Chapter 1
Zara
I stand barefoot in the living room, my silk robe hanging loose from one shoulder, a glass of champagne in my hand as candlelight flickers across the walls in soft, golden waves.
It’s all so achingly romantic… or it would be, if someone were here to share it with me.
But there’s nobody.
My gaze drifts to the clock and with a jolt, I see that midnight passed an hour ago.
“So that’s that,” I murmur. “Happy anniversary to me.”
My phone is face-up on the table, taunting me with its blank silence. No calls, no messages, not even a one-line flimsy excuse.
Adrian ‘Knox’ McVale – President of the Night Howlers motorcycle club and my husband (in that order of priority) – has been gone for a month. No contact at all, no trace of him except the lingering scent of leather and smoke that he always leaves behind.
And I… I’ve learned to live in the silence he’s created. After all, I’ve had three years of practice.
My fingers press unconsciously against my stomach.
A dull ache pulses there, deeper than hunger, deeper than anything I could ignore anymore. The doctor’s voice from this morning echoes in my mind, clinical and detached:
Without immediate treatment, the situation is terminal, Ms. McVale. The cancer is very aggressive, but there’s a forty percent survival rate with surgery.
I nodded, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when doctors tell you something devastating, and I booked the surgery for next week… but I didn’t tell Knox.
I didn’t even think about it.
He’s been unreachable, swallowed up by whatever business the MC demands of him, and so now I’m standing here holding a glass of champagne, holding onto something that has never once reached back for me.
But even if he hadn’t disappeared before the diagnosis, would I have told him?
Sure, we’re married, but only legally. In reality, it’s been three years of sleeping in my own room, three years of being a wife on paper. I was merely a bargaining chip in a game played between my father and Knox… and despite me loving Knox since I was eighteen, his love was never part of the deal.
Suddenly, the doorbell rings.
I startle, and for a moment – just a moment – hope surges through my chest, sharp and painful.
“Knox?” I say as I cross the room, my heart betraying me with the smallest flicker of anticipation, enough to make me hate myself for it even before my hand reaches the handle. “Is that you?”
I open the heavy wooden door…
… and see Becca Chastain leaning against the doorframe like she owns the damn thing. Her long, blonde hair cascades over her shoulders, her lips are a bold, unapologetic red. She doesn’t even hesitate: she glides past me as though I’m not even there, her high heels clicking against the floor with a confidence that I’ve never possessed in this house.
“My God, you really thought he’d come,” Becca says, her bright-blue gaze sweeping over the candles, the untouched table, all the effort that I’d made for someone that didn’t even bother to call. “How pathetic is that?”
I don’t answer her, because there’s nothing to say that wouldn’t sound ridiculous in the face of how right she is. Instead, I opt for chilly calm, forcing my voice to stay steady.
“If you came here to gloat, don’t waste your time, Becca.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she says softly, turning back to me. “I didn’t come to gloat… but I do come bearing gifts.”
She smiles, and reaches into her bag with a kind of casual precision that makes my chest tighten.
For a few blissful seconds, I stare in utter incomprehension at the plastic stick that she’s holding, just blink stupidly, and then I see.
It’s a f*****g pregnancy test… and it has two bold lines.
Positive.
Through my shock, I know there's only one reason that she’d be showing me this.
“No,” I say, though the word carries no real conviction. “It’s not Knox’s.”
“Yes,” she replies, watching me closely, as though she wants to see exactly how much it hurts. “It sure as hell is.”
My fingers curl into my palms, nails cutting the skin. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Becca tilts her head. “Did you really think Knox was celibate, just because you were, you frigid b***h? Please. You know that your marriage is bullshit.”
I force myself not to react. “So why are you here?”
“Because I’m done waiting.” She steps closer, close enough that I can smell her musky perfume. “And so is he.”
She shoves a bunch of papers into my chest. I stare down at them, the words swimming in front of my eyes.
Dissolution of Marriage.
My throat tightens. “He didn’t come to give me these himself?”
Becca’s full lips curl. “Why would he? You were never meant to be his forever… that’s me and the baby.”
The words ‘never’ and ‘forever’ hit me harder than anything else, even the word ‘divorce’. Even though I accepted the impersonal terms of our arrangement, I’ve always longed for Knox to love me back, always hoped that one day, it would become a true marriage.
A now-familiar sharp pain shoots through my stomach, and the doctor’s words flash through my mind again:
Aggressive cancer. Forty percent chance.
“I want to see him,” I say quietly.
Becca raises an eyebrow. “Why?”
I meet her gaze. “Because no matter what, I’m still his wife, and I’m going to end this marriage properly.”
For the first time, Becca hesitates, then she laughs. “Fine. He’s at a rally point that you don’t know, outside the city. I’ll drive, and you Uber back and start packing… you can get the f**k out of my house.”
Slowly, I put on my shoes and a coat. My eyes drop to the papers on the table next to the door.
Ten years of loving him, and three years of marriage, all reduced to two pages of ink and two signatures.
“Happy anniversary, Knox,” I whisper. “I wish that I didn’t love you, but I do. Goddammit.”
I exhale, then follow my husband’s mistress out my front door.
