Regret Comes LateChapter 1
Alexa, my wife of six years, was affectionately nicknamed "Husband Worshiper" by her colleagues and students.
As a university professor, she was renowned not only for her academic prowess but also for her steadfast devotion to me. She never attended social gatherings, always preferring to spend her evenings with me. When male students dared to ask for her contact information, she would turn them down with a tone so cold it could frost over. "Sorry, I have a husband," she'd reply, as if that explained everything.
Her colleagues loved to tease her, saying she had set a new bar for modern love stories. Among her published academic works was a singular outlier—a book titled Confessions of Love. It wasn't meant for the academic world. It was meant for me. Our love story, lauded across Carbel University, was held up as a modern fairy tale.
But yesterday, I stumbled upon something that cracked the perfection of that story. I was tidying up the bookshelf in our study—a task Alexa usually insisted on doing herself—when I discovered it. Hidden between the pages of one of her older books was a photo.
The moment I saw it, my stomach churned. Alexa's shirt was partially unbuttoned, revealing her delicate collarbones and a hint of bare skin beneath. Her hands were bound at the wrists with a black necktie. Standing behind her, holding her waist possessively, was a shirtless young man. His grin was cocky, arrogant and all too familiar.
I knew him. It was the same male student she had once coldly rebuffed when he asked for her social media.
——
The door creaked open. My heart pounded, but I forced myself to remain calm, sliding the photo back into the book and pretending to leaf through its pages. Alexa wrapped her arms around me from behind, her warm breath tickling my neck as she teased, her voice still husky with sleep, "Harry, why are you up so early? Come back to bed with me."
I tensed as her hands brushed my arm, but I kept my voice steady. "Just organizing a little," I replied, not turning around. My gaze was fixed on the shelf, yet I felt the slight shift in her demeanor—the way her muscles stiffened for a fraction of a second. Her eyes darted to the book in my hands and a flicker of alarm crossed her face before she replaced it with a forced smile.
"Why the sudden interest in these old books?" she asked, her tone overly casual.