see her standing in front of me with those divorce papers in her hands, looking at me as though she were desperately trying to understand how I could discard three years of marriage without giving us a proper chance.

She had asked me why I couldn’t wait until the contract ended, and instead of giving her an answer that acknowledged the pain I was causing her, I had fed her some cold, heartless bullshit about choosing Ophelia.

I had believed I was choosing love, but as I stood there with the photographs burning into my mind, I finally understood how badly I had misunderstood everything.

I hadn’t chosen the woman Ophelia had become; I had chosen the woman I remembered, the woman who had once loved me before she betrayed me and left me questioning everything I thought I knew about love.

I had sacrificed the woman who had actually loved me for the memory of someone who had already shown me what she was capable of.

Calista had never cheated on me, nor had she ever humiliated me or demanded that I give her something I wasn’t ready to offer.

Instead, she had spent three years learning me, from my habits and routines to the little things I liked and the things I couldn’t stand.

She knew when I was tired even when I refused to admit it, and she could tell when I didn’t want to talk without forcing me to explain myself. She knew exactly how I took my coffee, and she remembered things I had mentioned in passing that I had long forgotten telling her.

She had paid attention to me in ways I hadn’t even realized until she was no longer around to do those little things.

And what had I given her in return?

I had called our marriage a contract, as though the agreement that brought us together had somehow made every feeling she developed for me less real.

I had convinced myself that because our marriage had started as an arrangement, everything she did afterward had been part of the deal, but now that I thought about it, I couldn’t understand how I had ever been so blind.

Had she really been pretending when she brought me breakfast at the office, or when she remembered the smallest details about my day, or when she stayed beside me even when I gave her every reason to walk away?

No.

Deep down, I knew she hadn’t been pretending.

She had chosen me, not because she was bound to me by a contract, but because she had wanted to be with me, and she had continued making that choice every single day.

Meanwhile, I had spent those same three years convincing myself that I could never love her the way she wanted me to.

My jaw tightened as the realization settled over me, and I felt so ashamed that I could barely stand to look at myself.

She had chosen me every single fucking day, and I had chosen someone else.

The thought hit me so hard that I had to sit down, and as I covered my face with both hands, a bitter laugh escaped my throat.

“Fuck.”

My voice cracked, and for a moment, I couldn’t do anything except sit there while my mind dragged up memories I would have given anything to forget.

I remembered the morning Calista had brought breakfast to my office, wearing that irritated expression she always tried to hide whenever I hurt her feelings. I remembered how she had stood there pretending that everything was fine even though I could see the disappointment in her eyes.

I remembered the way she had looked at me when I told her that our marriage was nothing more than a contract, as though my words had finally confirmed the fear she had been trying so hard to ignore.

She had stood at my bedroom door with that breakfast tray, and when I made it clear that I didn’t want anything more from her than the arrangement required, she had turned around and walked away before I could see how deeply I had hurt her.

At the time, I had convinced myself that I was doing the right thing because I didn’t want to lead her on when my heart supposedly belonged to someone else.

Now, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about how quickly she had walked away, how carefully she had hidden her pain, and how I had allowed her to leave my life without even trying to understand what she meant to me.

I had seen that she was hurting, and I had known I was the reason, yet I had still let her go because I believed Ophelia was the woman I loved.

My phone suddenly rang, dragging me out of my thoughts, and when I looked at the screen, I felt my stomach turn.

Ophelia.

For a few seconds, I considered letting the call ring until it stopped, but some foolish part of me still wanted to hear what she had to say, so I answered.

“What the fuck is this?”

Silence greeted me before she finally spoke.

“Gerald—”

“Don’t.”

My voice came out low and dangerously quiet, but I could barely recognize it because my anger was fighting against the pain threatening to consume me.

“Don’t even try to explain.”

“It’s not what you think.”

For one brief, humiliating second, I felt myself slipping back into the same hell I had endured years ago, and despite everything I had just seen, I almost allowed her words to weaken my resolve.

Then I heard the tremble in her voice, and something inside me stirred because I couldn’t tell whether she was crying or whether I was simply desperate enough to believe that she regretted what she had done.

My heart burned as I listened, and I hated myself for still reacting to her emotions after everything she had put me through.

This was what it meant to love someone who knew exactly how to reach the weakest parts of you, even after she had destroyed your trust more times than you cared to count.

A headache was beginning to pound behind my eyes, and all I wanted was to be left alone, away from her voice, away from the photographs, and away from the unbearable realization that I had destroyed my own happiness.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I managed to say.

“Gerald, please—”

“You cheated on me.”

She went silent, and when I let out a bitter laugh, the sound was so hollow that it made my chest ache.

“Again.”

She didn’t answer, and her silence hurt more than any denial could have because it left me alone with the truth I had been desperately hoping she would somehow disprove.

“You promised me you’d changed,” I continued, tightening my grip around the phone. “You looked me in the eyes and made me believe that you regretted what happened between us, and I was stupid enough to believe every word that came out of your mouth.”

“I have changed.”

“No,” I snapped, pushing myself to my feet. “You haven’t.”

“Gerald—”

“You haven’t changed at all!”

My voice cracked with anger, and I had to take a deep breath before I could continue because I could feel years of buried resentment rising to the surface.

“Years ago, you chose another man because he could give you something I couldn’t, and I spent years wondering what was wrong with me before I finally convinced myself that I had moved past it. Then you came back into my life, and I thought maybe you had finally understood what you’d thrown away. I thought you regretted hurting me, and I was foolish enough to believe that we could have another chance.”

My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles ached, but I barely noticed because the words pouring out of me had been trapped inside for far too long.

“I believed you, Ophelia. Do you understand that? I believed you even when every part of me should have known better.”

“I’m… sorry.”

I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I couldn’t bring myself to answer because some pathetic part of me was still waiting for an explanation that would make everything less painful.

Deep down, I wanted her to tell me that the photographs were a lie, that someone had deliberately set her up, or that there was some reasonable explanation for why she had been kissing another man.

I wanted to believe that this was a cruel joke, because if it wasn’t, then I had made the biggest mistake of my life, and I had nobody to blame for it except myself.

I had thrown away my marriage for her.

I had hurt Calista.

I had walked away from a woman who had loved me simply because I was too blind to recognize what I had right in front of me.

And now, after everything I had sacrificed, I was standing in the same place where Ophelia had left me years ago, except this time, I had destroyed something precious to get there.

“Don’t,” I finally said, opening my eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry as though those words are going to change anything.”

“Gerald, please listen to me—”

“Do you have any idea what I did because I believed you?”

She said nothing, so I continued, forcing the words out even though they tasted like poison.

“I divorced my wife.”

For a moment, there was nothing but silence between us, and I thought perhaps she had finally understood the gravity of what she had done.

Then she scoffed.

“Your wife?”

I froze.

“You didn’t give a fuck about her when you were with me on your so-called matrimonial bed, so why are you suddenly acting like she was some precious woman you never wanted to hurt?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.