Maybe we are healing.
I'll get more evidence and meet with the police and fight for a future Mila doesn't get to ruin.
She won’t win.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
DEVON
I watch Jade sleep.
It's almost three in the morning. Her breathing is even now, finally peaceful after hours of restless tossing and turning. She fell asleep with her hand on my chest, like she needed proof I was still here.
I am. I'm not going anywhere. Ever again.
But I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see those fucking comments.Too hot for her.Like Jade is some consolation prize. Like she isn't the most beautiful, brilliant, infuriating woman I've ever known.
This is all my fault.
All of it—every tear she's shed, every moment of doubt, every cruel word strangers are typing about her right now—traces back to one stupid decision I made in a hotel bar in New York.
I kissed Mila Harris.
Weeks of lies followed. Weeks of watching my wife question her sanity while I played innocent. And now Mila is using that kiss against us, twisting it into something evil.
Jade stirs beside me, mumbling something I can't make out, and I brush her hair back from her face. She leans into my touch even in sleep.
I don't deserve this woman.
But I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to.
I must’ve nodded off, because Jade is already awake when I open my eyes, sitting up against the headboard with her phone in her hands.
"What is it?"
She doesn't answer. She hands me the phone.
It's an email this time—sent to her author account, the one she uses for reader correspondence. The subject line reads:Thought you should see this.
I open it.
The message contains a single photo.
It's me and Mila at the conference mixer. We're standing close—too close—her hand on my arm, my head tilted toward hers like I'm sharing a secret. Except I remember this moment. Mila was telling me about Grant, and I was too drunk to care about boundaries.
The photo has been edited. Someone—Mila—has added text across the bottom in pink cursive:The night I lost my husband to the better woman.
"She sent this to my subscribers,” Jade says. Her voice is flat. "To the email list I built over three years."
Fuck. How?!
"Jade—"
"There's a link at the bottom. It goes to her Instagram post. The one with all the comments." She takes the phone back and stares at the screen. "She's trying to destroy my career, Devon. Not just our marriage. My career. The one thing I built that had nothing to do with you."
"I'll fix this." But I don’t know how; I just want to take it all away from her.
"How?" she finally looks at me, and her eyes are red-rimmed but dry. She’s all cried out. "How are you going to fix this? She's already in people's inboxes. She's already in their heads."
