The Wife He Never Knew

Chapter 4: Divorce

Julian's jaw tightened. He set the flowers and the herbal medicine down and calmly pulled out his phone to call Eleanor. No answer.

He'd never once imagined a day where Eleanor simply wasn't home. Still, out of habit, he put on a record and let Chopin's nocturnes fill the empty house.

An hour passed. No one came back.

Two hours. Still nothing.

Three hours. The house stayed empty.

Julian got up and checked the closet. Most of Eleanor's clothes were still there, all of them gifts from him, all of them pink.

But the two blue suits she'd worn before the wedding were gone.

Then a delivery arrived at the door.

Addressed to him.

He couldn't recall ordering anything.

Inside was a massive box, and the contents inside it caught the light

Preserved pink roses. A pink diamond necklace. A pink Hermès bag. Bright pink heels. A cherry-pink dress. A pink diamond watch. Gold jewelry. A blush-pink scarf. Designer perfume. A pink diamond brooch. Car keys. A pink diamond ring.

Julian's expression darkened by degrees, something turbulent building behind his eyes.

These were every gift he'd ever given Eleanor while chasing her.

That pink diamond ring, the engagement ring.

He sifted through the box and realized that even after all these years, every single tag was still attached. Untouched.

The one thing in the box that wasn't from him was a manila folder. He pulled it out without thinking.

Washington's skyline was glittering that night, dazzling as always.

The old row houses on Willow Street hadn't seen a lit window in years, but tonight, for the first time, the lights stayed on from dusk well into the night.

Eleanor had spent half the day scrubbing the place spotless. It wasn't much, but it was clean, and it felt like something close to home.

Her mother used to be here with her. Now she was alone, and it would be a lie to say the quiet didn't get to her.

She sat with her phone in hand, debating whether to call Lauren Reyes, her best friend since high school.

Before she could dial, the doorbell rang. She hung up and went to answer it.

Julian stood at the gate, tall and imposing as a mountain, and the sight of him startled her.

"What is this supposed to mean?!"

He slapped a folder of divorce papers against her face.

Her cheek stung red. She'd never seen him this furious before, and instinctively she dropped her eyes, fear rising in her chest.

"Why aren't you saying anything? Why the hell did you just up and leave? Are you a child?!"

He reached for her arm. She stepped back out of range.

"Julian, I want a divorce."

"Why?"

"Because"

"Because of Cassandra?"

Eleanor looked up. His arms were crossed, a cold, faintly contemptuous smile playing across his face, a face that belonged in an oil painting.

That smile hurt worse than anything else he'd said tonight.

Reading her silence as confirmation, Julian actually looked amused.

Now that Cassandra was back in the country, there was no more point hiding it. He didn't intend to try.

"Eleanor, you've picked up this whole 'play hard to get' act? Fine, I'll admit it. Cassandra was my first love, and yes, I proposed to you to spite her. But in three years of marriage, I've never once wronged you."

*I've never once wronged you.*

The words alone were enough to bring tears to Eleanor's eyes.

She wanted to scream at him what about the baby? You did that to our baby yourself.

But she knew, somehow, that saying it would change nothing.

Her chest tightened like something heavy had settled on top of it. She forced herself to breathe.

This was it, then. Divorce was the cleanest way out for both of them, the end of a love and a marriage that had both been a mistake from the start.

She watched him pull out a cigarette, light it, settle onto the narrow living room couch, and exhale smoke like a man perfectly at ease with himself.

"Cassandra and I went to the same high school. She studied abroad, came back a name in the jewelry design world, she'd have been a world-class concert pianist if her hand hadn't been injured. A woman like that couldn't survive my mother's expectations. It would've been a waste, burying that kind of talent playing housewife. She was never cut out to be a Cross."

Eleanor's face went white.

"But you're different. No talent, no ambition, didn't even finish college. No degree, no skills, no money behind you. Years as a housewife and you're completely out of touch with the real world. Without me you're nothing, you couldn't even feed yourself. What exactly gives you the right to divorce me?"

The small house went dead silent.

Eleanor opened her mouth, breathed in the smoke drifting off his cigarette, and coughed.

"If you've had your fit, pack your things and come home. I'll let this go, just this once."

He finished the cigarette, glanced around for an ashtray, didn't find one, and didn't litter either. As he lifted his hand to look for somewhere to put it out, Eleanor crossed the room, took the butt from his fingers, and dropped it in the trash herself.

Julian smiled, that same devastating smile.

She'd said she wanted a divorce. Her actions said something else.

He shifted, crossed his legs, settled deeper into the couch.

No money. No skills. A woman who could only survive by leaning on a man.

Anyone with sense knew which choice actually served her best.

This whole scene, he decided, was just jealousy over Cassandra dressed up as indifference.

"That's enough. I don't have time to indulge this. Keep running the household the way you always have, and I'll keep taking care of you."

He said it flatly, coldly, and watched as Eleanor bent down and began gathering the scattered divorce papers off the floor, one page at a time.

"If you don't sign these, I'll send them to your office tomorrow. Or to your mother."

Julian shot up from the couch.

"Eleanor. Don't push it."

For the first time, the man she'd loved for ten years, the man who'd shared her bed, felt like a total stranger. It terrified her.

She opened the door.

"Get out. Don't come back."

Julian hadn't expected that lowering himself to come here in person would earn him this kind of reception. He gave a short, frustrated laugh and shrugged.

"Fine. You've got some nerve, Eleanor. Don't come crawling back when you regret this."

The door slammed behind him as he stormed off.

The divorce agreement stayed behind on the floor, untouched.

Deep in the night, Eleanor finally dug up her old bank card.

The one from before the wedding. It had sat in this house, forgotten, all these years, not a single dollar of Julian's money had ever touched it.

He'd been right about one thing, at least. No degree. No diploma. Years out of the workforce, completely out of step with the world. After the divorce, she'd have to make it on her own.

She linked the card to her banking app. The balance loaded almost instantly.

$14,783,000.

It was more than she'd ever imagined.