Chapter2

I drove straight to the hotel.

When I explained to the front desk that I was there to catch my husband in the act, the clerk handed over a key card without hesitation.

I swiped it. Pushed the door open.

A wave of perfume, sweat, and sex hit me hard enough that I nearly vomited on the threshold.

Scattered across the carpet were photographs—dozens of them, torn and trodden underfoot. Our wedding photos. Every smiling face, every vow, ground into the dirty carpet like everything we had ever been together.

And Blake—my husband—was naked, pressed over that woman.

Her back was to me, but I would have known that face anywhere.

Isabella. The same Isabella who had clung to me in tears last month, sobbing that she'd finally found family.

"Blake…" My voice came out trembling. My legs barely held.

He snapped his head around.

There was no panic on his face. Not even a flicker. He grinned—the grin of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment.

He didn't stop. He pulled Isabella closer, rough and deliberate, like he wanted me to feel every second of it.

"Since you're here, I'll just say it plainly." He looked down at me with open contempt. "Isabella is the woman I love. You're just a body that produces babies. Get out of here and stop making me look at you."

Old woman. Get out.

Each word landed like a slap across the face.

The baby kicked, hard. The pain made me flinch.

I held onto the doorframe. Tears ran down without my permission.

Seven months of nausea, insomnia, and a body I could barely inhabit. Everything I had given this home. And this was the return.

I stared at them—at his ugliness, at her satisfaction—and felt the grief inside me go suddenly, strangely quiet.

What replaced it was rage.

The kind that wants to burn everything down.

I stopped shaking.

I stopped crying.

I reached slowly into my pocket and took out my phone. My fingers had gone white at the knuckles from squeezing it so hard.

"What are you doing?" Blake's eyes sharpened.

I didn't look at him. I dialed 911.

"This is the presidential suite at the [name] Hotel. There is a man engaging in illegal conduct and publicly humiliating a pregnant woman. I am also being subjected to domestic threats. I need police on the scene immediately."

"Are you out of your mind?" Blake shoved Isabella aside and hurled a pillow at me. "You called the cops on me?"

"Yes," I said, holding his gaze, my voice flat and cold. "You drove me there."

Isabella shrieked and grabbed for her clothes. Blake swore and lunged for my phone.

I backed into the corner of the room and held on—to the phone, and to my stomach.

A few minutes later, someone pounded on the door.

"Hotel security—open up!"

Then the police: "Everyone inside, stop what you're doing—hands on your heads!"

The door came open by force. The room flooded with light. Isabella screamed and curled in on herself. Blake stood bare-chested, jaw clenched, the color of old concrete. The officers moved fast and clean.

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor.

I watched the two of them get walked out.

This time, I didn't cry.

I took out my phone and sent my attorney a message.

File for divorce. I want him to leave with nothing.