CHAPTER TWO
Bryony
Whispers and Doubts
I stood in the kitchen long after Henrik left, staring at the space where he'd been, trying to remember when exactly everything had gone wrong.
Two years. We'd been married for two years, and I could count on one hand the number of times in the past six months that he'd actually looked at me—really looked at me, the way he used to when we first met.
The way Deangelo used to look at me.
I pushed that thought away immediately. I couldn't think about Deangelo. Thinking about him meant acknowledging the mistake I'd made, the life I'd run from, the man I'd left behind without ever telling him how I felt.
I'd chosen Henrik. I'd made my bed, as the saying went, and now I had to lie in it.
Even if that bed was cold and empty most nights.
I poured myself a cup of coffee, my hands shaking slightly.
The anxiety had been building for weeks now, a constant knot in my stomach that I couldn't untangle.
Something was wrong. I knew it in my bones, in the way Henrik avoided my eyes, in the way he flinched when I touched him, in the late nights and the distant behavior and the feeling that I was living with a stranger.
And then there were the other things. The strange things.
The feeling of being watched when I went to the grocery store. The car that seemed to follow me home last week. The way things in the house were slightly off—a window I was sure I'd locked standing open, items moved from where I'd left them.
I'd mentioned it to Henrik, of course. He'd dismissed it immediately, told me I was being paranoid, that I was imagining things. Maybe he was right. Maybe the stress of our failing marriage was making me see threats where there were none.
But I didn't think so.
I'd grown up in a world where threats were real, where danger lurked around every corner. My brother Luca had made sure I understood that, even as he'd tried to shield me from the worst of it. I knew what it felt like to be in danger.
And I felt it now.
But Henrik didn't believe me. Or maybe he just didn't care.
I set down my coffee cup and walked to the window, looking out at our quiet street in Crescent Falls.
It was a beautiful town, the kind of place that seemed safe and idyllic on the surface.
That's why I'd chosen it when I ran away from New York, from Luca's world, from the arranged marriage I'd been too afraid to face.
I'd been eighteen, terrified, and desperate for a different life. Henrik had seemed like the answer—charming, attentive, normal. He'd pursued me with a single-minded focus that had been flattering after years of feeling invisible in my brother's shadow.
He'd made me feel special.
When had that changed?
I could pinpoint it almost exactly—about six months into our marriage.
The attention had started to wane, the affection had cooled, and slowly, methodically, he'd begun pulling away.
At first, I'd thought it was just the natural progression of a relationship, the honeymoon phase ending.
But it had continued, gotten worse, until we were barely more than roommates sharing a house.
Roommates who didn't even like each other very much.
My phone buzzed on the counter, and I jumped, my heart racing. I'd been on edge for weeks, every unexpected sound making me flinch. I picked it up, expecting... I didn't know what. A threat? A warning?
It was just a text from the dentist's office, reminding me of my appointment next week.
I laughed bitterly at myself. Paranoid. Henrik was right about that, at least.
Except... was I?
I thought about the perfume I'd smelled on his shirt last week. The lipstick stain I'd found on his collar. The way he'd started password-protecting his phone, keeping it with him at all times, even taking it into the bathroom.
The late nights. The distant behavior. The way he looked at me now—when he bothered to look at me at all—with something that looked almost like resentment.
I wasn't paranoid. I was observant.
And what I'd observed was that my husband was having an affair.
The thought made my stomach twist, made bile rise in my throat.
I'd suspected for weeks, but I'd been too afraid to confirm it, too afraid of what it would mean if I was right.
Because if Henrik was cheating on me, then what did I have left?
I'd given up everything for this marriage—my family, my home, my chance with Deangelo.
I'd run away from an arranged marriage only to trap myself in a different kind of prison.
I needed to know the truth. I needed proof.
My hands were shaking as I walked down the hallway to our bedroom.
Henrik had left in such a hurry this morning that he'd forgotten his old phone—the one he'd replaced a few months ago but kept in his nightstand drawer.
He'd told me he was keeping it as a backup, but I'd noticed he'd been secretive about it, protective.
I'd never looked through his things before. It felt like a violation, like crossing a line I couldn't uncross. But I was drowning in uncertainty, in the feeling that my entire life was built on lies, and I needed something solid to hold onto.
Even if that something was the truth of his betrayal.
The phone was exactly where I expected it to be, tucked in the back of his nightstand drawer under some old papers. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears as I pulled it out, as I pressed the power button and watched it come to life.
No password. He hadn't bothered to lock it, probably because he thought I'd never look.
I opened his messages, and my world tilted.
Amelia: Last night was incredible. I can still feel you inside me.
Henrik: You're insatiable. I love it.
Amelia: When can I see you again? I need your cock in my mouth.
Henrik: Tomorrow night. I'll tell her I have a late meeting.
The phone slipped from my hands, clattering onto the hardwood floor. I stood there, frozen, as the words burned themselves into my brain. Her. He'd called me "her," like I was just an obstacle, an inconvenience to work around.
I picked up the phone with shaking hands and kept scrolling. There were dozens of messages, going back months. Explicit photos that made my stomach turn. Detailed descriptions of what they'd done, what they wanted to do, how much better she was than me.
Amelia: Does she know? Does your wife know you'd rather be fucking me?
Henrik: She doesn't suspect a thing. She's too busy being paranoid about other shit.
Amelia: Poor thing. Maybe if she was better in bed, you wouldn't need me.
Henrik: Maybe. But where's the fun in that?
I was going to be sick.
I dropped the phone and ran to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I vomited. My body heaved, rejecting everything—the coffee, the breakfast I'd barely touched, the last two years of my life.
When there was nothing left, I sat on the cold tile floor, my back against the bathtub, and let the tears come.
I'd been so stupid. So blind. All the signs had been there, and I'd ignored them, made excuses, convinced myself I was imagining things.
But I hadn't been imagining anything. Henrik had been cheating on me for months, and he'd been laughing about it with his mistress, mocking me, treating me like I was nothing.
Like I was disposable.
The worst part was that I'd given up everything for him.
I'd run away from my brother, from the only family I had left.
I'd rejected an arranged marriage to Deangelo—sweet, protective Deangelo who'd always treated me like I was precious—because I'd been too afraid, too young, too stupid to see what was right in front of me.
And for what? For this? For a man who couldn't even be bothered to hide his affair properly? Who called me "her" and complained about me to his mistress?
I pulled myself up, washed my face, and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked young—too young, maybe. At twenty, I still had that softness that came with youth, that vulnerability that Henrik had once found attractive and now clearly found annoying.
My dark hair was tangled, my green eyes red from crying. I looked like a child playing dress-up in an adult's life.
Maybe that's all I'd ever been to him.
I walked back to the bedroom and picked up the phone, forcing myself to look through more messages. I needed to see it all, needed to understand the full scope of his betrayal. It was like pressing on a bruise, painful but necessary.
The messages went back eight months. Eight months of lies, of him coming home to me after being with her, of him kissing me with the same mouth that had been on her body. Eight months of me being a fool.
There were photos too. Explicit ones that made my stomach turn. Amelia was beautiful in a way I wasn't—blonde, curvy, confident. She looked like a woman who knew what she wanted and how to get it.
She looked like everything I wasn't.
In one photo, she was wearing lingerie I recognized—I'd seen it in Henrik's credit card statement and thought he'd bought it for me. He hadn't. He'd bought it for her.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw the phone against the wall, to destroy something the way my heart was being destroyed. But instead, I just stood there, numb, as the reality of my situation sank in.
My marriage was over. It had been over for months, probably, and I'd been too blind to see it.
And now I had to decide what to do about it.
I could confront him. I could throw the evidence in his face, demand an explanation, force him to acknowledge what he'd done.
But what would that accomplish? He'd probably just lie, or worse, admit it and tell me it was my fault somehow.
That I wasn't enough, wasn't good enough, wasn't woman enough to keep him satisfied.
I could leave. Pack my bags, walk out, never look back. But where would I go? I'd burned my bridges when I ran away from Luca. I had no money of my own—Henrik controlled our finances. I had no job, no skills, no support system.
I was trapped.
Or was I?