Chapter 1
The day I gave birth to our son, my husband was wiping away my postpartum discharge when suddenly a woman in a hospital gown burst in and said to me, "Elena Landers, can you get your husband under control? I can't handle how rough he is with me anymore. I've told him over and over to stop, but he wouldn't listen. It hurt so bad I ended up having to stay here in the same hospital as you."
I'd just had a C-section, the anesthesia was still wearing off, and it was like I'd been struck by lightning.
Panic flashed across Darren Peterson's face. He shoved her roughly toward the door while trying to hush her, "Stop making a scene, my wife just had our baby."
That only made her angrier. She snapped back, "If you care so much about your wife, why did you sleep with me? You spent the whole night with me, I couldn't even get out of bed for days after! Since you love her so much, why don't you just go live happily with your little family and leave me alone?"
Every inch of her reeked of the arrogant entitlement of someone who knew she was favored. She flicked her sleeve dramatically and stormed out.
Flustered, Darren ran right after her.
He didn't come back until late that night, and immediately started talking to me.
"I'll be just like your father. I'll never neglect our family just because I have another woman on the side. Honey, you'll understand me just like you understood your father, right?"
I couldn't believe he was using my dad's affair to pressure me.
I asked him, "Then do you know how my dad died?"
He answered, smug and self-assured, "I lost control this time, that's all. You have my word I won't end up dead over a woman. I'll balance things out between you and her. The tragedy that happened to your father will never repeat in our family."
So that's what he really thought. He believed my dad had died on his mistress's bed from exhaustion, from overindulgence, because he couldn't split his time and energy properly between my mom and his side piece.
Put plainly, he was convinced my dad died getting his rocks off.
I stared at this man I'd loved for ten years. Suddenly, he felt like a total stranger.
A twisted mess of rage, hurt, and shock clogged my throat. All I could feel was that he was rotten clean through to the core!
I'd expected him to grovel and beg for forgiveness like most cheating husbands do.
But the first thing out of his mouth was asking me to accept him keeping another woman!
At that moment, my heart died completely. And I made up my mind. I would deal with him the exact same way I dealt with my father.
He looked into my ice-cold eyes and soothed me in a patient tone, "The most important thing right now is for you to rest up and heal. Don't overthink anything else. Honey, I only want her for s*x, I swear. You and our son will always be the most important people in my life, that's a guarantee.
"She's just a young girl who doesn't know any better. Don't hold her nonsense against her, okay?" As he spoke, he reached out to tuck a strand of hair that had fallen in my face behind my ear.
A tidal wave of raw disgust crashed over me, and I jerked my face away, rejecting his touch.
I didn’t have the strength to yell or fight with him. My voice dropped to an icy cold tone when I spoke, "Darren, what would you do if I chose to make a big deal out of this?" I stared him down, icy and unblinking, desperate to find out just how far he’d go for that young girl.
He pulled his hand back, and his expression hardened into something severe.
"Haven’t you noticed? She looks just like you when you were nineteen." He paused for a beat, his voice steady with unyielding resolve to protect her when he continued, "I won’t hurt you if you go after her, but I’ll pull all my funding from your brother’s business. You’ve always been the type to weigh your options, honey. You can figure out what matters most on your own."
A sharp, mocking laugh bubbled up my throat. The cesarean incision in my abdomen throbbed dully, a constant, stabbing reminder of the day I’d just lived through.
Ten years ago, when Darren was twenty, he’d told me something I still remembered perfectly clearly.
"You were never some compromise I picked after weighing all my options. The second I think about what it would be like to not marry you, I’d rather be dead. You’ve never just been a choice to me... you’ve always been my only one."
And now? Here he was, using that same 'weigh your options' line to force me to accept his deal.
He was so sure I’d back down, too afraid of losing my family’s financial security to cause any trouble.
My entire chest had turned impossibly solid ice, but I still let that cold, sharp smile pull at my lips.
But to Darren, my silence just meant I’d begrudgingly accepted the situation.
