My Husband Saved His Mistress Instead of Me

Tomorrow was our fifth wedding anniversary.

I spent all afternoon in the kitchen preparing beef bourguignon, the way he liked it. On the dining table, right beside two crystal wine glasses, sat a small gift wrapped in silver paper. It was a rare, first-edition Hemingway book Jaxson had talked about for years. I had pulled dozens of strings to track it down.

At eight thirty, the front door finally clicked open.

Jaxson walked into the foyer with his phone pressed to his ear. He was laughing, his voice light and warm.

"...I know, Layne," he said into the receiver. "Just leave the heavy boxes alone. Wait for me."

He hung up, tapped his designer watch, and looked over at me. "Hey. Did you need something?"

"It’s our anniversary eve," I said quietly, gesturing toward the set table.

His face stayed completely blank. "Oh. Right. That slipped my mind. Look, I promised Layne I’d help her move some dressers across town tonight. Her back has been acting up."

"Jaxson, dinner is hot right now."

"Just put it in Tupperware," he said dismissively. He grabbed his light jacket off the wall hook and headed straight out the door.

I sat down in the quiet dining room and ate alone.

The shaking started an hour later.

It wasn't a small tremor. It was a violent, sickening slam that threw me off my chair.

The floor jerked sideways. Cabinets exploded off the kitchen walls, shattering plates into white dust. The ceiling cracked open with a deafening screech of tearing steel.

"Jaxson!" I screamed. He had just stepped back through the front door from the lobby—the first rumble had caught him near the elevator.

Before he could answer, our heavy oak bookcase tore loose from the wall. It came down like an iron hammer.

The wood slammed directly across both of my legs.

A blinding flash of white-hot pain ripped through my body. I heard my bones snap. Plaster and drywall rained down, burying my hips in suffocating weight. Blood soaked instantly through the denim of my jeans.

"Jaxson!" I sobbed, stretching one trembling, bloody hand toward him across the ruined floor. "Help me! I’m pinned!"

Our eyes met through the swirling dust. For a brief second, his face was pale.

Then his phone buzzed loudly in his palm. Layne's name flashed across the screen.

From the hallway just outside, Layne’s panicked voice shrieked his name. She was holding Bruno, her French bulldog, against her chest.

Jaxson didn't run toward me. He didn't drop his phone.

He turned his back on me.

He bolted out into the corridor. In one swift motion, he scooped Layne against his side, tucked the dog under his other arm, and sprinted toward the emergency stairwell.

"Jaxson, please!" I screamed until my vocal cords tore.

Layne looked back over his shoulder. Through the open doorway, her eyes locked onto mine. There was no fear in her expression. Just a sharp, mocking gleam.

With the tip of her designer boot, Layne kicked a fallen mahogany cabinet straight across my doorway. It wedged hard against a dropped ceiling beam, sealing my only exit.

The heavy stairwell door slammed shut.

A suffocating silence fell over the ruin, broken only by the groan of buckling steel and my own ragged, shallow breaths.

I lay trapped in the dark for five hours before the search-and-rescue team finally dug me out.

I woke up under the blinding white lights of a hospital room.

My legs were encased in heavy plaster, completely numb. The orthopedic surgeon gave me the verdict in a low, flat voice: severe compound fractures, catastrophic nerve damage, and emergency reconstructive surgery. I was wheelchair-bound for the foreseeable future. A full recovery was unlikely.

Jaxson walked into the room around ten that morning. He held a paper cup of coffee. Just one. For himself.

"Man," he sighed, taking a sip. "That earthquake was terrifying. I’m just glad everyone made it out in one piece."

I stared at him from the pillows. My fingernails bit into the hospital sheets.

"Everyone?" My voice was raw, like crushed glass. "You left me behind, Jaxson. I was pinned under an oak shelf, bleeding to death, and you ran."

Jaxson rolled his eyes, a flicker of irritation crossing his brow. "You're being completely irrational, Em. Layne was closer to the exit. I had two seconds to make a call. What was I supposed to do, let her die?"

"She wasn't trapped," I whispered. "I was."

"Stop being dramatic," he snapped, adjusting the gold links on his cuff. "The quake hit everyone hard. My startup's local server room took major structural damage. I have real problems to deal with today."

Before I could speak, a charge nurse stepped into the room with a medical clipboard.

"Mrs. Rogers? We received the paperwork from the precinct. Since your husband signed the legal waiver, the city won't be filing an investigation regarding the blocked exit."

A chill ran down my spine. "What waiver?"

The nurse handed me the carbon slip. Jaxson’s neat signature sat firmly at the bottom. It was an unconditional legal release, forfeiting my right to press criminal charges or seek damages against Layne Hoffman for blocking my rescue.

"You signed this?" I asked, my hands shaking with cold, violent fury. "While I was unconscious under anesthesia?"

Jaxson frowned, looking annoyed that I was holding the paper.

"Layne is an influencer, Em. If she gets tied to a criminal investigation, her brand sponsorships will cancel her overnight. Besides, she didn't do anything wrong. The earthquake crushed your legs, not her. Stop trying to blame other people for an act of God."

His phone chimed in his pocket. He checked the screen, and his harsh scowl instantly melted into something tender.

"I need to take this," he muttered, turning toward the door. "Rest up. Stop looking for reasons to start a fight."

He stepped out into the tiled hallway.

I sat alone in the bed, gripping the paper waiver until the edges tore in my fists.

Through the thin drywall, his voice drifted back to me, soft and intimate.

"Hey, beautiful," Jaxson murmured. A high, teasing giggle from Layne followed through the speaker. "Don't worry about a thing. I took care of it. Everything is fine."