He Brought Home a Son, So I Divorced Him

Chapter 2

Just like he'd said he would, Cole spent the entire workday over with that woman and their kid and never came home.

When the private investigator I'd paid sent over a stack of photos and videos, my hands shook so bad I almost didn't have the guts to open them.

Once the whole thing blew up, Cole stopped hiding it entirely. He straight up posted updates of himself with that woman and their kid on his social media. The content of those posts lined up perfectly with what the detective had captured. Every single one of those sweet, happy shots stabbed at my eyes until they throbbed.

Staring at that post, I couldn't hold back the rage boiling in my chest any longer. I left a comment under it: [Aren't you three just the perfect little family? That kid's your spitting image, for sure.]

Barely a second after I hit send, my comment got deleted.

Right after that, Cole sent a voice note, "What the hell do you think you're doing leaving comments like that under my post? Lila and the kid are innocent. If you've got a problem, take it out on me!"

Hot on his heels, Martha texted me too: Bianca, that was extremely out of line. That child is the future heir of the Langford family, he can't be labeled a bastard. And don't you forget the mortgage on your father's farm is due next month.

I'd already had my heart ripped to shreds and cried myself dry over the past few days, but when I heard Martha threatening me using my father, fresh tears still spilled down my cheeks.

'How can people flip on you this fast, out of nowhere?' I asked myself, hurt beyond words.

Martha, who'd always treated me like her own flesh and blood, for one. Cole, the man I'd spent twenty years of marriage with, for another.

When Cole got home, the first thing he saw was me sitting by the window, sobbing so hard I could barely breathe.

He walked over to pull me into a hug, and he still reeked of the sharp, biting winter chill from outdoors. He shrugged his jacket off right away, then tucked my ice-cold hands under his sweater to warm them up against his skin.

For a split second, I felt like we'd been transported back twenty years, to when we were still head over heels in love.

Things had been so hard back then. Victor had cut off every single one of Cole's sources of income, just to force him to admit he'd been wrong to get a vasectomy.

He didn't like me, either.

We scraped by in that huge, unforgiving city, living in a basement and surviving on instant noodles and stale bread. When we were dead broke, we went three whole days with nothing but water to fill our stomachs. On the harshest cold nights, we huddled together on a single cot, wearing every single piece of clothing we owned and wrapped up in a bed cover, shivering so hard our voices shook when we spoke.

I was crying just like this back then too, thinking of how I should just give up, that if we keep freezing like this, Cole's already weak body will only get worse.

"Cole, let's get a divorce," I told him that time. "If you go back and apologize right now, you'll be the pampered young master again, with nothing to worry about."

Cole pulled me tight into his arms, tucking my frozen hands under his shirt and tucking my icy feet between his body and his clothes, his whole frame taut with panic and fear. "No. I'm never divorcing you. Bianca, I won't apologize, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm so sorry. The vasectomy hurt like hell, and I did it so you wouldn't have to go through that pain… but I ended up putting you through so much worse anyway."

The tears I cried all those years ago blurred with the ones streaming down my face now, a sharp, bitter taste seeping across my tongue.

"Cole, let's move away, okay?"

"You like kids, right? I can have one for you, okay?"

"Why? Why didn't you tell me when you first wanted a baby?"

The long, heavy silence hit me like a sledgehammer, knocking me back to my senses.

I snapped back to the present, staring dazedly at Cole.

When I followed the line of his conflicted, hesitant profile, I realized he hadn't come home alone.