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Chapter 2
Date de publication:
2026-07-21 23:42:23Audrey's POV
I barely slept.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same thing, and by the time morning came, I gave up trying altogether. With a sigh, I sat up in bed, only to notice several large gift boxes arranged neatly on the couch by the window.
Frowning, I climbed out of bed and walked over. The first box held a stunning black evening gown. The second contained a pair of heels, while the third revealed a diamond necklace with matching earrings.
There was also a designer handbag I had admired months ago, a bouquet of white roses, and finally, a small envelope. My fingers trembled as I opened it.
Happy Anniversary, Audy. Meet me tonight. Presidential Suite, 7:00 PM.
— Reid
I stared at the note for a long time. The presidential suite. The same hotel. The same place. My chest tightened.
Was this some kind of joke? Or had I misunderstood what I saw yesterday?
I hated myself for even thinking that, but doubt crept in anyway. This was Reid, the man I had loved for most of my life. He knew my favorite flowers and still left handwritten notes after three years of marriage.
Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe there was something I didn't know.
No! I wasn't going to make excuses for him. If he had an explanation, he would give it tonight. If he didn't...
Then I would finally know the truth.
By four o'clock, I started getting ready with the help of Ms. Patricia, our head housekeeper.
"Miss Audrey, are you sure you're okay?" she asked as she watched me fasten the necklace around my neck.
"I'm fine," I replied, meeting my reflection in the mirror.
"You haven't smiled once since I came in," she pointed out, folding her arms.
"There," I said, forcing a smile that felt anything but real.
"That one doesn't count," she replied, making me laugh despite myself.
"You worry too much," I said, shaking my head.
"I work for you. It's part of my job," she answered before stepping back to admire the gown. "Mr. Reid has excellent taste."
"Yes, he always has," I murmured, my stomach twisting at the mention of his name.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear before smiling gently.
"Whatever is bothering you, I hope tonight fixes it."
"I hope so too," I whispered, glancing at the anniversary note resting on the dresser.
The drive downtown was unusually quiet. At exactly seven o'clock, I stepped out of the elevator.The hallway was silent, but my heartbeat wasn't.
The suite door stood slightly open, and soft music drifted into the hallway. Taking a deep breath, I pushed it open. For a moment, I forgot why I had come.
Candles glowed around the room, flowers filled every corner, and dozens of photographs covered the walls. Pictures from our childhood, school days, college, our wedding, birthdays, vacations, and anniversaries told the story of our entire lives together.
My eyes burned. Then I remembered the video. I remembered Blair. The warmth disappeared instantly.
"You're here," Reid said as I looked up to find him standing beside the dining table.
"Yes," I replied quietly, refusing to move closer.
"You look beautiful," he said, his eyes lingering on me.
"Thank you," I answered without smiling.
"The dress looks perfect on you."
"You picked it," I reminded him.
"I did," he replied with a faint smile.
The old me would have crossed the room and wrapped my arms around him.
Tonight, I stayed exactly where I was. A flicker of confusion crossed his face before he gestured toward the table.
"Come sit," he said, pulling out a chair for me.
Dinner felt strangely normal. We talked, ate, and even laughed once or twice, which somehow made everything worse because Reid acted exactly like the man I had always known.
At one point, he picked up an old photograph of us at fourteen, covered in mud and grinning like idiots.
"Do you remember this?" he asked, smiling at the picture.
"You pushed me into the lake," I replied, folding my arms.
"I slipped," he argued.
"You pushed me."
"You have no proof," he said with a grin.
"Because my shoes were ruined," I reminded him after he mentioned how I had cried that day.
"And then you stole mine."
"They were compensation," I replied, almost smiling.
"You've always been impossible," he said, his eyes softening.
The words hurt more than they should have because everything felt so real.
If this was real... Then why Blair? I couldn't take it anymore. The pressure inside me finally broke.
"Why did you do it?" I asked, staring straight at him.
"What?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"Why did you cheat on me?" I demanded, refusing to look away.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, frowning.
"Don't pretend," I said as I opened the video on my phone and slid it across the table.
Neither of us spoke while it played. When it ended, Reid looked at the screen, then at me. His face remained completely unreadable.
"I see," he said at last, leaning back with a slow sigh.
"Say something," I whispered, my heart pounding.
"What exactly would you like me to say?" he asked calmly.
"Tell me I'm wrong," I pleaded, gripping the edge of the table.
He said nothing.
"Tell me there's an explanation," I continued, my voice shaking.
Silence.
"Tell me she means nothing."
"There is no point lying about it," he finally said, meeting my eyes.
The room spun.
"What?" I whispered, barely able to breathe.
"I have a mistress," he admitted without hesitation.
I stared at him, waiting for an apology, an excuse, anything.
Nothing came.
"That's it?" I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing.
"What else would you like me to say?" he replied, his expression unreadable.
"You betrayed me." I reminded him.
"I know."
"You cheated on me."
"Yes."
"And you're sitting there acting like it's nothing?" I asked, my voice breaking.
"I never intended to hide it forever," he admitted, looking away briefly.
"What?"
"I always knew this conversation would happen eventually." He replied nonchalantly.
I searched his face, hoping to find the man I married. Instead, I found a stranger.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
"I fell in love with someone else," he answered quietly.
My breath caught.
"You love her?" I asked, tears filling my eyes.
"Yes," he replied without hesitation.
That single word hurt more than discovering the affair because I could see the truth in his eyes. A tear slid down my cheek.
"Did you ever really love me?" I asked softly.
"I did," he answered after a long pause.
The past tense shattered something inside me.
"Then why?" I whispered. "Why would you do this to us?"
Silence settled between us as the candles flickered and the photographs surrounding us became cruel reminders of a life that no longer existed.
I looked at the man I had loved since childhood, the man I had trusted with my heart, my future, and everything I had.
"Tell me the truth, Reid," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
For a long moment, he simply looked at me before finally speaking.
"I stopped loving you the day your father killed my father."
Dernier chapitre
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 131
Chapter 131Audrey's POVReid stood there with a photograph of himself at seven, and I watched the color leave his face.I took it out of his hand before he could crush it."Don't," I said. "Not yet."I turned it over again and read the handwriting under the green light. Reid and W.B., August. He says hello."Your grandfather wrote this," I said. "He didn't write 'the caretaker.' He wrote initials. Like they had an understanding.""He's been dead nine years.""Then he kept in touch with a dead man for twenty-seven years." I made myself say it slowly. "Somebody taught him how."Reid said nothing. He took the old brass key out of his pocket and looked at it as if it had gone warm in his hand.I crouched by the back door. The prints in the dust were deep and unhurried, the left heel dragging in a long smear. Whoever left here hadn't been running. He'd been walking away from something finished.I followed them out into the cold.They crossed the grass and ran along the hedge to the gate a
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 130
Chapter 130Reid's POVAudrey had written four words on my mother's notepad, and I was going to follow them if it killed me.Say nothing true.She stood at the sink with her forehead against the glass. I crossed the kitchen without a sound and looked over her shoulder.A green light in the carriage house window. It blinked once, in time with the one on the table.I didn't ask what she saw. I took the pen out of her hand and wrote under her line.Carriage house. Who has the key?Behind us, my father hadn't moved. He sat like a man waiting for a verdict. I held the pad up where only he could see it, and his eyes went to the window, and something in his face gave way."Sterling," my mother said, loud and even. "Do you want tea?"It was the steadiest lie I had ever heard. I could have kissed her."Nobody moves until Daniels gets here," I said to the room, to the clock, to whoever was listening. "We sit. We wait.""Sensible," the box said, pleased.My father reached into his pocket and set
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 129
Chapter 129Audrey's POVI knew that laugh.My body knew it before I did. My stomach dropped the way it had at my own wedding, in a ballroom full of candlelight, when a man at the service door laughed once during my father's toast and I turned and found nobody there.Same laugh. Soft. Pleased. In no hurry at all.Reid's hand found my back. I didn't look at him. I was watching my father, who had pressed both palms flat against the table as if the wood might tilt."Sterling," Elena said. She was still holding the dish towel like a rope. "Who is it?"I had seen Sterling Calloway face boardrooms and lawyers and, once, a hurricane. I had never seen him look like this. He looked like a man hearing a door open in a house he had sold years ago."Walter Brandt," he said.Nobody spoke."The caretaker. He had keys to everything. The gym, the boiler room, the main switch." He swallowed. "He caught me at the gym door at half past one and told me the party was over. Told me there was nobody inside.
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 128
Reid's POVI had spent six years building a speech for this man.I rehearsed it in boardrooms, in the car, in the shower. Every version began with Thane Whitlock sitting exactly where he was sitting now, unable to look at me. None of them had a green light in it, or my mother beside Sterling holding a dish towel like a rope."Go on, Thane," the voice said again from behind the clock. Soft, patient, wearing Thane's own warmth. "Tell them why."Thane flinched. It was small, but I saw it travel through his whole body, and I understood something I hadn't wanted to. Hearing his own voice come out of that box was the cruelest thing the man had done all night. He knew exactly where to press."That isn't me," Thane said.Nobody answered."It has my voice. It doesn't have me." He spoke toward the clock but looked at Sterling. "I'm not telling this to you, whoever you are. I'm telling it to him."The light stayed green and steady."Good," Audrey whispered beside me. I hadn't noticed her move so
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 127
Audrey's POVReid opened the envelope standing at the kitchen counter, with his back to the room.I watched his shoulders. He was a man who spent every day deciding what his face would do, and he had trained that discipline into his whole body. His shoulders gave him away, as they always did. They dropped half an inch and stayed there."What is it?" Elena said.He didn't answer. He turned and laid it on the table, face up, between the untouched cups.A photograph. Glossy, a little grainy, the kind of print made from a small sensor in poor light. It showed this kitchen from above and slightly behind. It showed the table. Thane sat with his hands flat on the wood and his head half turned. Sterling had his chin on his chest. Elena's hand lay over his, and her face was turned away.I was in the corner of the frame, a pale shape on the left with my eyes on my father.A line of white digits ran along the bottom edge. 05:38."That's when Sterling told us about the grass," I said."Yes," Reid
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 126
Reid's POVI was in the hall before the third ring ended.I don't remember deciding to move. Behind me a chair scraped, and Audrey said my name, and my father said something I didn't catch. I kept walking. The study door stood open, and the black phone sat on the desk with its cord on the carpet, dead as a stone.It rang a fourth time.It wasn't the phone. The sound came from behind the bookcase, small and tinny, a ring trying very hard to be the one I'd grown up with. My father had owned that telephone since before I could read. I used to lie on this floor and listen to it ring.I knelt and looked.The black box was still taped to the junction, but a red light the size of a pinhead had come on in its corner. A speaker grille no bigger than a thumbnail was ringing at me."It's not connected to anything," Sterling said from the doorway. He had followed me, and Audrey was behind him with her hand on his arm. "Reid. It's a recording.""I know.""Then don't touch it."I didn't touch the b
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