Married To My Husband’s Rival

Chapter 4: His Version

WREN POV

"Read it," Seth said.

He held the tablet out toward me. Screen already open, already loaded. Like he had been waiting for the right moment to hand it over and decided now was it.

I took it.

Owen's statement was right there. Clean layout, official looking. His PR team had clearly been up all night.

I read the first paragraph standing in the middle of Seth's living room, still in yesterday's clothes because I had not thought to change yet. The city was bright outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Morning light everywhere. Nowhere to hide from it.

Owen had framed it as a mutual separation. His exact words were that the marriage had quietly come to a natural end over the course of several months. He said both parties had been aware for some time. He used the word amicable.

I kept reading.

He used it again.

And then a third time.

Amicable. Amicable. Amicable.

Like if he said it enough it would become true.

There was a line near the bottom that made my vision go slightly blurry. He said Wren had been aware of his relationship with Lacey and had chosen to handle the situation privately. He said he respected her for that.

He respected me for it.

For knowing about the woman he got pregnant while we were married and choosing to handle it privately.

I had not known. I had not handled anything. I had stood at that stage and found out the same second as three hundred other people and then I had walked out of a room barefoot and cried exactly zero times because I was too shocked to cry.

That was what he was calling amicable.

I put the tablet down on the coffee table.

Very carefully.

I was aware of being careful about it. Aware that if I was not deliberate about it I was going to pick it back up and throw it at the window and I did not want to do that in someone else's home on my second day here.

Seth was watching me from across the room. He had not moved since he handed it over. He was not telling me to breathe or calm down or look at the bright side. He was just standing there letting me be furious and somehow that was the right thing. The exact right thing.

"I was not aware," I said.

"I know."

"There was nothing amicable about any of it."

"I know that too."

"He is standing there rewriting our entire marriage and the whole city is reading it right now and if I say anything I sound like a bitter ex-wife who can't let go."

"Yes," Seth said. "Which is why we move fast."

He crossed the room and took the tablet back. Pulled something up and turned it toward me again. A different document this time.

"Our statement," he said. "It goes out in two hours."

I read it. Short. Sharp. No drama. It did not mention Owen by name at all. It did not attack anything. It just established very clearly that Wren Calloway had moved forward, that her next chapter was already written, that she was not a woman left behind by anyone.

The last line mentioned Seth.

I read it twice. Then I took it from him and typed three words out. Changed one phrase that was a little too smooth, a little too press-release. Made it sound more like something a person actually said.

Then I handed it back.

"That works," I said.

Seth looked at the edit. Something moved across his face. Not quite a smile. Something quieter.

"Send it," I said.

By evening my phone had forty-seven unread messages and the internet had split cleanly down the middle. Half the city was posting sympathy for Owen, the heartbroken man whose marriage had fallen apart. The other half was talking about me and Seth, what it meant, how long it had been going on, whether this was the real story all along.

I sat in the window seat in my room and watched it happen from a distance. Like observing a fire from across the street. Warm enough to feel but far enough not to burn.

Seth knocked at seven.

"Dinner," he said when I opened the door.

"I'm not really hungry."

"You haven't eaten since yesterday."

I had not thought about that. He was right.

"Fine," I said.

We ate at the dining table with the city laid out below us through the glass. Just the two of us. No music, no TV, no noise except the cutlery and the occasional sound of traffic twenty floors down. It was strange how not-awkward it was. Or maybe I was just too tired to feel awkward anymore.

The food was good. I ate more than I expected.

We talked a little. Logistics mostly. What tomorrow would look like, when the lawyer needed documents back, what the public timeline would be. Practical things. Safe things.

Then Seth set his fork down and looked at me and said, "What do you actually want out of this?"

"I just told you. The acquisition. Owen losing the company his mother built for him."

"Not that." He shook his head slightly. "Not the legal side, not the business side. Personally. When all of this is done and it's over. What do you want."

I looked at my plate.

Nobody had asked me that in a long time. What did I want. Not what I needed, not what made sense, not what was the smart move. Just what I wanted.

I turned my fork over in my hand.

"I want to feel like myself again," I said.

He was quiet.

"I don't really know who that is anymore. I keep trying to remember what I was like before Owen and I can't quite get there. Everything is just..." I stopped. "I don't know. It's hard to explain."

"You don't have to explain it," Seth said.

He did not say anything else after that. He was not supposed to ask that question. This was a deal. This was business and shared appearances and a shareholder vote in four months. He was not supposed to ask what I wanted like it mattered to him.

But he did. And I answered honestly. And neither of us said a word about what that meant.

I went to my room after dinner. Closed the door. Sat on the edge of the bed and finally picked up my phone.

Forty-seven messages.

I scrolled through. Family. Old friends. Work people. A few journalists I didn't recognise. I ignored most of them. I was not ready for any of those conversations yet.

I got near the bottom of the list and stopped.

Unknown number. No name saved. No area code I recognised.

I opened it.

Four words and a photo.

I expanded the photo with two fingers and my breath caught somewhere in my throat.

It was me and Seth. In the gala corridor. Last night. He was standing close, his body already angled slightly toward mine. I was holding my shoes. My face was turned away from the camera.

The timestamp in the corner made my stomach drop.

It was taken before Owen finished his speech.

Before the announcement. Before the applause died. Before I even knew what was happening.

Someone had that camera pointed at me before I had any reason to walk out of that room. They were already watching. Already in position.

Already waiting.

My hands went cold around the phone.

Four words.

I read them again.

I see you, Wren.