Signing Away Our Marriage While He Held Another Woman

The day Rhys Maddox made associate chief, someone AirDropped me a photo.

It was taken in the therapy room. He had one hand clamped around his ex-girlfriend's waist, and after one long look he'd pressed himself down over her.

I didn't screenshot it. I didn't confront him. I just set the phone face-down on the table.

Late that night he came home smelling of orange blossom and woke me from a dead sleep.

"Sweetheart, that pressure point of hers sits at an awkward angle. You have to find the right approach to reach it. It just looks like something it isn't."

I pulled the blanket higher over myself.

"Okay. Get some sleep. You've got her pelvic realignment tomorrow."

He seemed caught off guard. "You don't mind?"

I shook my head.

So he had a first love he couldn't let go of. As it happened, so did I.

...

Rhys sat down beside me, quietly drying his freshly washed hands.

In the photo, those were the same two hands, locked around the bones of Delia Winters's waist, his forehead nearly resting on her shoulder.

The pose was too intimate to be bone-setting. It looked more like an embrace.

The photo had come from a nurse in the physical therapy department, one of the trainees who'd started residency the same year we did, and who was still working in his department now.

Her only note read:

*Fiona, I'm not trying to stir anything up, but Dr. Maddox has been doing this every single day for six months now.*

Rhys came over and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out to ruffle my hair.

"Fiona, Delia's got that old lumbar injury. Ordinary manual therapy can't reach the site. You have to work close to find the angle."

"I'm only treating her."

I turned onto my side, out of his reach, and stared up at the ceiling. "Mm."

"She's been rehearsing hard these past couple of days and her lumbar muscles seized up again. I don't trust anyone else with it."

"Mm."

"You know my work. It's recognized in the field."

I finally turned my head and gave a small smile.

"I know, Dr. Maddox. A healer's heart."

The line left him with nothing to say.

"Are you still hung up on her?"

"We broke up ages ago. She's just a friend now, at most."

I said nothing, because I knew exactly how heavy that old attachment was.

In the two years since Delia had come back, she'd never really left his life.

A pulled muscle in rehearsal, an old injury flaring up, a bad night's sleep that needed someone to come massage her.

The night we registered our marriage, she'd messaged him at eleven: "My back's gone out again, I can't move! It hurts!"

Rhys had just taken off his coat. He read the message, said nothing, and laced his shoes back up.

I caught his arm. "It has to be tonight?"

"She's alone in her apartment. There's no one to look after her."

I sat on the edge of the bed and let my head drop.

He bent down and tucked the blanket in around me.

"I'll be back soon. I'll take you for the ID photos first thing in the morning."

That night he didn't get home until three.

There was a small trace of orange blossom oil on his collar. He said it had rubbed off "while I was giving her a heat treatment."

I didn't make a scene, didn't fight. I just noted the date.

Every time Delia came up, he'd say the same thing: "She's my patient. It's my responsibility."

The more fragile she acted, the more patient he became.

The more unreasonable she was, the less he could bring himself to refuse.

Everyone said the two of them were "broken up but not broken off." As his lawful wife, I was more like a backdrop on the storyline of their romance.

Rhys was about to say something more when his phone buzzed.

He glanced at it, his expression shifting slightly, and thumbed it off.

"Probably her pre-op nerves."

I closed my eyes. "Answer it. If she can't sleep again tonight, it'll throw off her rehearsal tomorrow."

He didn't. He set the phone face-down on the nightstand, turned, and pulled me into his arms.

"Don't overthink it. She and I turned that page a long time ago."

I didn't answer him.

A dull cramp pulled low in my belly, as if someone had quietly twisted something inside me.

I frowned and didn't make a sound.

There was no point saying it. He wouldn't have heard me anyway.