Chapter 4

All Chloe had to do was mention that she liked something, and Julian would buy it for her without a second thought.

Once, she'd admired a diamond necklace in passing. By the end of the day, he'd bought it for her. It was worth seven figures.

This was the same man who'd always insisted on keeping our relationship strictly professional at the office.

I wasn't supposed to linger in his office or speak to him unless it was about work. Even after ten years of marriage, I was expected to call him "Mr. Winslow" in front of our colleagues.

Chloe, meanwhile, could stroll into his office whenever she pleased and teasingly call him "Jules".

He never corrected her. He even took her out for lunch in the middle of the workday, then disappeared with her to catch an afternoon movie as if he didn't have a company to run.

Lost in thought, I accidentally let the bracelet slip from my fingers.

When I bent down to pick it up, something caught my eye. Part of the gold finish had chipped away. Underneath was a dark, cheap-looking metal.

I stared at it for a long moment before I chuckled.

The one gift I'd treasured all these years was fake.

I'd spent years clinging to a marriage that had never been what I thought it was, refusing to let go long after there was nothing left worth saving.

At least I'd finally seen it for what it was.

I dropped the bracelet into the trash and took every photograph of Julian and me that I'd packed away over the years and cut them to pieces.

Just as I finished, my phone buzzed.

Chloe had posted something new on Instagram.

In the photo, Julian was holding Daisy in his arms while she happily wiped her greasy fingers all over his custom-tailored suit. Instead of getting annoyed, he was looking at her with an indulgent smile.

Chloe sat close beside him, laughing as she held a bite of steak up to his mouth with her own fork. Julian ate it without hesitation.

I stared at the picture, struck by the bitter irony of it all.

Julian had always claimed to be a germaphobe.

Once, when our daughter was still alive, she'd tried to surprise him by making him coffee. She accidentally spilled some on his shoes.

Julian had been furious. He berated her until she cried, then shut her away in the basement for the rest of the day as punishment. She hadn't even been given dinner.

After that day, her health was never quite the same. She became frail and seemed to get sick constantly.

It wasn't only our daughter, either. Once, I'd accidentally taken a sip from Julian's glass instead of my own.

He'd looked at me with open disgust, then dropped the glass straight into the trash. "That's disgusting."

Those words had stayed with me for years.

Now I looked at the picture of Chloe feeding him from her own fork, and everything finally made sense.

Julian had never been disgusted by germs.

He'd been disgusted by us. By his own wife and daughter.

I let out a humorless laugh and tapped the heart beneath Chloe's post.

If anything, the picture only made me more certain that leaving was the right decision.

I finished packing as quickly as I could. By the time I was done, exhaustion had caught up with me, so I took a long, hot shower, climbed into bed, and fell asleep almost immediately.

I hadn't been asleep for long when someone started pounding on the front door.

I didn't need to check to know it was Julian.

He knew the security code. He'd just never liked bothering with it when I was home.

For years, he hadn't even needed to knock. All he had to do was call my name, and no matter what I was doing, I'd hurry downstairs to let him in.

Not tonight. I rolled over, pulled the covers higher, and closed my eyes again.

I was just beginning to drift back to sleep when my bedroom door suddenly flew open.

A second later, the lights came on. I squinted against the brightness to find Julian standing in the doorway, visibly furious.

"Claire, are you deaf?" he snapped. "I know you were awake. Why didn't you come downstairs and let me in?"

The sudden burst of light jolted me awake.

I'd been sleeping so deeply that I genuinely hadn't heard him knocking.

I blinked up at Julian, surprised to find him standing there with a stormy expression.

He actually came home. That was new.

Whenever Julian went out with Chloe, he usually found some excuse to spend the night at her place.

Sometimes Chloe was supposedly afraid of thunderstorms and didn't want to be alone. Other times, Julian claimed it wasn't safe for a young woman to spend the night by herself, so naturally, he had to stay and "make sure she was okay."

There was always a reason.

Our daughter had once begged him to come home because she was afraid of the dark. She'd been five.

Julian had dismissed her fears as childish and insisted that coddling her would only make things worse. He claimed she needed to learn to be brave.

His idea of teaching her courage was to shut her alone in a dark room when I wasn't there to stop him.

After that, she developed a terrible fear of enclosed spaces. For a long time, she would wake from nightmares in the middle of the night, crying and terrified.

Back then, the hypocrisy would have driven me crazy.

Chloe could mention the slightest fear, and Julian would drop everything to stay by her side. But when his own five-year-old daughter needed him, he'd treated her fear like a character flaw.

Once, I would have fought with him over it.

Tonight, I couldn't bring myself to care what Julian did or where he chose to sleep.

"Mm-hmm." I pulled the covers over my head, turned away from him, and went back to sleep.