“How does it feel being his wife only on paper?” she asked, smirking. “Oh wait—do you two still sleep together? Does he even touch you anymore? I doubt it. He’s with me every night. He can’t get enough of me. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember what you taste like.”
I stayed silent.
She laughed at my quiet. “Pathetic. That’s what you get for stealing my life. It was never yours. Everything belongs to me, Valentine.”
She stomped her heel inches from my foot, irritated that I wasn’t reacting.
“Your husband’s staying in this house tonight,” she added, smug. “But he’ll be in my bed. And the poor Donna? She’ll be alone, invisible, while the Don's wrapped around me.”
Just like that, the nightmare became real.
I passed by my room… and I heard them.
Her moans. His voice. Their pleasure echoing through the walls. The bed frame rattled—mocking me. The room that once felt like the only place I could breathe in this mansion was now a shrine to my humiliation.
He never touched me like that. Never kissed me like that. When he did fulfill his “duties,” he wouldn’t even look at me. I was nothing but a contract. A political arrangement.
“You’re the only woman who can make me feel this way, Dahlia,” I heard him say.
And that was it.
I stopped walking. A sob escaped before I could stifle it. I froze. Only then did I realize I was crying.
I was still hurting. Still hoping. That was the cruelest part.
With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone and walked farther away from the noise until their pleasure was only a dull echo behind closed doors.
I opened a number I saved long ago. One I never deleted.
[Damian, I’m divorcing Reynold. Pick me up after a month.]
That was the message I sent to the only man who never turned me away.
Seconds later, my phone rang.
I answered, already breaking. “Damian…”
“He made you cry again?” he said, voice cold. “That's why you’re finally going through with the divorce this time?”
Shame washed over me. I had tried to leave Reynold in the past.
I had promised Damian before. But I never followed through. I stayed with the man who never chose me. yet, Damian waited, only to get hurt by my cowardice.
“I mean it this time,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for what I did… but please, help me one last time.”
I heard his deep exhale. The kind that carried more than disappointment.