When My Husband Defended Her After She Tried to Kill Me

The morning light sliced through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse, turning the Manhattan skyline into a postcard I'd stopped noticing years ago. I had my phone wedged between my shoulder and ear, listening to our Tokyo liaison drone through merger complications in accented English, when I heard the key turn in the lock.

Rhodes.

He stepped inside with that easy confidence of a man who'd never been denied entry anywhere, holding the signature brown bag from Russ & Daughters aloft like a trophy. The scent of everything bagels—my favorite, toasted, with lox and capers—cut through the sterile air conditioning.

"Savannah, babe, breakfast is here," he called, not bothering to lower his voice despite the Bluetooth blinking in my ear.

I raised one finger—the universal signal for *wait*—but Rhodes was already crossing the marble floor, his Ferragamo loafers clicking out an impatient rhythm. The Tokyo voice in my ear was mid-sentence about yen fluctuations when I felt Rhodes's hand on my lower back, insistent.

I ended the call.

"Sorry about that," I said, setting the phone face-down on the dining table. "Merger issues. You know how it is."

Rhodes grinned, that boyish slash of white teeth that had once made my stomach flip. "That's why I got you the good stuff. Forty-minute round trip in morning traffic." He slid the bagel across to me, already plated on my Wedgwood china. "You work too hard, Sav. All that stress isn't good for you."

I picked up my knife, splitting the bagel with surgical precision. "It's my family's company, Rhodes. Someone has to handle the international accounts."

"Sure, sure." He poured himself coffee from the French press, movements loose and unbothered. "But maybe let the men handle some of the heavy lifting, yeah? I mean, that's what your dad's executive team is for."

The knife stilled in my hand. The words hung in the air between us like smoke I wasn't supposed to acknowledge. I forced my jaw to unclench, painted on the same smile I'd perfected in a thousand boardrooms.

"You're probably right," I lied, and bit into the bagel. It tasted like sawdust.

Rhodes stayed for exactly twenty-three minutes—long enough to feel like a devoted boyfriend, short enough to maintain plausible deniability for wherever he was actually needed. When the door clicked shut behind him, I dumped the rest of the bagel in the trash.

---

By evening, Rhodes was back, sprawled on my sofa like he owned it. Which, in a way, he did—our families had been intertwined since before we were born, two empires built on strategic marriages and reciprocal contracts. I'd loved him once, maybe still did, in the way you love an old sweater you can't bring yourself to throw out.

He disappeared into the guest bathroom for a shower, leaving his phone face-up on the coffee table. I was reviewing quarterly reports on my laptop when the buzzing started—a relentless vibration that made the glass surface hum.

I glanced over. The screen lit up with notifications, a cascading waterfall of messages from a folder labeled *Scholarship Fund*. My fingers hovered over my keyboard, then drifted toward his phone.

Just one look. Just to make sure it wasn't an emergency.

The messages were from someone named Brooke O'Brien. *Thank you so much for the laptop, you're literally saving my life.* A crying emoji. *I don't know what I'd do without you.*

My pulse stayed steady, clinical. I opened his group chat—*The Wolfpack*, his fraternity brothers' inner circle. On impulse, I snapped a photo of the skyline from my balcony and sent it without comment.

The replies came within seconds.

**Marcus Chen:** *Wait, I thought you were with the deaf girl tonight?*

**Tyler Hammond:** *Bro, careful. Don't let the Ice Queen find out you bought Brooke that laptop lol*

**Jake Morrison:** *She's gonna freeze your ass off if she finds out*

Ice Queen. They called me Ice Queen.

I set the phone down carefully, screen exactly as I'd found it. The shower was still running. I had two minutes, maybe three.

I pulled up my own messages and texted my mother: *Need to talk. Soon.*

When Rhodes emerged, towel slung around his hips, hair dripping onto my hardwood floors, I was back at my laptop, posture perfect, face serene.

"Hey," I said, voice level. "Your phone was going crazy. I checked to make sure it wasn't your mom."

His hand twitched toward the coffee table. "Oh. Yeah. Probably just the guys being idiots."

"Who's Brooke?" I kept my eyes on my screen, tracking his reflection in the darkened window.

He laughed—too quickly, too loud. "Brooke O'Brien. She's a scholarship student I've been mentoring. Charity thing through the business school. She's got nobody, Sav. Hearing impaired, broke, working three jobs. I'm just helping out."

"You bought her a laptop."

"She needed it for classes." He crossed to me, crouched down so we were eye-level, his hand covering mine. "Baby, you're not seriously jealous of a charity case, are you? That's not you. You're better than that."

The word *paranoid* hovered unspoken between us, a ghost of future arguments.

I met his eyes—those warm brown eyes I'd once thought I could trust—and smiled.

"You're right," I said. "I'm being silly."

He kissed my forehead, relief flooding his features. "That's my girl."

But as he walked away to get dressed, I opened a new encrypted folder on my laptop and titled it: *Evidence*.