The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 347

The Last Straw 

MARY’S POV: 

“No.” 

The answer came so quickly that even Vesper looked surprised. 

For a brief moment, her hand loosened from Alistair’s arm. Her fingers slid away, inch by inch, her composure cracking just long enough for me to see the woman beneath the mask. Then Alistair reached over and held onto hers, his fingers wrapping around her palm like he was afraid she might disappear. 

I watched his hand cover hers. Watched the way his thumb traced small circles on her skin, gentle and absent, the way he used to touch me when we were young and I still believed in forever. 

I wasn’t surprised. 

Not anymore. 

The man standing before me was a stranger wearing my husband’s face. I had spent the past year learning the shape of his silences, the weight of his absences, the way he could fill a room without ever really being present. But this-this casual claiming of her hand in front of me, this public choosing-was something new. 

Something I should have expected. 

Something I should have prepared for. 

But you never really prepare for the moment your heart breaks for the last time. You just stand there, frozen, watching it happen, feeling the cracks spread across your chest like ice on a frozen lake. 

I looked down at my wedding ring. 

The gold band caught the lamplight, warm and familiar, the same ring he had slid onto my finger in a courthouse ceremony that felt like a hundred years ago. I remembered that day. The way his hands had trembled. The way he had smiled at me, really smiled, like I was the answer to a question he had been asking his whole life. 

I had never taken it off. 

Not when I washed dishes, the hot water stinging my knuckles. Not when I bathed Elowen, her small body slippery and soft in my arms. Not when I lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, listening for the sound of his key in the lock that never came. 

The metal was warm from my skin. It had been there so long that I had forgotten what my finger looked like without it. 

The ring fell. 

It hit the hardwood floor with a sound I would remember for the rest of my life. Sharp, metallic and final. The gold spun once, twice, then settled into the gap between two floorboards, catching the light one last time before falling still. 

Something inside me cracked and I turned to leave. 

Marl’s coat was still on my shoulders. I had forgotten I was wearing it. The fabric was heavy and warm, smelling of cedar and winter air, a strange comfort in the midst of all this cold. I pulled it tighter and walked toward the staircase. 

“Is this really your plan?” 

Vesper’s voice stopped me mid-step. 

“To hurt someone and then walk away just to get attention?” 

I turned back to look at them.