ManyWriters

For six years, I accepted my husband’s "muse". I told myself their connection was purely artistic, the price of being Mrs. Vanderbilt.
When I was bleeding in a hospital bed, Liam sneered over the phone, “Chloe gets pregnant, so now you’re faking an illness for attention? Pathetic.”
He dragged me from that bed to her celebration party. In front of all their friends, he shoved me. Hard.
I felt the life I fought so hard for, our child he never knew existed, drain out of me on that cold rooftop floor.
In that moment, the woman who loved him died, too.
Now, he sends flowers, begging for the wife he destroyed to come home. He doesn't understand. This isn't about a broken heart.
He has no idea he just armed his most dangerous enemy.

Fractured Vows

Watching the car disappear down the street, the weight on my chest seemed to lift all at once. It was the relief of finally being free from that toxic vortex of people. It felt like the best birthday gift I could have ever received.


As expected, Chloe gave birth prematurely to a son. Thankfully, the baby was healthy. He hadn’t been seriously affected by the drama.


Liam, too, finally agreed to sign the divorce papers. As I stepped out of the courthouse, a free woman, he called out to me. His face was filled with a bitter frustration.


“Elara, were you already cheating on me with Ethan? Is that why you were so determined to force this divorce?”


I told him the truth. While I had known a new neighbor had moved in, it wasn’t until the night I was bleeding on my hallway floor that I had ever spoken a word to Ethan.


I stood tall, confident in my own integrity. Even if the king himself had asked, my answer would have remained the same.


Chapter 10