Scorched Earth

CHAPTER ONE

COLLINS

The house smelled wrong when I opened the front door.

Not bad, exactly. Just... different. Like someone else's perfume mixed with something muskier, more primal. I stood in the entryway of my own home, designer luggage still in hand, and felt the first whisper of unease crawl up my spine.

"Wayne?" I called out, my voice echoing through the marble foyer.

No answer.

The Denver conference had been cut short when the keynote speaker came down with food poisoning.

Instead of spending another night in a sterile hotel room, I'd caught an earlier flight, imagining Wayne's surprise when I walked through the door.

Maybe we'd order Thai food and watch something mindless on Netflix.

Maybe we'd actually talk for once, instead of passing each other like ships in the night.

Maybe he'd touch me the way he used to, back when we couldn't keep our hands off each other.

I set my bag down quietly, some instinct making me move with caution.

The afternoon sun slanted through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long shadows across the hardwood floors.

Everything looked normal—the abstract art we'd bought in Santa Fe, the designer furniture that had cost more than my first car, the fresh flowers in the crystal vase that our housekeeper replaced twice a week.

Everything looked perfect.

Everything looked like a lie.

I heard it then. A sound from the kitchen. Low and rhythmic. A woman's moan, breathy and theatrical. And underneath it, a man's grunt of effort.

My heart stopped. Actually stopped, then started again with a painful lurch that made my chest ache.

I should have left. Should have walked back out that door, gotten in my car, and driven anywhere else. But my feet carried me forward, drawn by some horrible need to confirm what my brain was already screaming at me.

The kitchen.

Our kitchen, with its white marble countertops and top-of-the-line appliances and the breakfast bar where we'd eaten countless meals together.

I saw her first.

Leslie Valentine, Wayne's assistant. Twenty-three years old, blonde, with the kind of perky tits that had never known a nursing bra or the pull of gravity.

She was bent over the kitchen island, her skirt hiked up around her waist, her blouse open to reveal a lacy pink bra that probably cost more than she made in a week.

And behind her, still wearing his dress shirt but nothing else, was my husband.

Wayne's hands gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her pale flesh hard enough to leave marks.

His face was contorted in concentration, eyes closed, completely lost in the sensation of fucking another woman in our home.

In our kitchen. On the counter where I'd rolled out pie dough last Thanksgiving.

"Fuck, you're so tight," Wayne groaned, his voice thick with pleasure. "So much better than—"

He didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to. The implication hung in the air like poison gas.

Better than me.

Leslie threw her head back, her blonde hair cascading down her back. "Harder, Mr. Talbot," she panted, and I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Mr. Talbot. She was fucking my husband and still calling him Mr. Talbot like they were in some cheap porno.

"You like that?" Wayne's voice was rough, almost unrecognizable. "You like when I fuck you like this?"

"Yes! God, yes! Your wife never has to know. We can keep doing this forever."

The words hit me like a physical blow. This wasn't a one-time mistake. This was ongoing. Planned. They'd discussed it, decided together that I was too stupid or too trusting to ever find out.

Wayne slammed into her harder, the sound of flesh meeting flesh obscenely loud in the quiet house. "Fuck, I'm going to come. Where do you want it?"

"Inside me," Leslie gasped. "Fill me up. I want to feel you dripping out of me all day."

Something inside me shattered. Not my heart—that would come later. This was something deeper, more fundamental. The foundation of who I thought I was, who I thought we were together.

I must have made a sound. A gasp or a sob or maybe just a sharp intake of breath. But it was enough.

Wayne's eyes snapped open. For a moment, he just stared at me, his brain clearly struggling to process what he was seeing. His wife. Home early. Watching him balls-deep in his assistant.

"Collins—" he started, but his body betrayed him. His rhythm faltered but didn't stop. He was too close, too far gone. Even caught, even with his wife standing ten feet away, he couldn't stop fucking her.

I watched, frozen in horrified fascination, as my husband's face contorted and he came inside another woman. Watched as Leslie's eyes went wide with panic but her body still shuddered with her own orgasm. Watched as everything I'd built over the last five years crumbled into dust.

"Collins, Jesus Christ—" Wayne pulled out, scrambling for his pants. His cock was still half-hard, glistening with their combined fluids. Leslie grabbed her skirt, trying to cover herself, her face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and something that looked almost like satisfaction.

"How long?" My voice sounded strange. Calm. Detached. Like I was asking about the weather.

"Baby, it's not—"

"How. Long."

Wayne's mouth opened and closed. Leslie had the decency to look at the floor.

"Six months," he finally admitted.

Six months. Half a year of lies. Of him coming home and kissing me hello with the same mouth that had been on her. Of sleeping beside me in our bed after he'd been inside her. Of looking me in the eye and telling me he loved me while planning his next encounter with his assistant.

"Get out," I said quietly.

"Collins, we need to talk about this—"

"GET OUT!" The scream tore from my throat, raw and primal. "Both of you. Get the fuck out of my house."

Leslie grabbed her things and ran, not even bothering to button her blouse properly. Wayne stood there, pants half-zipped, looking at me with something that might have been regret or might have been annoyance at getting caught.

"This is my house too," he said, and there it was. Not an apology. Not remorse. Just a reminder of the legal reality of our marriage.

"Then I'll leave." I turned on my heel, grabbed my suitcase, and walked out the door.

I made it to my car before the tears came. Made it out of the driveway before the sobs started. Made it three blocks before I had to pull over because I couldn't see through the tears.

I sat there in my Mercedes, shaking, crying, feeling like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out everything vital. The man I'd loved since college. The man I'd built a life with. The man I'd trusted with everything.

Gone.

But as the tears slowed and my breathing steadied, something else began to grow in the hollow space where my heart used to be.

Rage.

Cold, crystalline, absolutely focused rage.

Wayne thought he could do this to me? Thought he could humiliate me in my own home and then tell me it was his house too? Leslie thought she could fuck her way up the corporate ladder using my husband's cock as a stepping stone?

They had no idea who they were dealing with.

I pulled out my phone and started making calls. First to my lawyer—the shark who'd handled my company's most vicious contract negotiations. Then to my best friend Memphis, who worked in corporate investigations. Then to a private detective whose card I'd kept from a case last year.

By the time I checked into the Four Seasons downtown, I had a plan.

Wayne and Leslie wanted to play dirty? I'd show them what scorched earth really meant.

I spent three days in that hotel room, barely sleeping, living on room service and rage.

Memphis came through with Wayne's company email records—apparently, my husband was stupid enough to use his work account for his affair.

The private detective, a woman named Sarah with cold eyes and a colder smile, delivered a file that made my stomach turn.

Photos. Dozens of them. Wayne and Leslie at hotels. In his car. In his office after hours, her on her knees under his desk. Time-stamped, dated, documented with the precision of a legal brief.

But it was the emails that really told the story.

Can't wait to taste you again. Collins is going to that conference next week—we'll have the whole house to ourselves.

You feel so much better than her. Tighter. Wetter. More enthusiastic.

She's so focused on her career, she barely notices when I'm gone. Makes this so much easier.

I think I'm falling for you, Les. We should talk about making this permanent.

That last one was from two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, while I was planning our anniversary dinner, Wayne was planning to leave me for his assistant.

I read every email. Looked at every photo. Let the pain wash over me until it transformed into something useful. Something sharp.

Memphis sat across from me in the hotel suite, watching me with concerned eyes. "Collins, are you sure about this? Once you start, there's no going back."

"I'm sure." My voice was steady. "They humiliated me. Now I return the favor."

"This is going to get ugly."

"Good." I looked up at him, and he actually flinched at whatever he saw in my face. "I want it ugly. I want it public. I want everyone to know exactly what they did."

"The company gala is in two weeks," Memphis said slowly. "Wayne's supposed to give the keynote address. Announce the new partnership deal."

A smile curved my lips. "Perfect."

The next two weeks were a masterclass in strategic planning. I moved through my days like a ghost, going to work, meeting with my team, pretending everything was fine. Wayne tried calling. Texting. He even showed up at my office once, but security turned him away.

I didn't respond. Didn't engage. Just let him stew in uncertainty while I built my case.

I hired a forensic accountant who discovered that Wayne had been funneling company money into a private account. Not much—he was too smart for that. But enough to constitute embezzlement. Enough to destroy his reputation.