*ARIANA*

The house was silent when I came back. I expected to hear footsteps or the sound of dishes. Usually, his assistant would be on the phone. But tonight the silence was heavy.

I took off my shoes at the door. I was tired down to my bones. The business trip had been exhausting, three days of presentations, negotiations, and smiling until my face ached. All of it to secure a deal that would reflect well on him, on his company, on the carefully constructed image of our marriage.

My head was aching. I knew this feeling well as the beginning of one of my episodes. I looked for my medicine in my bag, then paused.

"Shit," I had forgotten to take my morning dose, but the afternoon dose I usually never miss.

I decided to wait until I changed. I wanted to wash off the day and let myself pretend, just for a moment, that this house felt like home.

I walked up the stairs. The wood was rare and very costly. All of it was pretty but cold. The hall was full of silver frames. One of them was our wedding photo, we looked serious in it. He held my waist. It was sweet but felt fake. I spent three years being the perfect wife.

I opened the door to our bedroom and time stopped.

The bed was a mess of white sheets. Maxwell's bare back was to me, muscles shifting beneath skin I had memorized in the dark during our dutiful, scheduled intimacies. Another figure was half beneath him, long dark hair spilling across the pillow.

For a split second, I thought my mind was finally breaking. Then she turned her head. She was very pretty with soft skin. Her eyes showed a deep love I could never give him.

It was her. Selene, his first love.

He once said she taught him how to be a husband. She showed him that small things mattered. She was the one who left him years ago and shattered something in him that I was never quite able to repair.

My bag fell from my hand. He turned around. His eyes were wide but not guilty. He wasn't even shocked to see me. He was calm and in control.

"You're home early," he said.

That was all.

No apology. No explanation. No scramble to cover up or make excuses.

I felt my knees go weak. My fingers pressed into my palm, nails biting into flesh as if I could dig the shock out of my body through sheer physical pain.

"I forgot my medication," I whispered. My voice did not sound like mine. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away.

She sat up and did not seem to care. She acted like this was her room.

"You're the contract wife," she said, eyes raking over me with mild curiosity. "I heard about you."

I stepped back, my body moving before my mind could catch up. Then I turned and walked out fast, closing the door behind me with a soft click that felt louder than a slam.

The walls seemed to tilt, and all the photographs blurred.

Three years. Three years of waking up beside him. Three years of learning his likes and dislikes, his work schedule, his tells when he was stressed. Three years of small moments that had felt, despite everything, like they were building toward something real.

All of it crumbled in the span of thirty seconds.

I sat down on the sofa before I collapsed, my hands gripping the armrest to anchor myself to something solid.

Minutes passed, or maybe hours. Either way, time had lost meaning.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs.

He walked down slowly, wearing only his shorts and a robe. His hair was wet from what seemed like a quick shower. His attitude did not look like he was about to end our marriage. He dropped a dark leather folder on the table with a soft thud.

Then he sat in the chair across from me.

"Sign it," he said.

I looked at the cover. Divorce Agreement in gold letters. My hands shook as I reached for it, but I pulled back and pressed my palms to my thighs.

"I thought... we still had a week," I said. Our contract had been for three years. This week was supposed to be the final week. Seven more days before we sat down with lawyers and ended this professionally, the way we'd begun it.

"She came back earlier than expected," was all he said, acting like that was enough. As if that explained everything. As if the sudden appearance of his first love erased all courtesy, all basic human decency.

I swallowed hard. "So you decided this tonight."

"Yes." He said firmly.

He opened the folder, flipping past legal texts to the signature page, a blank line waiting for my name, and slid it toward me.

"Our agreement ends today. This was always the plan. One more week of it means nothing."

I stared at the paper. The words blurred together. Dissolution of marriage. Division of assets. Terms and conditions.

Three years. Reduced to a signature line.

Selene came down the stairs wearing my silk nightgown. The one he bought for my birthday last year. He said it looked good on me. I had only worn it three times because it felt too intimate, too romantic for what we actually were.

It clung to her curves like it had been made for her instead. Like everything else in this house had been waiting for her return.

"You're still here?" she asked lightly, like I was a guest who'd overstayed their welcome.

I said nothing. My throat had completely closed up.

She sat on the arm of the couch by him, sliding her hand around his neck as if it belonged there, fingers playing with the hair at his nape in a gesture so casual, so familiar, it made something crack in my chest.

"You should sign quickly." Her eyes stayed on me, her tone both sweet and cruel. "Dragging this out is pointless."

My throat burned with words I couldn't say. With screams I couldn't release.

Something inside me snapped.

I stood up and stepped forward before I could stop myself, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and yanked hard.

She screamed.

"What the hell are you doing?" Maxwell's voice cut through the room, finally showing some emotion.

"Get the fuck out of my house." I dragged her off the couch arm. "And take my nightgown off your damn body."

She clawed at my hands, crying, swearing, calling me crazy. I didn't stop until I pulled her out of the house and shoved her onto the ground outside. She stumbled, catching herself on the gravel.

Maxwell moved fast then, wrapping his robe around her shaking shoulders and pulling her away from me.

"That's enough!" His bark echoed in the night air.

"No." My voice came out calm. "That's marriage."

He stared at me like he didn't recognize me. Good. I didn't recognize myself either.

Selene was gone ten minutes later. Maxwell booked her into a five-star hotel downtown. I heard him on the phone in his study, apologizing, soothing, promising this wouldn't happen again. Promising he'd handle me.

Handle me. Like I was a problem to be solved instead of a woman he had just humiliated.

When he came back downstairs, the tenderness was gone. He was cold again. Business Maxwell. The version of him I knew best.

He pointed at the divorce papers on the table.

"Stop wasting my time and just sign it."

I laughed. A dry, ugly sound that surprised both of us.

"You slept with her in our bed and think I'll sign quietly?"

"My father wanted this marriage. You knew that from the beginning."

"Yes." I held his gaze. "So how exactly do you plan to explain this mess to him?"

His jaw tightened. Maxwell's father was the only person he feared. The old man had arranged our marriage to fix Maxwell's public image after a scandal with a married actress. Clean slate, he'd said. Marry someone respectable.

"You and I both know this marriage was never real." The words came out sharp.

I flipped through the pages slowly. Standard terms. Clean split. A modest payout that was insulting given what I had endured.

"Then let's talk money."

His frown deepened. "What?"

"One billion. Cash or assets. Your choice."

The silence that followed was deep.

Then he laughed, like I'd told the funniest joke he'd ever heard.

"You've been waiting for this."

"No." I kept my voice steady. "I've been surviving."

"You only care about my money."

"If that were true," I met his eyes, "you'd already be broke."

I closed the folder and slid it back to him across the polished wood.

"You want me gone fast. You want this clean. You want to move Selene in before your father finds out what you've done. This is the price."

His eyes darkened, calculation replacing the mockery. Then he nodded once.

"Fine. You want money? I'll give you that…if it will make you stay out of my way."

He pulled out his phone. My screen brightened at that moment, showing a bank alert. A smile tugged at my lip as I raised my gaze to meet his unreadable expression.

I turned away and walked to the couch, my legs finally giving out now that the adrenaline was fading.

He turned and went up the stairs. Several minutes later he left without even a word. He did not come back that night.

At some point after midnight, the nausea hit hard.

I barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up, gripping the cold marble sink so tightly my knuckles went white. My body shook like it was trying to purge more than food. I rinsed my mouth, wiped my face, and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

Pale and exhausted.

"You're fine." The words felt hollow. "You're not weak. You're not losing control."

But my hands were still shaking.

I slept on the couch with all the lights on, my phone clutched in one hand like a lifeline.

Maxwell came back the next morning like nothing had happened.

I heard his car before I saw him. The familiar purr of his Mercedes pulling into the driveway. The sound made my chest tighten, but I stayed seated, legs crossed, coffee untouched on the table in front of me.

He walked in, jacket still on, hair slightly damp. He stopped at the entrance, taking in my posture on the sofa.

"You look comfortable."

"You look like shit."

He did. Dark circles under his eyes. He dropped his keys on the console table and glanced around like he was looking for something.

"Where's Selene's bag?"

"Gone. Along with any illusion you had that I would play nice."

A scoff escaped him. "You assaulted her."

"She wore my nightgown. In my bed. We're even."

He sighed like he was already tired of this conversation, tired of me. "We need to finish this."

"We already started. You just didn't expect me to speak."

He sat down across from me, smoothing his tie. "I agreed to your terms. The money. All of it. What else do you want?"

I could feel the rage burning in him. I knew his reaction when I pushed him too far.

"Yes. And now we continue."

His look could have strangled me.

I pulled out my phone and dialed a number while ignoring his burning gaze. After a moment, two men in dark suits walked in.

Maxwell stood up, clearly thrown off.

"Ariana." He gestured to the two men then back at me. "What the hell does this mean?”

His eyes stayed on my face as if he was searching for the woman he thought he married. The quiet one. The agreeable one. The woman who would swallow her pain, smile through disrespect, and still call it love.

“So you called a lawyer because of this?”

Maxwell asked, his voice tight with anger.

His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and his jaw looked like it could crack from how hard he was holding it. The funny thing was that he looked offended, like I had done something unforgivable, like I was the one who betrayed him.

I should have been excited today. I should have been holding my pregnancy test in my hands, smiling like a fool, waiting for the perfect moment to tell my husband that I was carrying his children. Twins. Two tiny lives that had already started growing inside me without anyone’s permission.

But instead of joy, I was standing in front of him with divorce papers on the table, while his mistress sat comfortably in my home like she belonged there.

What else did he expect me to do?

I had suspected his cheating long before today, but I kept lying to myself because I didn’t want to believe the truth. It started with calls from friends who sounded excited and happy for me, telling me how lucky I was.

“Ariana, you and Maxwell looked so good together.”

I would freeze and ask, “What are you talking about?”

“At that hotel. You both looked like newlyweds. He’s so romantic.”

At first, I thought it was a mistake. Then the messages started coming in. People congratulating me. People praising my “perfect marriage.” People telling me how my husband took me out to expensive restaurants while I was at home cooking his meals or sitting in his office organizing his files like I was his unpaid assistant.

The worst part was that they weren’t lying. Maxwell was doing those things. He just wasn’t doing them with me.

One day, my friend sent a picture. It was Maxwell stepping out of a hotel lobby with a woman by his side. They were wearing matching scarves like it was some romantic couple thing. My whole body had gone cold as I stared at the screen.

If that wasn’t you, Ariana, then I guess your husband is a cheating bastard. He’s been visiting this hotel for months now.

I had read that message again and again until my eyes burned. Still, I tried to convince myself there was another explanation. Maybe he was meeting a client. Maybe it was business. Maybe it was nothing.

But deep down, I already knew the truth.

And now he didn’t even bother hiding it anymore because he had brought her into the house. Into my space. Into the home I once believed we were building together.

Divorce was the only way forward. But it wasn’t going to be easy, and it wasn’t going to happen on his terms.

The lawyer left minutes later after Maxwell agreed to my conditions, and I knew he didn’t agree because he respected me. He agreed because he feared what would happen if I stopped being quiet. He agreed because he cared about his reputation more than he ever cared about my heart.

“Never knew there was this side of you,” Maxwell said after the lawyer left, dropping the pen in front of me like it disgusted him. His lip curled as he looked at me. “I never expected you to be a gold digger.”

Gold digger.

That word nearly made me laugh, but my chest felt too heavy for laughter. I didn’t even have the strength to argue with him because I had spent too many years arguing for a marriage he was already destroying behind my back.

A wave of nausea rolled through me, sharp enough to make me grip the edge of the table.

My hand moved to my stomach instinctively as discomfort spread through my body. I hadn’t gone back to the hospital after the doctor revealed I was two weeks pregnant, and I still hadn’t fully processed that I was carrying twins for this arrogant man.

This wasn’t how I imagined my life. This wasn’t how I imagined love.

A week passed after the divorce papers were drafted, and the house stopped feeling like his. I moved differently. I breathed differently. I no longer hovered around him, waiting for crumbs of attention like a starving dog. I no longer asked about his schedule, or stayed awake pretending I cared when he came home late smelling like another woman.

I lived like someone who already had one foot out the door.

Maxwell noticed the change, of course he did. Men like him always noticed when a woman stopped begging.

One afternoon, he walked out of his office with his coat in hand, his face calm like he wasn’t the reason my world had cracked open.

“I’ll be home late,” he said casually.

I looked up from my laptop, my expression calm even though my heart wasn’t. The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

“You’re not going to sleep with her, are you?”

He froze mid-step like he didn’t expect me to speak. Slowly, he turned back, and I saw surprise flash across his face before it twisted into irritation.

“And how does that concern you?” he asked coldly.

Then he stepped closer, like he wanted to intimidate me into silence. “Why? What do you want now?”

I closed my laptop slowly and stood up, meeting his eyes without flinching. “We’re still legally married,” I said flatly. “So you’re not bringing your whore here, you’re not to be seen with her publicly, and you’re not going to humiliate me in front of your father and my friends before this divorce is done.”

His brows drew together. “You don’t get to tell me what to do or who I can see.”

“I do,” I replied calmly. “Until the divorce is finalized.”

He stared at me like I was a stranger, like he was searching for the woman who used to lower her eyes and swallow her words. That woman wasn’t standing in front of him anymore.

His phone rang then, cutting through the tension like a knife.