My Ex's Worst Nightmare Is My Husband

SELENE'S POV:

Midnight was almost here when I heard his car.

My laptop glowed in the dark bedroom, lighting up the schedule I had spent all evening perfecting. Every interview slot. Every press release. Every carefully chosen word that would make the world love my husband a little more.

The low growl of his Aston Martin rolled up the driveway and cut off.

My heart did what it always did. It lifted. Even after three years, even after the cold dinners and the forgotten anniversaries, some small, stupid part of me still hoped he would walk in and actually see me.

Laptop closed. Mirror. Silk nightgown smoothed down, hem straightened, smile fixed in place.

Fixing things for him was the one thing I had always been good at.

The bedroom doors swung open, and Damian Blackwood walked in with the cold night air clinging to his coat. Tall. Sharp-jawed. The man every magazine in America called the most devoted husband in Silicon Valley.

"Hey," I said softly, stepping forward to take his jacket from his shoulders, the way I always did.

And that was when the smell hit me.

Sandalwood. Crushed roses.

My hands stopped on his collar.

Perfume had never touched my skin. It made me break out, so my dermatologist kept me on plain, unscented products only. Damian knew that. He used to tease me about it, back when he still teased me.

That scent did not belong to me.

It was thick in the wool. Soaked in. The kind of smell that only comes from someone being pressed close for a very long time.

"The meeting with Sequoia was a nightmare," Damian muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He leaned in and kissed my forehead. Quick. Dry. Like ticking a box. "They never know when to shut up."

"You must be exhausted," I heard myself say.

My legs carried me into the closet on their own. The jacket went onto a cedar hanger, and then I just stood there with my hand on the fabric, staring at it.

Breathe, Selene. It could be anything. A client. A hug at the door. Anything.

Three years of writing crisis statements had taught me exactly what that kind of excuse sounds like. It sounds like a lie.

When I came back out, he was standing by the bed. His silk tie hit the rug. Then he turned his back to me and started unbuttoning his shirt.

It slid off his shoulders and fell to the floor.

The whole room went silent.

Three red lines ran across his left shoulder blade.

Deep. Raw. The skin around them was swollen and angry, the edges torn open and still beaded with blood. They were evenly spaced, each one exactly the width of a woman's fingernail.

Gym equipment doesn't do that. A loose nail doesn't do that.

That was a woman holding on for dear life.

Damian turned his head and caught me staring.

For half a second, something flashed across his face. Raw, ugly panic. I saw it. I watched him see me see it.

Then it was gone.

He grabbed a towel from the bench and wrapped it around his shoulders as if he were simply cold.

"Scraped myself on a loose nail in the sauna," he said. "At the club."

Not one crack in his voice. Smooth as glass.

I looked at his face. The same face that had been on the cover of Time. The face a million women had written letters about, begging to find a husband just like him.

Acid burned up my throat.

Everything in me wanted to scream. To grab the lamp and throw it at his head. To demand how long, and who, and why.

But three years had taught me how to swallow things. So I swallowed one more.

My lips curved into a small, stiff smile.

"You should be more careful," I said. My voice sounded like it belonged to a stranger. "Go take your shower."

He nodded and walked into the bathroom. The door clicked shut. The rain showerhead hissed on.

The second the water started, my knees gave out.

I dropped onto the edge of the bed and grabbed the sheets with both hands. My whole body was shaking, and I couldn't stop it.

Then I saw his phone, lying face down on the marble nightstand.

You're better than this, I told myself.

My hand picked it up anyway.

The metal felt like ice in my palm. I swiped up and typed the passcode. Our wedding anniversary. The same four digits he had used for three years.

The screen shook side to side.

Incorrect passcode.

My heart dropped so fast I felt dizzy. I tried again, slower.

Incorrect passcode.

He had changed it.

The memory came back with horrible clarity. Last week. He had asked me to pass him his charger, and he had snatched the phone out of my hand so quickly that I thought nothing of it.

A week. He had been hiding this for at least a week. Maybe much longer.

The shower kept running, covering the sound of my ragged breathing.

Every night I had stayed awake until three in the morning flashed through my mind. The press releases. The family-man interviews. The charity galas where I smiled until my face ached, so the whole world would believe in Damian Blackwood's perfect marriage.

My own two hands had built that lie.

And I was the only person on earth who had actually believed it.

The grief in my chest burned for a few more seconds.

Then it turned into something else. Something hot and hard. Something that felt a lot like power.

The phone went back on the nightstand, in exactly the same spot, at exactly the same angle. Years of PR work had taught me how to leave no fingerprints.

My legs didn't shake when I stood up.

At my writing desk, I pulled open the bottom drawer, took out a blank sticky note and a pen, and wrote down a phone number I had memorized long ago, back when I was just a girl with no family and a big brain. The number of the most ruthless divorce attorney in New York.

The note went into the drawer. The drawer closed softly.

Water still pounded behind the bathroom door.

I walked back into the closet, took his jacket off the cedar hanger, and slid it into a garment bag. The zipper made a long, quiet sound. Then the bag went into the bottom of my suitcase, under my winter coats.

Sandalwood and crushed roses. Proof I could hold in my hands.

By the time the shower shut off, the jacket was already gone.