[I really don’t get it. Why does whatever Gideon and Arabella have to do with some third party?]

Arabella replied to that last one. [Some women are petty. She probably thinks that if Gideon and I patch things up, she’s out of the picture.]

From the start, Gideon hadn’t defended me. He never said one word to explain that I hated Arabella because she’d bullied me for three years.

I found myself scrolling back through the chat and realized this group was created the day we got married.

I remembered, on our wedding night, he didn’t touch me as he had to deal with a difficult client, he said. But the truth was, he spent the whole night in that group chat.

I wiped my tears and called my Colette.

“I suddenly want to go to the amusement park today. You free?” I asked, wrapping myself up against the fall chill.

We met there a little while later, and as soon as we met, she handed me the divorce papers.

Without ceremony, she asked the question we both already knew the answer to. “Those two are together?”

I nodded.

She ground her teeth with anger. “Gideon’s an idiot. His dad got murdered by that bitch, yet he acts like it’s nothing. Also, he knows how badly Arabella treated you because of him himself.” Her voice was thick with fury.

She was right. Because I’d dragged Gideon out of a wreck, we’d confirmed our relationship.

But after that, someone locked me in a bathroom and forced me to drink disinfectant.

If someone hadn’t found me in time, I would have died.

Just because I saved him, things between him and Arabella had only gotten worse, at least on paper.

The park was huge, but I soon found them. Arabella’s head rested on his shoulder as she ate a double-scoop ice cream. Their voices were low, but I heard everything.

“We shouldn’t go out alone anymore,” she said. “Even if I’ve done nothing, your wife still looks at me like an enemy. I’m a woman too, I get hurt.” She wiped at her eyes. “Also, that night three years ago, I was drunk. Let’s just pretend it never happened. We can still be enemies, but move on.”

So that was why Gideon was impossible to reach before our wedding night. He’d been busy with Arabella. No wonder she had time to get a tattoo on him before the wedding.

Even though I’d braced myself, her words felt like a bucket of ice water poured over my head.

But Colette, hot-tempered as always, rolled up her sleeves and started forward.