The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 315

Trust, Broken Twice 

MARY’S POV: 

He frowned. That familiar, dismissive frown that I had grown to hate more than almost anything else about him. Not the frown itself, but what it represented: the complete and utter refusal to take anything I said seriously. 

“What are you talking about?” he asked. 

I almost laughed. Almost. The sound was right there in my throat, bubbling up like something bitter and acidic. Seven years of marriage, and he could stand there with cake still drying on his collar and ask me what are you talking about as if I had just accused him of leaving the toilet seat up. 

I pulled out my phone. Opened the video and pressed play. 

His voice filled the foyer-clear, sharp, unmistakably his. “We’re the ones truly in love. She didn’t interfere in anything. None of this is her fault.” 

I watched his face as he watched himself. For a moment, just a fraction of a second, something flickered there. Something that might have been recognition. Or guilt. Or the brief, panicked realization that he had been caught in something he couldn’t talk his way out of. 

Then it was gone. 

He reached up and loosened his tie with an irritable tug, the way he always did when he was about to tell me I was overreacting. The gold cufflinks I had bought him for our fifth anniversary caught the light as his hands moved-I had noticed, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he still wore them. Probably without ever remembering where they came from. 

“I don’t remember saying that,” he said. “These videos are edited. You know how the media is, Mary. They take things out of context. They splice footage together to make it look like something it’s not.” He paused, his eyes meeting mine with that particular expression he used when he wanted me to feel small. “And you’re this angry over something like this? You’re even using our daughter as leverage?” 

“That’s all,” he said firmly. “Why are you making such a big deal out of this? She won’t affect your life. Nothing changes for you. You still have the house, the money, the cars. You still have everything you’ve always had.” He gestured vaguely at the foyer, at the chandelier above us, at the marble floors I had never wanted and never felt comfortable walking on in bare feet. “What exactly are you afraid of losing?” 

I stared at him. 

I stared at this man I had married, this man I had loved, this man I had given up my career and my body and my sense of self for. And I realized, with a clarity that felt almost physical, that he genuinely did not understand what he had done wrong. In his mind, he had provided for me. He had given me a life that most women would envy. He had never hit me, never yelled at me (much), never denied me anything that could be bought with a credit card. 

And that, apparently, was supposed to be enough. 

“You broke our daughter’s heart,” I said quietly. “On her birthday. You looked at cameras-cameras that were pointed at you because you were photographed with another woman-and you declared your love for her while Elowen was at home waiting for you to walk through the door. That’s what I’m afraid of losing, Alistair. Not the house. Not the cars. My daughter’s ability to trust that the people who say they love her actually mean it.”