Divorced and Devoured: Wanted by my Ex-Husband and His Rival

6

Jessica

The first thing that hit me was the blinding light slicing through the gap in the hotel room curtains.

I groaned, burying my face into the pillow. My head felt like it had been split open, and my mouth was as dry as f**k. I tried to pull the sheets up, but my limbs felt heavy and exhausted.

As I shifted, a sharp ache radiated between my thighs.

My eyes flew open. My breath caught in my throat.

I sat up, clutching the sheets to my bare chest. I wasn't in the penthouse. I was in a hotel suite. My clothes from last night—the sweater and jeans—were folded neatly on a chair.

And I was completely alone.

Panic seized my throat. Fragmented memories crashed into my brain. The Sapphire Room. the mocking. The creep. And then... heat. Skin slapping against skin. Tangled sheets and desperate screams.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the blurry and drug-fogged faces into focus. I remembered nothing.

Leo. Bile rose in my throat. It must have been him. He had pulled me away from the creep in the gray suit, brought me here, and I had been so out of my mind, so desperate to feel anything other than the crushing agony of Michael’s betrayal, that I had let a total stranger touch me. And then he had bolted before the sun even came up.

A wave of shame washed over me. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand with shaking hands and dialed the only person I had left.

"Jess?" Ava’s voice crackled through the speaker on the first ring. "Where the hell are you? I've been calling all night!"

"Ava," I choked out, a sob finally breaking loose. "Please come get me."

Thirty minutes later, the hotel door opened. Ava rushed in, taking one look at my pale face and the ruined, tangled bed, and froze.

"Jessica," she whispered, her face dropping. "What happened?"

"I was stupid," I sobbed, wrapping my arms around my knees as I sat on the edge of the mattress. "I went to a bar. Someone spiked my drink. I was so out of my senses, Ava. This has to be the ding of Clara and her group. There was this creep who tried to force him on me."

Ava said. "Did he hurt you? Tell me who it was. I'll kill him."

“Someone saved me from him,” I added, "It was a guy I met at the bar. Leo. He got me out of there. But Ava... I slept with him. I don't even remember half of it, but I know we had s*x. I feel terrible. I am not even officially divorced."

Ava’s eyes softened. "It’s going to be okay. It’s the drug, Jess. You were hurting, and you were vulnerable. It is not your fault. Don’t take a guilt trip. It’s not worth it. We’re going to get you out of here."

I felt cheap. Used. Disgusting. I stayed at the penthouse; no more apartment hunting.

For fourteen days, Michael didn't call. He didn't send his lawyers. I did not call him either . What was there to save? How do I tell him ‘let’s get back together, but I already slept with another guy?’

—-

The next afternoon, the doorbell of the penthouse chimed.

When I opened it, it wasn't my husband standing in the hallway. It was Tom, Michael’s personal assistant, holding a leather briefcase to his chest. I took a deep breath. Here it was. The divorce papers.

Ava had stepped out an hour earlier to meet with a defense lawyer for Edward, meaning I was completely alone.

"Mrs. Smith," Tom stammered, looking everywhere but in my eyes. "Mr. Smith sent me. He said… he said it would be best if we handled the paperwork today."

"Of course he did," I replied, my voice flat. I stepped back and motioned for him to come inside.

Tom walked into the living room, nervously opening his briefcase on the glass coffee table and pulling out three separate stacks of paper.

"This is the official divorce agreement," Tom explained, "And these are the transfer deeds. The penthouse, the Onyx Lounge, and the paperwork for the lifetime trust fund. He just needs your signature on all of them, and then it’s finalized."

I flipped to the back page of the divorce agreement and signed my name with angry strokes. But then, I looked at the other two paper agreements. The penthouse. The bar. The pity money.

A fresh wave of disgust rolled through my veins. I picked up the transfer deeds and the trust fund agreements. Tom watched in horror as I gripped the top of the stack and ripped the pages in half. Then I put them together and ripped them again, letting the shredded pieces fall like snow onto the glass table.

"Mrs. Smith! What are you doing?" Tom gasped, taking a step back.

"You can take the signed divorce papers back to your boss," I said, my voice rising. "But you leave this trash here. Tell my lying, betraying bastard of a husband that I don't want his alms. I don't want his pity money, and I don't want a single thing his bloody hands touched. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am," Tom squeaked, quickly grabbing the signed divorce papers and running for the front door. "I'll tell him."

The door clicked shut behind him.

The lock turned.

And then, there was nothing but silence.

It was a suffocating silence that pressed down on my chest until I couldn't breathe. The angry adrenaline that had kept me standing suddenly vanished, leaving behind a hollowness inside.

My knees buckled. I collapsed right there in the middle of the living room, wrapping my arms around my stomach as a sob ripped from my throat.

I was alone. My parents were murderers. Janet was dead. Edward was locked in a cage. I was drugged and taken under the influence of a drug. All because the man I loved was a monster.

I dragged myself up from the floor, my vision blurred with hot tears, and stumbled down the long hallway toward the master bedroom. I needed to lie down. I needed the world to stop spinning. But the second I pushed open the bedroom doors, it only got worse.

The room was smelling faintly of Michael’s cologne. His clothes were still folded in the corner. My vanity was covered in the jewelry he had bought me. And sitting on the nightstand, in a silver frame, was our wedding photo.

It felt like the walls were closing in on me. The lies, the deception, the memories of him kissing me in this very bed—it was making me feel physically crazy. My skin crawled.

I walked over to the nightstand, my hands trembling violently, and picked up the silver frame. In the picture, I was wearing a stunning white gown, smiling brighter than the sun. Michael had his arms wrapped tightly around my waist, pressing a kiss to my cheek. He looked so deeply in love.

"How could you?" I wailed, collapsing onto the edge of the bed. I hugged the cold glass of the picture frame tightly to my chest, rocking back and forth. "How could you fake every single second? How could you hold me like this and kill my sister?"

I cried until my throat was raw. I cried until my eyes swelled and my head pounded.

But as I sat there, clutching the evidence of a fake love, the crushing sadness began to curdle.

I stopped crying.

I slowly lowered the picture frame, staring at Michael’s smiling but deceitful face.

I kept you blind, dumb, and utterly useless. His cruel words echoed in the quiet room. You were nothing but a brainless trophy on my shelf.

My blood began to boil. A venomous anger shot through my veins, and I felt like my brain had finally snapped right in half.

I looked around the luxurious bedroom. The silk sheets. The expensive art on the walls. This wasn't a home. It was a cage. A museum of my own stupidity.

What was the point of having all these beautiful things if they were bought with blood and lies?

I didn't want a single thing that reminded me of him. I wanted to erase it all.

My eyes landed on the dresser. Two big three-wick candles were burning there, filling the room with the scent of vanilla and lavender. The flames danced happily in the saddest room.

A twisted idea bloomed in my mind.

I stood up. walked over to the dresser and picked up one of the candles. The hot wax sloshed against the edges, but I didn't care.

I walked over to the ceiling-high silk drapes that covered the bedroom windows. Without a second thought, I tipped the candle forward, pressing the open flame directly against the fabric.

It caught instantly.

A ribbon of bright orange fire raced up the silk, eating the fabric with a hungry and crackling sound.

A strange numb thrill rushed through me.

I turned around, carrying the candle, and walked straight into my walk-in closet. The room was the size of an average-sized apartment, lined from floor to ceiling with hundreds of designer dresses, expensive coats, heels, best bags, etc. All the things he bought to keep me quiet. All the shiny toys he used to distract me.

I walked to the very back of the closet, surrounded by thousands of dollars of haute couture, and threw the burning candle directly into a pile of dry-cleaned gowns.

Whoosh.

I walked back out into the center of the master bedroom. The drapes were engulfed by fire now. The wallpaper was starting to blister and peel, and the fire from the closet was roaring behind me.

The luxurious penthouse was turning to ash right before my eyes.

I looked down at the wedding photo still in my left hand.

With a flick of my wrist, I tossed it directly into the roaring flames of the closet. The glass shattered, and the picture of our smiling faces curled up and burned into nothing.

And then, I laughed.

It started as a small, breathy chuckle, but as the heat grew more intense and the flames climbed higher up the walls, it bubbled up from the darkest and most broken part of my soul.

I threw my head back, staring at the burning ceiling, and laughed.

I laughed until my ribs ached.

I laughed like a maniac, standing completely still in the center of the inferno.