My Husband Chose His Mistress Over Our Dying Son

The outfit arrives at four in the afternoon, delivered in a black garment bag with Christopher's initials embossed in silver. I unzip it slowly, already knowing it won't be the gray uniform I've worn for weeks.

It's worse.

A black dress—if you can call it that. More like scraps of fabric held together by strategic stitching. The neckline plunges to my sternum. The back is completely open, designed to showcase skin from shoulders to tailbone. The skirt barely covers what it needs to.

I hold it up to the light from my storage room's single bulb. The fabric is expensive, silk that catches and shimmers. This isn't about poverty. It's about exposure.

My scars will show. Every single one.

I dress in the dark, my fingers fumbling with the zipper. The silk whispers against my skin, cool and unforgiving. When I catch my reflection in the small mirror Marcus left me, I see exactly what Christopher intended: a broken woman wearing her shame like jewelry.

The scars crisscross my back in raised white lines. Ramon's belt. His cigarettes. The time he used a knife to carve his initials near my spine, claiming his property. They tell a story I've never spoken aloud, written in a language of violence.

I pull my hair forward over my shoulders, but it's useless. The dress was designed to reveal, not conceal.

Upstairs, the penthouse has transformed into something from a magazine spread. Crystal chandeliers throw prismatic light across marble. Waiters in crisp white jackets arrange champagne flutes on silver trays. Holly floats through it all in emerald silk, directing traffic like a conductor.

She stops when she sees me. Her eyes travel down, then up, lingering on my exposed back. Her smile could cut glass.

"Perfect," she breathes. "You look exactly like what you are."

Christopher emerges from his study in a tuxedo that probably costs more than Ramon paid for my wedding ring. His gaze lands on me, and for one heartbeat, something flickers across his face. Then it's gone, replaced by that familiar granite.

"You'll serve champagne," he says, not quite meeting my eyes. "Keep the trays moving. Don't speak unless spoken to. And Arabella?" Now he looks at me directly. "Try not to embarrass me."

The first guests arrive at seven. Manhattan's elite, the same people who used to air-kiss my cheeks at gallery openings. Now they look through me, their gazes sliding past as if I'm part of the decor.

I lift a tray from the kitchen—crystal flutes filled with Dom Pérignon, each one worth more than my weekly food allowance. The tray is heavy. My arms shake within minutes.

I move through the crowd like a ghost, offering champagne to people who don't see me. A woman in Valentino takes a glass without acknowledgment. A man in Tom Ford grabs two, his eyes on Holly across the room.

Then I feel it. The stares.

A woman whispers to her companion, her gaze fixed on my back. Another guest turns, his expression shifting from curiosity to disgust. The conversations around me develop an edge, a sharpness.

They're looking at my scars.

Heat crawls up my neck. My vision blurs at the edges, that familiar warning sign. Not now. Please, not now.

I make it to the bar, set down the empty tray, reach for a full one. The crystal catches the light, throwing rainbows across my hands. I lift it. The weight pulls at my shoulders, my arms, my chest where my lungs are trying to remember how to function.

Three steps. That's all I manage.

The room tilts. The tray slips from my fingers in slow motion. Crystal explodes against marble, the sound like a gunshot in the sudden silence. Champagne spreads across the white carpet in a golden stain.

Every conversation stops.

I'm on my knees in the wreckage, glass cutting through the thin fabric at my shins. The cough builds in my chest like a living thing, clawing its way up my throat.

Footsteps. Christopher's shoes enter my field of vision, polished to a mirror shine.

"Get up."

I try. My legs won't cooperate. The cough erupts, violent and wet. I press my hand to my mouth, but it's not enough.

Blood sprays through my fingers. Onto the white carpet. Onto Christopher's pristine tuxedo shirt. Onto his face.

The room goes silent as a tomb.

I stare at the red on his shirt, watching it spread like a Rorschach test. My hand is still pressed to my mouth, blood seeping between my fingers, dripping onto the shattered crystal at my knees.

Christopher's face is a mask of fury and something else—something that looks almost like fear. But that can't be right.

"You bit your tongue." His voice is low, dangerous. "You staged this."

I shake my head, but the movement makes the room spin.

His hand clamps around my upper arm, yanking me to my feet. Glass cuts deeper into my knees as I rise. He drags me through the crowd, past Holly's manufactured gasp of concern, past the guests who part like the Red Sea.

The kitchen door swings shut behind us, muffling the whispers.

Christopher releases me. I stumble against the counter, my legs finally giving out. I slide down the cabinet, leaving a smear of blood on the white lacquer.

He's at the sink, scrubbing at his shirt with a dish towel. The water runs pink, then clear. His movements are sharp, violent.

"Three years," he says without turning. "Three years you lived like a queen while I built this empire from nothing. And now you pull cheap theatrical tricks for sympathy?"

I press my sleeve to my mouth. It comes away soaked.

"I didn't—" The words dissolve into another cough.

"Save it." He throws the towel into the sink. "I don't know what game you're playing, but it won't work. You made your choice. You chose money over me. Over us. And now you want me to feel sorry for you?"

He walks to the door, pauses with his hand on the handle.

"Clean yourself up. Then clean the mess you made. And Arabella?" He looks back, his eyes cold as winter. "Next time you want attention, try something more original."

The door closes.

I sit on the kitchen floor, tasting copper and champagne, listening to Holly's voice drift through the door: "She's been struggling, poor thing. Christopher's been so patient, but addiction is such a difficult battle..."

The lies spread like the bloodstain on the carpet. And I'm too tired to fight them anymore.