THE BARREN EX-WIFE WHO CAME BACK

VANESSA'S POV

"Tell me, Vanessa—does my brother fuck you better than I do?"

I froze in the doorway.

I'd just come back from the hospital.

The pain from the miscarriage I'd had six months ago still hadn't gone away, and today it had been unbearable. I'd been vomiting and feeling pain in my stomach for hours. The doctor had run several tests, examining me while I tried not to break down on that cold table.

And now my husband stood in our living room asking me something that didn't make any sense.

"What?" I whispered.

Sebastian turned around, and the look on his face stopped my heart. I'd never seen him look at me like this—with pure hatred and disgust, as if I were the most vile thing he'd ever seen.

That's when I noticed he was shirtless.

His hair was also messy and wet, as though he'd just stepped out of the shower, but there was something else.

He looked as though he'd just had sex.

I pushed the thought away immediately. He'd probably just worked out or something, and I was being paranoid because of the way he was looking at me.

"You heard me, Vanessa." His voice was ice cold as he snapped again. "Does Nicholas fuck you better than I do?"

Nicholas.

His estranged brother.

The brother I'd never met in our three years of marriage. The brother whose name was forbidden in this house. The brother who'd been disowned by their late father and cut out of the family completely.

I knew they hated each other.

I'd heard Nicholas had done something terrible—something my husband would never talk about, something that had destroyed their relationship beyond repair. That was all I knew. Sebastian had made it clear from day one that Nicholas was dead to him and I was never to mention his name.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied, my voice trembling as my purse fell from my hand and hit the floor.

"Stop lying!" His voice exploded through the room, making me flinch in fear. "Don't you dare stand there and lie to my face, Vanessa!"

"I'm not lying! I don't understand what you're even—"

He grabbed his laptop from the coffee table and stormed toward me, shoving the screen in my face. "Then explain your sex tape with him!"

My heart skipped a beat.

I looked at the screen and my entire world stopped.

It was a video, paused on a woman in bed with a man, both of them naked and tangled in white sheets.

The woman in the sex tape looked exactly like me.

Not similar.

Not kind of like me.

She looked exactly like me.

We had the same face, same hair, same body, and she had the same birthmark on her shoulder that I'd had since birth.

Everything was insanely identical.

"That's not me," I breathed, my hands starting to shake. "I've never—"

"LOOK AT IT!" he roared. "Look at your own goddamn face and tell me that's not you!"

"It's not! I swear to God, I don't know who that woman is, but it's not—"

He pressed play.

The woman moaned loudly as the man thrust into her. Her face was turned toward the camera—my face—twisted in pleasure. The angle captured everything: her body, his body, the way she clawed at his back, the way he gripped her hips.

"Yes! Nicholas! Oh fuck, yes! You taste better than Sebastian, your brother."

I couldn't believe my eyes.

My heart stopped.

My legs almost gave out. That voice, those features, that body—it looked so real, so completely identical to me that for a split second, I almost believed it myself.

"Stop," I whispered as tears already started streaming down my face. "Please stop the video, Sebastian."

But he didn't.

He let it play continuously and I watched the woman screaming Nicholas's name, begging him not to stop, telling him how good he felt. The explicit, graphic sounds of their bodies moving together filled our living room.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn't, because that face staring back at me was mine.

"I can't believe you'd do this to me, Vanessa," Sebastian growled, his voice shaking with rage. "This sex tape was from August fifteenth. Where were you that night, Vanessa?"

August fifteenth.

My mind raced, desperately trying to remember. August—that was before the miscarriage, before everything fell apart.

What had I been doing that day?

Then it hit me.

"I was with Isabella," I answered quickly. "I was with Isabella, my best friend. We went out that night. She was with me the entire time."

And it was the truth.

I was actually with Isabella throughout that night.

"You were with your best friend?" He laughed bitterly. "How fucking convenient, Vanessa!"

"It's the truth! She can tell you! We were together all night, I swear—"

"You swear?" He grabbed my chin roughly, forcing me to look at the screen where the woman was now on top, riding Nicholas with such passion. "You swear on what? On our marriage? On our baby you lost? How many more lies are you going to tell me?"

"I'm not lying!" Tears were pouring down my face now. "Please, you have to believe me. That's not me in that video. I've never even met Nicholas. You've never introduced us. In the three years of our marriage, I've never even—"

"Because I knew!" he shouted. "I knew the second he saw you, he'd try to take you from me! Nicholas has spent his entire life trying to destroy everything I have! Our father disowned him because he's a snake, a manipulative bastard who ruins everything he touches! And I was right, wasn't I? The moment I turned my back, you ran straight to him!"

"No! I didn't! I would never—"

"Oh, shut up and stop lying to me, Vanessa!"

"I'm not lying, Sebastian!" I sobbed. "Please, I'm begging you. Let me call Isabella. She'll tell you where I was. She'll prove I'm not lying—"

"No!" He stepped toward me, blocking my path. "You're not calling anyone."

"Why not?" My voice cracked. "If you want the truth, let me call her! She'll tell you I was with her that night!"

"I don't want to hear more lies from your lying mouth or from whatever friend you've told to lie for you!"

"I haven't told anyone to lie for me!" I replied and fumbled for my phone with shaking hands. "I'm calling my best friend right now and you're going to hear the truth from her!"

"Vanessa, don't—"

But I'd already dialed Isabella's number and pressed call.

The phone rang once.

And then I heard it.

I heard her ringtone coming from inside the house.

From upstairs.

My blood turned to ice.

"What…" I looked up at the ceiling, then at my phone, then back up again. Isabella's ringtone—the one I'd set specifically for her—was playing in my house right now.

But that was impossible.

Isabella had told me she was in the Maldives. She'd left for her holiday two weeks ago and had sent me pictures from the beach yesterday. She wasn't supposed to be back for another week.

"Her phone is here?" I whispered.

The ringing continued, coming from the second floor and growing louder with each passing second.

It was coming from my bedroom.

My heart skipped a beat.

"Vanessa, wait—" Sebastian tried to stop me, but I was already moving.

My feet carried me toward the stairs as my heart pounded so violently I thought I might collapse. This had to be a mistake, a misunderstanding. There had to be an explanation.

"Vanessa, stop!" he called after me, but I didn't stop.

I couldn't stop.

I ran up the stairs, nearly tripping over my own feet. The ringing was getting louder and closer with each step I took.

"VANESSA!" His voice was desperate now, panicked, but I didn't care.

I reached the bedroom door.

My hand touched the knob.

And I pushed it open.

Isabella was in my bed.

Naked.

Her blonde hair was spread across my pillows and her body was barely covered by my sheets. Her lips were swollen and red, and she looked exactly like someone who'd just had sex.

In my bed.

In my matrimonial bed.

The bed I shared with my husband.

For a moment, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't process what I was seeing.

This was my best friend. The girl I'd grown up with. The girl who'd held me when I cried about the miscarriage. The girl who'd promised me everything would be okay.

"Isabella?"

She suddenly turned to look at me, and for just a second—one tiny second—I saw something flash across her face.

Guilt, shame, regret maybe.

"Vanessa!" She sat up quickly, clutching the sheet to her chest, her eyes wide with what looked like shock. "Oh my God, this isn't—I can explain—"

"Explain what?" My voice came out strangled. "Why are you naked in my bed? Why are you even in my house?"

"I—" She looked around frantically, as though she were searching for an excuse. "I came back early from the trip and I wasn't feeling well, so I—"

"You weren't feeling well so you got naked in my bed?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Isabella, what the hell is going on?"

"Vanessa, please, just listen—"

"Stop lying to me!" I screamed. "Just stop lying!"

Everything clicked into place.

The way my husband was shirtless when I came home. His wet and messy hair. The smell of sex clinging to him. The way he'd tried to stop me from calling her. The panic in his voice when I ran upstairs.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

He'd just been with her.

My husband had just had sex with my best friend.

"You slept with him?" I asked in shock, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat. "You slept with my husband?"

Isabella's face suddenly changed.

The fake concern, the pretend shock—it all melted away like a mask being removed. What was left behind was cold, cruel, and completely ruthless.

She smiled.

She actually smiled.

"Yes," she answered simply. "I did."

My heart sank.

It literally felt as though it were falling through my body, leaving a gaping hole in my chest.

"Your husband is incredible, by the way." Isabella added as she sat up slowly, letting the sheet fall completely as she exposed her nakedness without shame. "He really knows how to make a woman scream in bed. He's so hot!"

I stumbled backward, my hand flying to my mouth in shock as nausea rolled through me.

I couldn't believe what she'd just said.

"Get out!" I screamed in anger, my voice shaking with rage and grief. "Please leave my house right now, Isabella."

She didn't move.

Isabella didn't even flinch. She just looked at me with that cold, cruel smile still on her face.

"Actually, Vanessa," she said slowly, placing a hand on her stomach, "it might be you who's leaving."

"What?"

Her smile widened as she watched me, enjoying every second of my confusion and pain. Then she dropped the bomb.

"I'm pregnant with your husband's baby, Vanessa." She paused, her eyes shining with cruel satisfaction. "And don't worry—I'm not going to have a miscarriage like you did."

My world suddenly collapsed.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't even think.

My best friend was pregnant with my husband's baby.