Page 16 of The Husband I Left

“You planned this?”

“I planned it. For you.” He came around the desk and took my face in his hands, the way he did the very first time he kissed me. His thumb brushed across my cheek. “I’m sorry, Genevieve. Things have been hard lately. But I’m going to make it up to you. I promise.”

I wanted to believe. I really, really wanted to believe him.

* * *

In the end, it took two things to break me. Which is either a testament to how much I loved him or to how stubborn I am. Probably both.

The first thing was the necklace.

I came home early one afternoon, a few weeks before graduation. Oliver’s office door was slightly open, and there was a man standing in there that I’d never seen before. There was a slim leather case open on the desk between them. I stopped in the hallway when I heard my husband’s voice.

“It’s perfect. She’ll love it.”

I retreated to the living room and decided to act like I hadn’t heard anything, but my heart was doing gymnastics in my chest and I couldn’t stop grinning. A few minutes later, Oliver walked the man out of his office and to the elevator, and when he saw me, he looked almost flustered. Like he’d been caught out at something. I thought it was adorable.

“You’re home early,” he said.

“Who was that?”

“No one. Business. Papers that needed signing.”

I floated for the rest of the day. Because look at the evidence, right? Greece. A jeweler making house calls, my husband saying she’ll love it. I told myself that I’d just been paranoid. That everything was going to be okay.

That night, while Oliver was in the shower, I snooped. It didn’t take long. Oliver has always been a creature of habit. It was in his sock drawer, tucked behind a row of neatly folded black socks.

I opened the case and forgot how to breathe.

It was a sapphire necklace. A single stone, deep blue and as big as my thumbnail, surrounded by a halo of tiny diamonds that caught the closet light and threw it back in a hundred little sparks. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

I put it back exactly as I’d found it and slid into bed. When Oliver came to bed, I reached for him in the dark. He just kissed me on the forehead, told me he had an early meeting, and turned away. I lay there and tried to convince myself it was okay. In just a few weeks, everything would be okay again.

For all of Oliver’s promises that things would get better, nothing really changed between us in the days that followed. Oliver still came home late and shut himself up in his office. Victoria still seemed to be everywhere. The week passed. Nothing changed.

Oliver had a conference he was attending in Chicago. Just four days, he assured me. He’d be back before I even noticed he was gone. I managed to restrain myself from telling him that I was very used to him being gone by now. He kissed me goodbye and walked out the door.

That evening, I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize. There weren’t any words. Just a picture of Oliver and Victoria sitting together at a restaurant. Oliver was leaning forward, one hand on the table near hers, not touching but close. He was smiling at her, the way he used to smile at me before everything went wrong.

And around Victoria’s throat is the sapphire necklace.

I dropped the phone. I didn’t mean to; my hands just opened, and it hit the tile with a crack, and then I was staring down at the spiderweb of fractures across the screen, Oliver and Victoria and the necklace fractured into a dozen pieces.

The next several hours are still a bit of a blur. I walked out; I couldn’t stand to spend another moment in the penthouse. I don’t remember the drive over to Evan’s apartment, but I must have made it because suddenly I was at his door and he took one look at my face and pulled me inside.

I spent the next two days holed up with Evan and Kylie eating my feelings and alternating between sobbing and dreaming up increasingly elaborate revenge schemes.

On the third night, Kylie asked me what I wanted to do next.

“You can stay here,” Evan offered. “For as long as you need.”

“No,” I took a deep breath. “I need to go home tomorrow. I should be there when he gets back.”

Kylie’s face fell. “You can’t seriously be thinking about staying with him.”

“Nope.” I stared at the wall, the beginnings of a plan still coming together in my mind. “I’m going to divorce him.”

Evan, who was sprawled on the floor with his head on a throw pillow, sat up and looked at me with a raised brow.