The Wife He Left Standing Alone

Chapter 1

The champagne was cold against my palm, the condensation dripping slow between my fingers as I watched my husband read another text message from a woman who wasn't me.

Lewis's mouth curved into that satisfied little smile I used to love. The one that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and softened the hard edges of his jaw. Now it just made my stomach clench with something that felt dangerously close to nausea.

"Listen to this one," he said, not even bothering to look up from his phone. "She says she can't stop thinking about the presentation we nailed today. Three exclamation points and a heart emoji."

I took a slow sip of my champagne, letting the bubbles burn against my tongue. "How professional of her."

"Jules, come on." He finally glanced at me, and I hated the way my heart still stuttered at the full force of his attention. Twenty-two years of marriage and Lewis Cage could still make my pulse skip like I was some lovesick teenager. "She's just enthusiastic. It's refreshing."

Refreshing. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to throw my crystal flute against our pristine white kitchen wall and watch it shatter into a thousand glittering pieces. Instead, I set it down carefully on the marble countertop and smoothed my hands over my silk robe.

"It's eleven o'clock at night, Lewis. On a Friday. About a work presentation." I kept my voice even, measured. The way I'd learned to keep it over the years whenever Chloe Rudolph's name came up. "That's not enthusiasm. That's boundary issues."

His phone buzzed again. His eyes dropped to the screen immediately, like a dog responding to a bell, and that smile stretched wider.

"Oh, this one's cute. She sent a gif of a little cartoon champagne bottle.

" He turned the screen toward me like I should find this charming.

Like I should coo over his twenty-four-year-old assistant sending him celebratory messages while I stood in our kitchen in bare feet, waiting to toast his promotion with the husband who couldn't seem to put his goddamn phone down.

My chest felt tight. Not the romantic kind of tight, where your breath catches because someone you love walks into a room. This was the other kind. The kind that felt like someone had wrapped their fist around your heart and was squeezing, slow and deliberate.

"You should answer her," I said, and my voice came out flatter than I intended. "Tell her thank you for thinking of you at eleven p.m. on a Friday night. I'm sure that's completely normal assistant behavior."

Lewis sighed, finally setting the phone face-down on the counter. He crossed to me in three long strides, and suddenly his hands were on my waist, his fingers pressing into the thin silk, and I could smell his cologne mixed with the whiskey he'd had at the office celebration earlier.

"You're jealous," he murmured against my hair, and I could hear the pleasure in his voice. The smug, self-satisfied pleasure of a man who thought two women wanting him was some kind of compliment to his masculinity.

I pulled back enough to meet his eyes. Gray-blue, like storm clouds over the ocean. I'd written terrible poetry about those eyes when we first started dating. Now they just looked at me with a patience that bordered on condescension.

"I'm not jealous, Lewis. I'm concerned." I pressed my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady and slow beneath my fingers. So calm. So unbothered. "She's been your assistant for six months and she texts you constantly. At all hours. About things that have nothing to do with work."

"She's young and eager to prove herself." His hands slid up my sides, thumbs brushing just beneath my breasts in that way that used to make me melt into him. "You remember what that was like, don't you? Being hungry for success?"

The dig landed exactly where he intended it to. I'd given up my marketing career twelve years ago when we decided to focus on his climb up the corporate ladder. His career. His ambitions. His success. And now he was throwing that sacrifice back in my face like it was some kind of character flaw.

"I remember professionalism," I said quietly. "I remember not sending my married boss heart emojis at eleven o'clock at night."

His jaw tightened. Just slightly, just enough for me to notice after twenty-two years of memorizing every shift in his expression. "You're being paranoid. Chloe is a child. She's the same age as our niece, for God's sake."

Exactly, I wanted to scream. That's exactly the problem.

But I didn't scream. I never screamed anymore. I just stood there in my silk robe, watching my husband's phone light up with another notification, watching his eyes flick toward it even as his hands stayed on my body.

"Go ahead," I said, stepping out of his grip. The silk slid against my skin as I moved, and I suddenly felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with clothing. "Check it. You know you want to."

He didn't even hesitate. Just reached for the phone like it was a reflex, like my permission was all he'd been waiting for.

"It's just a meme," he said, chuckling at whatever was on the screen. "She has a good sense of humor. You'd like her if you gave her a chance."

I picked up my champagne and drained the rest of it in one long swallow. The bubbles fizzed against the back of my throat, and for a moment I focused on that sensation instead of the hollow ache spreading through my chest.

"I have given her a chance. Multiple chances.

" I set the empty glass in the sink, watching the last drops of golden liquid swirl down the drain.

"She shows up at our house with 'urgent documents' that could easily be emailed.

She makes comments about my age every time she sees me.

She looks at you like you're a piece of meat she can't wait to sink her teeth into. "

"Jules." Lewis's voice had that edge now, the one that meant I was being unreasonable, that I was the problem. "You're a beautiful, accomplished woman. You don't need to feel threatened by some kid fresh out of college."

Threatened. Like this was about my insecurity. Like I was some sad, aging wife who couldn't handle a younger woman existing in her husband's orbit.

I turned to face him fully, and something in my expression must have shifted because his smug smile faltered slightly.

"I'm not threatened, Lewis. I'm insulted.

" I held his gaze, refusing to look away, refusing to be the first one to break.

"I'm insulted that you read her messages to me like they're funny instead of inappropriate.

I'm insulted that you defend her behavior instead of shutting it down.

I'm insulted that you're standing in our kitchen, on a night that was supposed to be about celebrating your promotion, our future, and you can't stop looking at your phone every time that girl sends you a fucking emoji. "

The word hung between us, sharp and heavy. I didn't swear often. Lewis knew that. He knew exactly how far he'd pushed me to make that word slip out.

His phone buzzed again.

We both looked at it. Three seconds. Four. Five.

He picked it up.

"I should just tell her good night," he said, already typing. "Let her know I appreciate the support but I'm celebrating with my wife."

It should have felt like a victory. Him acknowledging me, prioritizing me, putting boundaries in place.

But I watched his thumbs move across the screen and I saw the way his eyes softened as he read whatever she'd sent.

The way his lips quirked up at the corner.

The way he typed his response with more care than he'd shown our conversation all evening.

"There." He set the phone down with a sense of finality that felt performative. "Done. Now, where were we?"

He reached for me again, and I let him pull me close because I was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of being the paranoid wife. Tired of watching my husband light up for someone else while I stood in the shadows of my own marriage.

His lips brushed my temple. "I love you, Jules. You know that, right? Twenty-two years married, twenty-four altogether. You're my whole world."

I closed my eyes and breathed him in. Cologne and whiskey and the lingering scent of whatever expensive hand soap they had in his corner office bathroom. He smelled like success. Like the man I'd built a life with.

"I know," I whispered.

But his phone sat on the counter between us, screen dark, holding all those messages from a girl who wasn't me. And when Lewis's hand slid down to the small of my back, pressing me closer, I couldn't shake the feeling that part of him was still waiting for it to light up again.

We made love that night. Slow and familiar and perfectly adequate.

Lewis kissed my neck and murmured about how sexy I was, how lucky he was, how no one compared to me.

And I wrapped my legs around him and made the right sounds and tried to ignore the fact that his phone was on the nightstand, face up, within arm's reach.

Afterward, he fell asleep with his hand on my hip, snoring softly in that way that used to annoy me and then became endearing and now just felt like white noise.

I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, feeling the ghost of his touch on my skin and wondering when exactly I'd started to feel lonely in my own bed.

His phone lit up at 1:47 a.m. I watched the glow reflect off the ceiling, then fade.

I didn't check who it was. I didn't need to.

Some things you just know.