The Sullied Marriage

The lunch box fell from my hands and smacked against the floor.

The bone broth I'd spent all night simmering splashed across my feet, and the scalding pain had me drenched in sweat.

"Why did you want me to see this?" My voice was shaking badly.

Yesterday, he'd made a point of asking me to bring him lunch. He'd wanted me to walk in on this.

Hearing my question, Scott Brophy sneered, not bothering to move from his intimate position. "You've dragged Kelsey's name through the mud. If nothing actually happened between us, Kelsey would be suffering for nothing."

Was she the only one who'd been wronged?

In seven years of marriage, his texts to me had never run longer than a single word.

Yet he could send Kelsey sixty-second voice messages just to tell her bedtime stories.

When I was burning up with a fever of nearly 40 degrees Celsius, he was on the phone with Kelsey, telling her how good she looked in her lace nightgown.

When I hemorrhaged during a difficult labor, he didn't have time to sign the consent form. He was too busy running off to take care of Kelsey's pet.

And I lost my only child.

The tension in the room reached a breaking point.

Scott finally, reluctantly let Kelsey get up. As he smoothed down the hem of her dress, he tossed the used condom into the trash.

"Yesterday, you tagged her in the comments under the company's official website and wrote all those insulting things about her. Did you really think that would be the end of it?"

I stared at the red hickey on his half-bared chest, my heart pounding in panic. "Then what do you want?"

Scott casually picked up the panties Kelsey had taken off and tossed them at me. "I want you to wash these while you apologize to Kelsey."

The next second, the blinds that had been shut tight were pulled open. The company's employees crowded around to watch the show.

The moment the panties touched my skin, my stomach churned.

Scott sneered and lowered his voice. "Too dirty for you? Those ninety-nine intimate photos of you were a lot dirtier than this, weren't they?"

I covered my mouth and looked up at him in shock.

Back when someone blackmailed me and took intimate photos of me, Scott had nearly gotten himself killed getting them back.

He'd held me when I wanted to end my life, telling me over and over, "You're not dirty. You're not dirty at all, Jennifer."

The same man. The same mouth. Yet the words coming out of it now left me unable to breathe.

Staring at the basin of water in front of me, I swallowed my pride and started scrubbing, bit by bit.

The employees around us kept shooting me strange looks.

With Scott urging me on, I once again pulled out my phone and pointed it at his and Kelsey's faces. "I apologize to Kelsey Rowe. I shouldn't have barged in while she and my husband were screwing around in his office and ruined their fun."

Scott kicked the basin over with a crash, sending water everywhere, and flung my phone aside. "Jennifer, when is this going to end?!"