My Husband Chose His Mistress—Now He’s Begging Me to Come Back

Nathan hadn't apologized that night.

He'd walked in, seen the ring on the nightstand, and slid it back onto my finger himself.

"Don't be dramatic, Elena," he'd said. "Leo needs his mother."

So I stayed. For Leo. For three more days.

On the fourth evening, I drove Margaret home from her cardiology checkup. She sat in the passenger seat, scrolling on her phone, while I balanced the pharmacy bag on my lap at every red light.

"Dr. Fennimore says your blood pressure's better," I said.

"Dr. Fennimore says a lot of things."

When I'd picked up the car from the garage that afternoon, a bouquet of red roses had been lying on the back seat. Two dozen, wrapped in black paper. Nathan's car. Nathan's flowers.

I kept glancing at them in the rearview mirror.

He used to bring me roses every Friday, back in Chicago. Back when he still laughed at my jokes.

*Maybe he remembered.*

"Stop smiling like that," Margaret muttered. "It's unbecoming."

I stopped smiling.

We pulled into the circular drive just after eight. I helped her up the front steps, the pill bag crinkling against my wrist. The house was quiet. Leo's nanny had already put him to bed.

Then I heard it.

A woman's laugh. High and breathy. Coming from upstairs.

From the master bedroom.

Margaret paused on the bottom step. She didn't look up. She didn't look at me.

My feet climbed the stairs on their own. The laugh came again, louder, followed by Nathan's low murmur. I knew that tone. He hadn't used it with me in two years.

The bedroom door was open a crack. I pushed it wide.

Nathan lay against my pillows, shirtless, one arm behind his head. Victoria Grant was curled beside him.

She was wearing my pajamas. The pale blue silk set my sister had mailed me for my birthday.

The pharmacy bag slipped from my fingers. Pill bottles rattled across the hardwood and rolled under the bed.

"What are you doing?"

Nathan didn't sit up right away. His brows pulled together, like I'd interrupted a phone call.

"Why didn't you knock?"

I stared at him. "This is *my* bedroom."

Victoria tugged the silk collar tighter across her chest, slow and smug. Her red lipstick was smeared at one corner.

"Is it, though?" She tilted her head. "Not anymore, sweetie. Nathan told me he stopped loving you a long time ago."

*Sweetie.* The same word she'd said at Christmas when she hugged me and asked for my pie recipe.

Behind me, the floor creaked. Margaret stepped into the doorway, one hand on the frame. She looked at the bed. At her son. At her other son's wife, wrapped in my clothes.

Her face didn't change at all.

"Well," she said coolly. "Now that you've seen it, don't make a scene."

I turned around so fast my shoulder bumped the door.

"You knew?"

Margaret's gaze slid toward the window. She fiddled with her pearls.

"Men have their little distractions, Elena. It's normal. Your job is to take care of this house."

"Your *other son* is married to her."

"Richard is in Singapore half the year." She flicked her hand like she was brushing off lint. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

Something cold settled in my stomach. Not shock. Shock would have meant I was surprised.

I wasn't.

Nathan finally swung his legs off the bed. He grabbed his shirt from the floor and buttoned it with quick, tidy fingers, the way he did after a board meeting ran long.

"Victoria has a charity gala tonight," he said. "I'm escorting her. You stay here and watch Leo and my mother."

I blinked at him.

Then I laughed.

It bubbled out of me before I could stop it, loud and wrong in that silent room. Victoria's smirk wobbled.

"You cheated on me," I said. "I caught you in our bed. And now you want me to babysit your family while you take her to a party?"

Nathan let out an irritated sigh and reached for his cufflinks. "Isn't that what you're good at?"

The words landed softly. That was the worst part. He wasn't even trying to hurt me. He just meant it.

Victoria slid off the mattress and padded toward me in my slippers. Her eyes crawled over my faded gray sweater, the one with a coffee stain near the hem I'd never bothered to fix.

"Be honest," she purred. "A housewife like you? What would you even do without the Verelli name? Where would you go?"

I looked at the three of them.

Nathan, fastening his watch. Margaret, already bored. Victoria, glowing like she'd won a prize.

The pain I'd been carrying for days simply stopped. Like someone had switched off a radio.

All that was left was how ridiculous it was.

I walked to the dresser. My reflection in the mirror looked calm. Too calm.

I pulled the ring off my finger. It came free easily this time.

I set it down on the polished wood, right next to Victoria's diamond earrings.

"Nathan." I turned to face him. "Starting today, you don't have a wife."

His hands froze on his watch strap. For the first time all night, his face actually moved. His jaw went rigid. His eyes sharpened.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Watch me."

I stepped over the scattered pill bottles and walked toward the door. Margaret moved aside without a word.

I was halfway into the hall when Victoria's voice floated after me, light and sweet.

"Don't forget, Elena. You don't even have a job."

I stopped.

One second. That was all I gave her.

I didn't turn around.

"Then I'll start looking tomorrow."

My phone was already in my hand as I went down the stairs. My thumb was hovering over a number I hadn't dialed in three years.

A number Nathan had made me promise never to call again.