Chapter Eight
Sophie
My marriage is slipping through my fingers. I haven’t slept in three days. Spencer hasn’t been home once; just a nightly text about late meetings and early mornings, like that somehow makes it okay.
The situation between us is going from bad to worse; it’s literally breaking my heart.
Seven or eight months after Lily’s birth, it became quite normal for him to come home after I’d gone to bed, but to not see him at all doesn’t happen unless he has a business trip.
Even though I’m certain my husband wouldn’t go away without informing me, earlier I called his assistant to check his whereabouts.
Maggie told me he was in the office—she even asked if I wanted to speak to him. The breakdown of our relationship is now so extreme that it’s making me question everything, and it’s wrecking me.
Although I don’t doubt the love we share, my experience of married life hasn’t been the fairytale I imagined as a girl.
I accept some of the responsibility for that by agreeing to marry such a complex character. After all, he even warned me in his proposal that our lives would never be conventional.
I suppose I just hoped eventually he would change, and that I’d become the only woman he ever wanted.
Every other facet of my life isn’t a struggle. I have everything money could buy. We live in a beautiful house, which I’ve remodeled into my perfect home. I don’t work—which I fought vehemently against during pregnancy, but later discovered, being a stay-at-home mum is heaven.
However, my husband’s extracurricular activities have changed recently. They used to be part of a twisted sex game. A game I wrote the rules for; hence, I have nobody else to blame for this mess aside from myself.
As with any game, though, there’s a winner and a loser. For this one, I lost, and it’s killing me that not only do I keep on losing, but my husband has lost too.
Raised in a home with a cheating father, I thought I’d calculated my decision by giving him a free rein in those fucking clubs.
Initially, the scenes he created turned me on.
It was a power trip. I just didn’t expect the novelty to go on for so long.
I’ve always congratulated myself on having an honest husband. Unlike my friend’s husbands, he never hid his one-night stands, and in the elite society we mix in, these affairs seem to be par-for-the-course.
Hearing Spencer describe how some woman or other begged for his attention. How he took them on his terms, while thinking of me, lit a fire inside me. Then, I was secure enough to be certain he was mine.
It turned him on, and I taught myself to feed off his pleasure.
After a night out, Spencer would return home with a spring in his step, reeking of women’s perfume. The contrast between then and now is that; then, each time, the scent was different.
For the last few months, the scent has been the same, and I’ve grown to despise it.
I even know what perfume she wears. It’s Jo Malone’s Pomegranate Noir. I can say this with certainty because I used to wear it myself up until about a year ago.
The drastic shift in my husband’s behavior—his growing absence, the way he barely makes time for our daughter, and how he rarely comes home at night—can only mean one thing; he’s met someone else, and she matters to him.
And that reality scares me senseless.
I’m lost and rudderless.
Snatching up my phone, I call my friend. Nicky is the only person who can ground me when I get like this.
“Hey. I was just thinking about you,” Nicky says in her usual bright, cheerful manner.
“I need you to talk me off the ledge,” I groan.
“Why? What’s he done now?” she demands, with the familiar air of annoyance she adopts when we discuss Spencer.
“He hasn’t been home for three nights,” I choke out.
“And you’re only just calling me?” she snaps, her exasperation clear.
I squeeze my eyes closed. It’s hard to discuss this with Nicky. She knows most of my history with Spencer, but not all.
Spencer’s always preferred me not to share the details of his and Carlo’s intimacy, so I never have. But because I’ve withheld this critical detail, sometimes it’s hard to give her the complete picture.
“I know what you’ll say, but I’m not ready to leave him yet.”
“Soph, I’d never tell you to leave him. Well, unless he hurt you physically. But I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t remind you to consider a future without him.”
The sob building in my throat escapes unexpectedly.
“I’m scared shitless that you’ll stay until he’s killed all your sparkle. I realize you love him, and I’ve seen the way he is with you. He loves you too, but he’s draining you at the moment, and I hate him for it.”
Her words are making things worse, but I can’t argue with her logic; she’s right.
“I know,” I reluctantly admit.
“It’s time to tell him how you feel about these clubs, Sophie. If he’s not willing to stop, I think you should consider how you’d react if, in the future, your daughter was in the same situation. Would you encourage her to stay?”
That’s a low blow. The thought of Lily going through this makes me weak, and Nicky knows it. But I stay mute. My words catch in my throat.
“If you are unable to speak to Spencer, call Carlo. Tell him what’s going on, and how this is affecting you.
” I slam my eyes closed. For weeks, the temptation to call Carlo has been taunting me, but after my outburst when I was pregnant, the result of which not only ended our sexual relationship but effectively destroyed his relationship with Spencer. I don’t feel able to ask him.
Yet, without betraying my husband’s confidence, I can’t explain the sensitivity of all this to Nicky.
Tears of sadness and frustration leak from my eyes.
“I’ll try to speak to Spence,” I assure her, fighting to keep my voice even.
“Keep me informed of progress.” She pauses. “And Soph if there’s anything I can do, anytime, I’m always here for you. You’re aware of that, right?”
“Yes, thanks, Nicky,” I choke out, needing to get off the phone so that she doesn’t hear my heart-wrenching sobs.
Picking up the couch cushion, I hug it.
Calling Nicky was a mistake. Through no fault of her own, she’s made me feel so much worse.
I sit back, torturing myself with the same question I ask every day: where did my marriage go wrong?
When the doctor told me I was pregnant, I wasn’t certain who the father was.
I felt like such a whore.
Carlo had been over on several consecutive weekends during the August that I conceived our child. He and Spencer were still taking full advantage of their freedom in the club, although these events were becoming less appealing to me. They still delighted in coming home to reenact their evenings.
When I asked the doctor of my likely conception date, the bottom fell out of my world.
“On or around August 23rd,” he said.
The night of the 23rd was epic.
It was the night that Carlo and I punished Spencer. We tied him to the chair, a wanking device slid over his cock and forced him to watch as Carlo made love to me from every position possible. If Spencer climaxed, he wouldn’t get to join us.
However, if Spencer waited until after Carlo ejaculated—highly unlikely; that man has the willpower of a Shaolin monk—he could choose where he orgasmed.
Suffice to say, only Carlo came inside me that night.
A few weeks after our horrendous argument, I secretly went back to the doctor for a paternity test.
Trying to get the DNA from Spencer was a nightmare. Ideally the lab wanted a cheek swab, but once I explained the result wasn’t required for court, simply for my own peace of mind, they suggested they could try a recently used toothbrush combined with a razor head that only Spencer had used.
When the result confirmed Spencer was Lily’s father, something inside of me unlocked. I finally allowed myself to breathe, to enjoy the rest of my pregnancy without fear.
Before Lily was born, Spencer was completely present, hovering around the house, adjusting pillows, making sure I was comfortable. He refused to go into the office, terrified he’d miss the birth.
But even then, I sensed the distance between us. Subtle, buried beneath all his love and care—but it was there. A quiet gap he couldn’t bridge, no matter how hard he tried.
After Lily arrived, he looked at me as if I were something sacred. He placed me on a pedestal he couldn’t quite reach. I could see the love in his eyes, but also the confusion. Like he didn’t understand how to hold both parts of himself at once.
I still smile remembering her birth. How furious Spencer was when the midwife didn’t manage my pain properly. He came so close to being thrown out of the delivery room. But the anger vanished the moment he held Lily. He looked at her as if she were the only thing that mattered.
And for a while, it was bliss. Spencer fed her at night, rushed home from work just to be with us. I saw a calm in him I’d never seen before—like he’d found his place in the world.
Three months later, he went away for Rupert’s stag do. The instant my husband passed through the door, I realized something had happened.
He broke down. Sobbing, he told me about the sex club they’d visited. About how he and Carlo took a girl into a private room, Spencer’s intention, he claimed, was just to observe but the desire overwhelmed him. Shame was evident on his face.
When he finally admitted he’d had sex with Carlo, the words were barely a whisper. He begged for forgiveness, but it wasn’t mine to give.
Seeing him like that—raw and broken—was unbearable. I told him I wasn’t angry, explained again that I loved his connection with Carlo, but he couldn’t hear me. Guilt had swallowed him whole.
Eventually, I went to Carlo. I didn’t want to. It seemed like betrayal—but I wasn’t sure how else to reach Spencer. They talked. Things improved. For a while, he seemed lighter. More himself.