All Chapters of Second Choice: Wife by contract: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

I don’t leave immediately. That’s the part no one talks about. The space between deciding and actually moving your body. I stand in the bedroom doorway with my heels still on, one strap twisted, my feet aching, the house too quiet for what just happened to us out there. The gala lights are still buzzing behind my eyes. Flashes. Smiles that hurt my cheeks. The way Ethan’s hand had tightened around mine like pressure could glue us together. I kick the heels off. One lands on its side. The other hits the wall and makes a small, stupid sound. It feels loud. Ethan is in the living room. I can hear him moving. Not pacing. Just… existing loudly. Drawers opening. A glass clinking. He doesn’t come in. He’s giving me space. Or bracing himself. Sometimes those look the same. My phone is in my clutch. I don’t want to touch it. I already know what’s in there. The texts. The voice notes. Celeste’s voice living where mine was supposed to be. I don’t need a reminder. It’s all still under my skin.

I wake up in the afternoon. Not because I’m lazy. Because my body gave up somewhere between crying and not crying and decided sleep was the only thing left it could do for me. The light in the apartment is wrong. Too clean. Too quiet. It hits the walls like it doesn’t know me yet. I lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling, then turn my head and see my luggage sitting by the door. Still zipped. Still untouched. Like I might leave again any second. Maybe I already have. My phone is on the floor where I dropped it last night. Face down. I don’t want to pick it up. I already know what’s waiting. Eventually, I do. It’s worse than I imagined. Missed calls from Ethan. Too many to count. Messages stacked on top of each other, some long, some just “Please” and “Solene” and “Talk to me.” His name fills the screen until it starts to blur. Then my parents. My chest tightens when I see my mother’s name. Multiple calls. A voice note I haven’t listened to yet. I swallow. Then Ethan’

The message stares back at me like it’s daring me.Ethan: Really, Luca?That’s all he says. Two words and a name. No context. No curiosity. Just accusation. Ownership disguised as disappointment.My fingers are shaking. I can feel it in my wrists, up my arms, settling behind my eyes. I haven’t cried yet. I think that’s what scares me most.I type.I delete.I type again.This time, I don’t soften it.Me: You don’t get to say his name like that.Me: You don’t get to look at a photo taken without my consent and decide you’re entitled to an explanation.Me: You lost that right the moment you let another woman speak to you like you were still hers.I pause. My chest is pounding now. I can hear my own breathing, loud in the kitchen. The microwave beeps, long forgotten. I don’t turn it off.Me: You made promises to her while you were married to me.Me: Not rumors. Not misunderstandings. Promises.Me: And now you’re angry because I sat across from a man who didn’t need a contract or secrecy

The boxes are gone. I notice it before I even sit up. No cardboard edges catching my toes. No half-torn tape whispering under my feet. No mess waiting to be finished. Everything is done. The couch faces the window now. I can see the street from where I sit, the small ordinary lives moving through it. The books are stacked by feeling, not logic. The mugs sit in a crooked row inside the cabinet, the chipped one right in front because Mara said hiding it would be rude. Like the mug had feelings. My house looks like I’ve been here for years. It should feel like relief. Instead, it feels like standing inside something fragile right before someone asks you to lie about how it was built. Mara left early. Work. A hug that lasted too long. The kind where you pull away already knowing you’ll miss the weight of someone else’s presence before the door even closes. I’m reheating leftovers when my phone buzzes against the counter. Ethan. I let it ring once. Not to punish him. Just to remi

The knock feels wrong the second it happens. Not loud enough to be an emergency. Not soft enough to be polite. Just confident. Like whoever is on the other side already decided I’d open the door. My phone is still in my hand. Warm. Ethan’s message sits there, unanswered. Are you seeing this? I am. That’s the problem. I’ve seen too much. The knock comes again and something in me settles. Not calm. More like acceptance. Like when you finally stop pretending you don’t know what’s coming. Of course it’s him. I don’t check the peephole. I don’t need to. My body already knows the shape of him. The timing of him. The way he arrives right after something explodes, ready to manage the aftermath. When I open the door, he’s there. White shirt. Sleeves rolled up. No jacket. The version of Ethan that’s supposed to say I came as myself, not as a strategy. His hair is slightly off, like he’s run his hand through it too many times. His eyes flick over my face quickly, checking damage. “You