The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 312

My Public Shame 

Mary’s POV: 

I set down the wine and grabbed my coat. I was going to his office. Not to scream or to make any scene. I just wanted-I don’t know what I wanted. An explanation? An apology? Some crumpled version of the man I had married, still buried soitrewhere beneath the expense accounts and the late nights? 

I opened the front door. 

The light hit me first. A wall of it. Flashes so bright and so sudden that I stumbled backward, my hand flying up to shield my eyes. Then the voices came-a dozen of them, two dozen, all talking at once, all of them shouting my name like they had known me for years. 

“Mary! Mary, over here!” 

“Is it true your husband has been seeing Vesper Holloway?” 

“How long have you known?” 

“Any comment on the photos?” 

I couldn’t breathe. My back hit the doorframe, and I pushed myself inside, slamming the door so hard that the framed photo of Elowen’s first steps rattled off the wall and fell face-down on the carpet. I stood there in the dark foyer, my heart slamming against my ribs, and listened to them keep shouting through the wood. 

Then I opened my phone. 

I hadn’t looked at the news all day. I had been too busy frosting a cake and tying balloons to chairs and pretending that today was just another birthday. But now I saw it. Everywhere. Every single app. Every single channel. 

“Billionaire Heir Alistair Vane Caught in Romantic Getaway with Award-Winning Actress Vesper Holloway” 

“Exclusive Photos: Married Father of One Spotted Kissing ‘It Girl’ Vesper in Santorini” 

None of this is her fault. 

I read the caption under the video twice. Then I set my phone down on the table, face-up, because some part of me wanted to keep seeing his face frozen in that moment of righteous protectiveness. The way he used to look at me. Before. When we were young and I still believed that loving someone meant they would love you back the same way. 

My hands were shaking. 

No. That’s not quite right. My entire body was shaking, like I had been standing outside in a blizzard instead of a mild autumn evening. I pressed my palms together and squeezed until the tremor passed. Seven years of marriage, and I had learned how to do that. How to hold myself together when everything inside me wanted to fly apart. 

I thought about the early days. The ones I still replayed sometimes when I couldn’t sleep. Alistair showing up at my tiny apartment with takeout and a sheepish grin, admitting he had no idea how to cook but he wanted to try for me. Alistair looking at our daughter for the first time, his face soft and wondering, like he couldn’t believe they had let him keep something so perfect. 

When did that man leave? And why hadn’t I noticed?