Chapter 2: Caught In The Act

Verity didn’t sleep all through. She sat on the edge of the bed in the empty Central Park West penthouse until four in the morning, staring at the photo on her phone. Kingsley and Judith. Naked. Tangled together in the very sheets she had chosen herself. The image burned behind her eyelids every time she blinked.

By five o’clock she had booked the first flight to Los Angeles. She packed a small bag with shaking hands, not even sure what she threw inside. The cab ride to JFK passed in silence. On the plane, she stared out the window and replayed every moment of the last two years like a cruel movie she couldn’t pause.

How many nights had she waited up for him? How many times had she convinced herself that his distance was just stress from work? She had tried so hard. God, she had tried.

The arranged marriage had never been her dream, but she had believed it could become something real. Judith had sat her down in their family home at Marpleton Drive and looked her straight in the eyes. “Kingsley and I are over, Verity. It was just physical. He needs stability now, and the family business needs this alliance. You’ve always liked him. This could be good for you.”

Verity had believed her elder sister. She had trusted her.

The wheels touched down in Los Angeles just after noon. She drove straight to the house at Chalon Road in Bel Air — the luxurious matrimonial home she had once tried to make warm and welcoming. Her hands were steady on the steering wheel, but her heart hammered violently.

She didn’t knock. The moment she stepped inside, she heard sounds. Soft moans. The rhythmic sound of flesh against flesh. The unmistakable creak of their king-sized bed.

Verity walked down the hallway like someone moving through a nightmare. The bedroom door stood half-open. She pushed it wider.

Kingsley was on top of Judith, thrusting into her with a passion Verity had never experienced in their entire marriage. Judith’s legs were wrapped around his waist, her sleek black bob messy, her nails digging into his back. They hadn’t even noticed her yet.

For several long seconds, Verity just stood there, frozen.

Then Kingsley looked up. “Verity—” He jerked back, pulling out of Judith so fast he nearly fell off the bed. “Fuck. This isn’t— baby, wait—”

Judith sat up slowly, not even bothering to cover her breasts fully. She looked more annoyed than ashamed.

Verity’s voice came out surprisingly calm. “Get out of my bed.”

“Verity, please,” Kingsley begged, grabbing his boxers. His face had gone pale. “Let me explain. This… this got out of hand. I never meant for you to find out like this.”

“Find out?” Verity let out a bitter laugh that cracked in the middle. “You’ve been sleeping with my sister for two years. While I waited for you in New York. While I planned dinners and tried to be a good wife. While I stood alone at my first exhibition in two years because you said you would come.”

Kingsley stepped toward her, remorse written all over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I know I’ve been distant. I know I failed you. Judith and I… we have history. It started before the wedding and I couldn’t stop. But I do care about you. Please, just give me a chance to make this right.”

Verity stared at him. The man she had once admired from afar now looked small and pathetic, standing naked in another woman’s arms.

Judith finally spoke, pulling the sheet around her waist. “Look, Verity, it’s not as serious as you’re making it. Kingsley and I have always had this… thing. It’s just sex. The marriage was for the business, and you knew that.”

“I knew the marriage was arranged,” Verity said quietly. “But I didn’t know I was signing up to be a placeholder while my sister fucked my husband behind my back.”

She turned to Judith, the sister she had once looked up to. “You told me it was over. You looked me in the eyes and said I could marry him. You pushed me into this.”

Judith shrugged. “You wanted him. I gave you the green light.”

The words hit Verity like a slap.

At that moment, everything clicked into painful focus. The rare nights Kingsley had touched her, always quick, always distracted. The way he came home exhausted, smelling of perfume that wasn’t hers. The cold distance that had slowly killed her hope. He had been giving everything to Judith and bringing nothing home to her.

Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “I want a divorce,” she said, voice steady. “I want both of you out of this house by tonight.”

Kingsley reached for her arm. “Verity, don’t do this. We can fix it. I’ll end things with Judith right now. I swear.”

She pulled away from his touch like it burned her. “You should have ended it before you married me. Don’t you dare touch me again.”

Judith stood up, wrapping the sheet around herself like a toga. “You’re overreacting. Think about the family business. Think about what this will do to Mom and Dad.”

Verity looked at her sister for a long moment. The woman who had betrayed her so completely. “If you care so much about the family business, you should have married him instead of pushing me into this meaningless marriage in the first place. Now, get out of my house.”

She turned and walked out of the bedroom without looking back. Behind her, she heard Kingsley calling her name, his voice cracking with something that might have been real regret. But she didn’t stop.

Downstairs in the living room, Verity sank onto the sofa and finally let the tears come. They were quiet at first, then harder, shaking her whole body. Two years of loneliness, of trying, of hoping. All of it had been a lie.

But beneath the pain, something else was already forming. Anger. Clarity.

And a dangerous new desire that had started the night before when she watched Quentin dominate that woman in the club.

She wiped her face and picked up her phone. The divorce papers would be drawn up immediately. She was done waiting. Done hoping. Done being the second choice.

For the first time in her life, Verity Langford was choosing herself.