Bride of Betrayal

Adrian stood frozen for two seconds. He stared at the crumpled clinic paper I shoved into my pocket, then at my face.

A low, echoing laugh erupted from his chest.

"Just when I praised your improved temper," he chuckled, shaking his head. "You decide to act out again."

I kept my feet planted on the polished tiles. "A divorce is not an act."

"You've been with me since you were eighteen, Scarlett." He took a step forward, his expensive leather shoes squeaking faintly. "You miscarried two kids. Your body is ruined. If you leave me, what man out there would dare take you?"

The terminal lights seemed to flicker.

His words drove a rusted spike straight through my ribs.

"Is that what you tell yourself?" I asked. "That I'm trapped?"

"I'm stating a fact," he replied, adjusting his cuffs. "Nobody wants a broken woman."

"You broke me," I said, my voice steadying. "You broke me, and now you despise the cracks."

"I don't despise you," he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I love you. I married you today. But you suffocate me. You constantly remind me of the gutter we crawled out of. Every time I look at you, I see the freezing apartment. I see the debt."

"So you found someone who only sees the penthouse."

"Celeste is easy," he admitted, a small smile playing on his lips. "She doesn't ask about the past. She doesn't demand my soul. She just wants to be taken care of."

"And wear my clothes."

"It's a dress, Scarlett! Buy another one!"

"I bled for you!" I shouted, the volume echoing down the empty gate.

"We couldn't afford pills," I hissed, stepping into his space. "We couldn't afford a doctor. Do you remember December in New York?"

"Keep your voice down," he muttered, glancing at a passing flight attendant.

"I wore a thin cotton shirt in a blizzard," I pushed on, my nails digging into my own palms. "I threw myself down three flights of icy stairs in that rotting apartment building. I rolled on the concrete until the blood soaked through my jeans."

Adrian grabbed my wrist, squeezing tight. "We were kids. I didn't have a choice."

"I screamed until my vocal cords tore," I said, ignoring the pain in my arm. "I sent my first child away because you said we couldn't survive."

"Stop talking about this."

"And the second time?" I ripped my hand from his grip. "I lay in that freezing bathtub for three hours. The water turned pink. I watched it happen."

"Scarlett, enough."

"You knelt on the bathroom tiles," I shouted, uncaring who heard. "You picked up a shard of broken mirror. You stabbed yourself twice in the thigh."

His jaw clenched tightly. A muscle twitched under his eye.

"You covered my eyes with your bloody hands," I continued. "You swore to me. 'Scarlett, I will give you a good life. If I betray you, may lightning strike me dead.'"

"I gave you a good life!" he roared back. "Look at this ring! Look at your clothes! Half an hour ago, I stood in front of our friends and promised to keep taking care of you. I kept my word!"

"You hid a mistress for six months."

"Because you're impossible!" he shot back. "You lost your softness years ago. You complain, you yell, you demand. Celeste doesn't do that. She just smiles."

A bright, sweet melody sliced through the heavy air.

A French love song.

It chimed cheerfully from his jacket pocket, shattering the silence that followed his outburst.

I stared at the fabric. That song had played on countless midnights.

"A client," I murmured.

"What?"

"Every time that rang at two in the morning," I said, a bitter smile stretching my lips. "You kissed my forehead and said it was an international client. You went to the balcony to take the call."

Adrian didn't reach for his phone. He let it sing its sickeningly sweet tune.

He looked at me, his expression smoothing out into a mask of pure condescension. He looked at me the way one looks at a misbehaving toddler.

"Why are you fighting over a woman who means nothing to our marriage?" he asked, his tone dropping into a soothing drawl. "Are we really throwing away twenty-eight years for an outsider?"

"She wore my dress."

"You are not young anymore, Scarlett," he stated, stepping back. "You have no parents. You have no job. I am the only one who will provide for you. Stop throwing a tantrum before you ruin the best thing you have."

"I want a divorce."

He snapped his fingers. His assistant, a quiet man in a dark charcoal suit, stepped forward from the shadows of the lounge.

"Take Mrs. Cross back to the penthouse," Adrian said. "Have security keep an eye on her. Flag any large transfers, international bookings, or calls to the press. I don't want a tantrum turning into a headline while I'm away."

The assistant's expression tightened. "Mr. Cross, she can arrange her own transportation."

Adrian glanced at his watch, already bored with me. Beyond the glass, a private-car attendant waited to take him to the charter terminal later that afternoon. "Then follow her. Quietly."

He bent to retrieve his wedding band and slipped it into his pocket. "I'll be back in two weeks, Scarlett. I expect you to have come to your senses by then."

He walked toward the private elevators without looking back, carrying the easy certainty of a man who believed every door would remain open for him.

I watched until the elevator doors swallowed him. He would collect Celeste, board his charter, and vanish into two weeks of sun. Then I closed my fist around my own ring. The diamond bit into my palm, but the pain steadied me.

My lawyer's message waited on my screen: the controlling voting trust had been executed.

Adrian thought he had confined me to a penthouse. In reality, he had just left me alone with the keys to his kingdom.