Chapter 8
P eople like to say hindsight is twenty-twenty. That’s a comforting lie.
Most of the time, you know.
You just keep bargaining with yourself—one more excuse, one more benefit of the doubt—because facing the truth means admitting you helped build the lie.
I saw the signs. I knew something was off the first time Xavier mentioned his “cousin” in that flat, detached tone. I knew I wasn’t imagining the distance. The neglect.
I knew. And I still let him fuck me in his parents’ driveway, like a few reckless minutes of being wanted could make up for months of being overlooked.
Hot water slams against my skin now, nearly scalding. Steam billows around me, blurring the marble and gold of our bathroom into a hazy smear. I scrub until my skin burns, but it does nothing for the filth creeping beneath the surface.
God, did he come home to me after touching her? After fucking her?
My stomach lurches, bile burning the back of my throat.
I scrub harder, nails raking over my arms, my throat, my stomach, until my skin turns red, then raw. I scrub like I can sand the memory out of my body. No amount of soap or scalding water can erase the image of his hands on me after they’d been on someone else.
The same hands. The same mouth. The same—
Fuck.
I gag, bracing a hand against the tile as nausea rolls through me.
What else is he lying about? How long have I been sleeping next to a stranger while he smiles, kisses me goodnight, and pretends none of this is happening?
While I cried over the one thing my body couldn’t give us, he was choosing her. Right in front of me.
Did he ever truly see me as his wife, or was I nothing more than a placeholder—a warm body filling the space she left behind until she decided to waltz back into his life?
I don’t know what hurts more—what he did to me, or how easily I helped him do it.
Early on, we went through our pasts. Xavier made it sound like nothing before me had ever really mattered.
We promised each other complete honesty.
No omissions, no half-truths. Not once did he mention the woman he couldn’t let go of.
Not once did he breathe her name. I built my life around those promises.
And now? Now I don’t know what was real and what was a lie.
A tremor works through me that has nothing to do with the cooling water. I need answers. And if I have to drag them out of him myself, so be it.
I twist the faucet off. The sudden silence is deafening, louder than the pounding water ever was. My heart hammers in my ears as I step out of the shower and grab a towel, dragging it roughly over my skin.
I should cry. That would be the normal thing to do. Crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, let the hurt wash through me and burn itself out.
Instead, my hands are already moving.
I drop the towel, cross the bedroom, and yank open the dresser drawer.
I shove past silk camisoles and lace lingerie until I find the pieces of myself I promised him I’d buried: a black sports bra, old boxing shorts, a roll of hand wraps.
The fabric brushes my fingers, soft and familiar enough to wake something mean and restless inside me.
I grimace, but the determination surging through my veins pushes back the slow drip of fear.
Cool air prickles over my damp skin as I pull the clothes on. My heartbeat settles into a measured rhythm.
I wrap my hands methodically, winding the cloth around my knuckles and wrists. Muscle memory thrums through places I thought had gone dead.
Left. Pull. Tuck.
By the time I secure the final strip with my teeth, my fingers have stopped trembling.
A strange calm settles over me. It’s the feeling I used to get right before a fight, when the world shrank to just me, my opponent, and the certainty that I would win. I haven’t felt it in years. I never thought I would again.
I draw in a slow breath and step out of the room. The house is dark and silent as I head downstairs, lit only by moonlight spilling through the windows. I turned off the motion-sensor lights when I came in—I couldn’t stand to see this mausoleum of a home glowing as if everything were normal.
But even the dark doesn’t hide enough.
I pause at the threshold of the living room, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Every version of us still hangs on these walls.
Wedding photos everywhere. Us laughing. Spinning through this room in the middle of the night. Burning dinner because we couldn’t stop touching each other. Collapsing onto the sofa, breathless from stupid jokes, convinced it would always be us against the world.
Everything looks untouched. Frozen in time. As if someone pressed pause on our happiness and never bothered to hit play again.
Just a month ago, I sat on that same sofa with Xavier, leaning into his warmth as we planned a trip to the Seychelles to recreate our honeymoon—our fourth anniversary celebration. A fresh start.
We canceled at the last minute because of his “busy schedule.” Meetings. Deals. Urgent proposals. Everything seemed to matter more than us. More than me.
Except her.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimes midnight, its bell tolling through the silence. Xavier still isn’t home. The realization slices through me, deepening the ache I’ve been trying to numb. He didn’t follow me when I walked out of that dinner.
He didn’t call. He didn’t even send a text to ask if I was okay. The only thing my husband did was instruct one of the chauffeurs to take me home.
That tells me everything. Everything about where I stand in his life.
Thirty minutes. That’s how long I sat in that back seat, the city lights smearing across the windows as we sped along the coast. Thirty minutes of silence, tasting tears I refused to shed and the Bordeaux curdling to acid in my stomach.
With every mile that passed, I felt a fissure open between me and the man I married, widening by the second.
I stared at the dark ocean and realized I was utterly alone in that car, in my marriage, in this fight.
A shiver of anger and pain runs through me. I start to pace. The silence of the house presses in, broken only by the tick… tick… tick of the clocks. Each second slips by with agonizing slowness, each tick another reminder that he still hasn’t come after me. That he’s still with her.
I clench my teeth so hard it hurts. How long is he going to leave me here, stewing in my own rage and humiliation?
Just as that thought sears through me, a sweep of headlights floods the living room, cutting across the walls and furniture.
My heart thuds once.
He’s here.
I halt mid-stride, every nerve snapping to attention.
Through the window, I watch the beams glide over the manicured lawn before disappearing as the car turns down toward the garage beneath the house.
A moment later, the low purr of the engine drifts up through the night—then dies.
I slip back into the shadows of the foyer, just out of sight of the front door. Fury coils in my veins, held in check by a thin veneer of calm.
The keypad beeps.
He misses the code the first time and tries again.
The door swings open. Xavier steps through, carrying the scent of night air and expensive wine with him. Moonlight from the doorway outlines his tall frame in silver. He pushes the door shut behind him and pauses, sighing as he loosens his tie with one hand. He hasn’t noticed me yet.
Time to change that.
“Welcome home.”
Xavier whips around, startled. He squints toward where I stand. I take one deliberate step forward, letting a band of moonlight fall across me.
His eyes widen as he takes in my appearance. He just stares, lips parting, but no sound comes out.
I let the silence stretch. The seconds drum between us while he looks at me like he doesn’t quite recognize the woman standing in his house.
“Yara,” he says at last, my name hushed and cautious on his tongue.
He steps forward, and I see him clearly.
Xavier Navarro—my handsome, infuriating husband—looks like hell.
The top button of his dress shirt is undone, his black tie hanging loose around his neck.
His dark hair is a disheveled mess, and there’s a drawn, almost haggard cast to his normally sharp features. He reeks of alcohol and guilt.
Definitely guilt.
“What are you—” he begins, voice low and rough. His eyes flick down to the white wraps on my hands. Something shifts in his expression—recognition, then alarm. “What are you doing?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I reach behind me to the console table by the wall, where I left what I’ve been avoiding for years. With a flick of my wrist, I send it flying toward him. A pair of heavyweight boxing gloves sails across the room and thumps into his chest.
Xavier reflexively catches them before they can hit the floor. He fumbles for a moment, then clutches the gloves against his chest, staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Quick game.”
He glances down at the gloves in his hands, then back at me, making no move to put them on.
I tilt my head, cracking my neck. “Just a quick round,” I add, my tone almost pleasant. “Humor me.”
“You… haven’t boxed in years. Your doctors said—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” My voice drops to a deadly chill. I arch a brow and nod at the gloves in his hands. “Put them on.”
His eyes search mine, perhaps hoping for a crack, a hint of mercy. He won’t find one. I feel nothing but cold, hard clarity. The time for talking was before he decided to shatter our marriage with lies.
He sighs, lifting one hand in a placating gesture. “Amor, let’s just talk. Please.”
A red haze creeps into my vision at the soft way he says amor —as if he has any right to call me love right now. As if nothing’s happened. The fraying thread of my control snaps.
“Talk?” I let out a quiet, incredulous laugh. “That’s rich, coming from you. Do you know how many times I gave you the chance to tell me the truth? How many times I swallowed that feeling in my gut because I wanted to believe you?