Divorce from Deceitful Man

I don't know how long I sat in Marcus's chair, the crushed lilies forgotten in my lap, my fingers hovering over his keyboard. The will had been just the beginning. Some desperate need to understand—to see the full extent of my blindness—drove me forward, clicking through his files with trembling hands.

His email was still logged in. Of course it was. Why would a man who believed himself untouchable bother with security? I navigated to his inbox, my breath shallow as I typed Lily's name into the search bar.

Hundreds of results appeared.

I clicked on the oldest one, dated eight months ago. It was innocuous enough—a thank you for his mentorship, formal and respectful. I scrolled forward through time, watching their relationship transform before my eyes.

"The book you recommended changed my perspective. Would love to discuss it over coffee sometime."

"Last night's conversation meant everything to me. You're the only one who truly sees me."

"Missing you desperately. These stolen moments aren't enough anymore."

Each message more intimate than the last, each response from my husband more tender, more revealing than anything he'd shared with me in years. There were photos too—nothing explicit, but domestic moments captured in our vacation home, in restaurants where he'd claimed to be dining with colleagues, even in our bedroom while I was away visiting my parents.

The timestamps revealed late-night exchanges during evenings when he'd been lying beside me, pretending to work. Messages sent during our anniversary dinner last year when he'd excused himself to take a "business call."

"I've never felt this way about anyone," he'd written to her. "What we have is real."

The same words he'd once said to me, now revealed as lines in a script he'd performed for fifteen years.

I stood abruptly, needing to escape the suffocating confines of his study. The room tilted around me as a wave of nausea hit. I stumbled toward the door, my vision blurring with unshed tears.

In my haste, I missed the small step at the threshold. My ankle twisted sharply as I fell forward, my body tumbling down the curved staircase that led to the main floor. Each impact against the hard marble steps sent shocks of pain through my body, but it was nothing compared to the agony tearing through my heart.

I landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom, a cry of pain escaping my lips before I could stifle it. The sound echoed through the penthouse.

"Helena?" Marcus's voice called out, followed by hurried footsteps.

I tried to stand, refusing to let him find me broken on the floor, but my ankle gave way beneath me. A sharp, stabbing pain radiated up my leg.

He appeared in the hallway, his expression shifting from surprise to concern. Behind him, I caught a glimpse of Lily, clutching my robe closed at her throat, her eyes wide with shock.

"What happened?" Marcus rushed to my side, his hands reaching for me.

I recoiled from his touch. "Don't."

Confusion flickered across his face, then understanding as he followed my gaze to the study door standing open behind me.

"Helena, whatever you think you saw—"

"Call an ambulance," I interrupted, my voice eerily calm despite the storm raging inside me. "I think my ankle is broken."

The next hours passed in a blur of paramedics, emergency room lights, and doctors' voices. Mount Sinai Hospital. X-rays. A sprained ankle, not broken. And then the ultrasound I hadn't expected, revealing complications with a pregnancy I hadn't even known about.

"Six weeks along," the technician had said, her face professionally neutral. "But there are some concerns."

I lay alone in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling as a nurse—Clara, according to her name tag—checked my vitals.

"Your husband called," she mentioned casually, adjusting my IV. "Asked about the situation. Said he had an emergency but wanted an update."

"Did he say when he'd be coming?" My voice sounded hollow, unrecognizable.

Clara's expression softened with something like pity. "No, honey. He just called that once."

I closed my eyes, a single tear escaping down my cheek. Of course. Marcus had chosen Lily—again. Even now, with his wife and unborn child in jeopardy, his priorities were clear.

My hand drifted to my stomach, the reality of the life growing inside me colliding with the death of everything I'd believed in. In that sterile hospital room, with the steady beep of monitors marking time, I made a decision that would change everything.

Marcus Sterling had taken fifteen years of my life.

He wouldn't take another day.