### Chapter 2
I stared at those few lines until the screen went dark and the room sank back into black.
I'd expected my heart to twist like it was being cut open. There was nothing. Just numbness.
I gripped the signed papers under my pillow. The cold sheets pressed into my palm, the only thing in the room that felt real.
The next morning I opened my eyes to a soft laugh. Randolph was rolling my earlobe between his fingers, his gaze full of mockery.
"You didn't call me once last night. You saw me with another woman and you weren't jealous at all?"
He liked watching me fall apart, liked the crying, the scenes. Holding me in his palm like a lamb to play with always put him in a good mood.
Once I understood that my helpless tears and my groveling pleas were nothing but the seasoning that livened things up for him and those women, I knew I would never do it again.
I pushed his hand away, got out of bed, and walked toward the bathroom without looking back.
"Don't you hate hysterical women?" My voice came out calm, cold enough to chill. "Fighting over other women would be beneath the dignity of Mrs. Farley."
His eyes followed my back, and a small crease formed between his brows.
He came after me quickly, wrapped his arms around me from behind, and tilted my chin up with one long finger. In the mirror, he studied me the way a man studies cornered prey, smiling without a care.
"Relax. The place of Mrs. Farley will always be yours. Those women and I, we're just passing the time."
The words were gentle. Every one of them was a needle, leaving my heart bleeding from a hundred places.
A memory surfaced from years ago.
With my help he had become the heir the old man valued most, and the rest of the family resented him for it. That night we came out of a bar and a man who looked like a vagrant suddenly rushed at him. I saw the cold glint in his hand.
My body moved faster than my mind. I threw myself in front of him.
The blade went into me.
I lost so much blood that I was unconscious for ten days, and he stayed by the bed the whole time, never sleeping. The moment I woke, he slid an engagement ring onto my finger.
I still remember his red-rimmed eyes, the way he went down on one knee in front of me, as devout as my most faithful believer.
"Mel, I love you. I'll protect you for the rest of my life. If I ever betray you, let heaven strike me down and let me die a terrible death."
The hands that once held mine so tightly were used now to touch other women.
Those scalding vows had long since been forgotten in his betrayals.
When I didn't react, Randolph ruffled my hair. "I missed last night's party. Today I'll stay home with you and the baby. Happy now?"
The tone you'd use to throw a scrap to a stray animal.
I almost laughed. Before I could say anything, the phone at his waist rang.
He answered it, and in pieces I caught words like "local muscle" and "grabbed Miss White."
He glanced at me on reflex, a flicker of probing in his eyes.
I met his eyes in the mirror, cold and blank.
He immediately barked into the phone, "Useless, all of you! Didn't I say I'm spending today with my wife? Stop fucking bothering me!"
After he hung up, Randolph told me to take my shower first, said he'd cook lunch for me himself.
I let myself think maybe there was still a shred of love left in him. But when I came out of the shower, the room was empty.
A sticky note was pressed to the vanity mirror.
"Something came up at the company. I'm heading over. The chef will make your lunch."
After he left, a video arrived from an unknown number.
It ran a full hour. The hotel VIP suite. Randolph was on top of Lily White, wild beyond anything I had ever seen from him. I had never watched him lose control like that.
In five years of marriage, Randolph had always held himself back in bed, terrified of hurting me, of wearing me out.
So it turned out he wasn't born restrained. The person who could light that fire in him had just never been me.
In the video, Lily White moaned loudly beneath him, her nails dragging red welts down his solid back. She wept pitifully. "If it weren't for you, that old man would have sold me onto the dark web... I love you so much, Randolph, so much!"
The way Randolph looked at her was focused, scorching, edged with an almost mad possessiveness.
I had never once seen that look turned on any of his other mistresses.
I watched the video like I was punishing myself, until my assistant called to remind me it was time to go to the hospital for my prenatal checkup.
No matter how busy Randolph and those women had ever been, on this one day he had always pulled himself away to come with me.
This time, he had forgotten completely.
I had barely walked into the hospital when someone stopped me.
"Sorry. Mr. Farley has booked out the entire place."
