Ravish Me Slowly

Prologue

PROLOGUE

M y gaze fell on his cell phone.

I miss you too .

The words stared at me from the screen, mocking me in a way that should have ripped a huge wound in my chest.

As I slowly rose and stumbled toward our shared bedroom, the last five years flashed before my eyes.

His bag was packed on the bed. A business trip. It must have been his boss then who had missed him enough to send a message to his personal phone. If that wasn't laughable, I didn't know what was.

A chilly sensation spread across the back of my neck, and the longer I stared at the bag, the more goosebumps covered my body.

For some reason, I had believed that one day I would marry this man, not discover that he was cheating on me.

The realization outraged me, yet the anger didn't materialize. Instead, a calm washed over me, prompting me to unzip the bag. Layer by layer, I stacked everything on the bed.

Whatever I thought I would find, I knew what it was the moment my fingers touched the cardboard box. I also threw his socks onto the bed before bringing the condom packaging into the light of day.

It shimmered in the sunlight as if it were some sort of quest item I needed to level up. The sight was like a punch to the gut, simultaneously shattering the last fragments of my already crumbling relationship.

Ultra-thin .

Sure. Cheating was fine, but he insisted on keeping the protection he hadn't needed with me for months. How considerate.

As soon as I heard him fumbling around in the bathroom, I snapped back to reality.

As if I had burned myself on the box, I dropped it back into the bag. His socks followed, then the rest of the clothes. Finally, I zipped the bag closed and returned to the kitchen table.

By now, the display of his phone was dark, and no matter how fervently I willed it, no new notification lit up.

But it wasn't necessary—I had already decided to catch him red-handed for my own peace of mind—before sending him packing because he had not only stolen the last years of my life but also had the audacity to betray me.

Tonight, I would find out who thought they had hit the jackpot with my boyfriend.