My Husband Cheated With My Cousin, I Let Him, He Regretted

I slid the divorce papers across the table toward him, my hand rock-steady. Julian Hayes was fastening the last button of his dress shirt when his fingers froze mid-motion. The thick, heady scent of recent s*x still hung in the bedroom air. My older cousin, Ella Foster, sat perched on the edge of my bed, wrapped only in a sheet, a blush of afterglow still staining her cheeks. "Sign it," I said. Julian lifted an eyebrow, like I had just told him a really bad joke. Ella snickered first, her gaze raking slowly up and down my body, thick with unmasked challenge. "Julian, don't blame her," she said. "Ivy has always had this temper, you know. A girl who grew up without a dad just loves throwing little fits. She doesn't know any better..." "Get out," Julian snapped, his icy eyes pinning her in place, every syllable dripping with raw irritation. She froze, her mouth hanging open, too shocked to process what she had just heard. "Julian... what did you say?" she stammered. "You are kidding, right?" "I said get out," he replied. "Can't you understand me?" He made no effort to hide the disgust swimming in his glare. "Who the hell do you think you are, running your mouth about Ivy? She is my wife. You really think a couple days of messing around with me gives you the right to talk down to her?" "Julian, I-I did not mean that," Ella whimpered. "I just..." She fumbled to yank her clothes on, stammering and hesitating as she reached out to grab his arm. Julian's face twisted with impatience. He stormed across the room, locked his hand around her arm in a bruising grip, and hauled her toward the door. Her eyes blew wide with terror. She shrieked and thrashed against him, but she was no match for his strength. "Julian, it hurts!" she cried. "Go easy on me... what are you doing? I am sorry, I will never run my mouth again, I promise..." Her groveling fell on completely deaf ears. Julian kept his cold, hard expression and simply flung her straight out the front door. The door clicked shut behind her, cutting off her panicked, helpless sobs. I watched the whole thing play out with cold, detached indifference. This was always how it went. Every single time I caught him cheating, he threw the other woman aside like garbage. Some of them did not just get dumped. They ended up ruined. This was not because he felt guilty for cheating on me. It was because once I caught him, the secret was out. The dirty, forbidden thrill he got from sneaking around vanished into thin air. And the second that thrill was gone, those women were worthless to him. Julian walked back over to me, then crouched down in front of me. His face melted right back into that familiar soft, gentle expression he always wore for me. He pulled out a tissue with slow, patient movements, then lifted a hand to wipe the tears off my face. It was not until that exact moment that I realized tears were rolling down my cheeks. He sighed, his voice soft as he tried to soothe me. "Calm down, don't be silly. We are going to Nora's birthday party tonight. If you keep acting out like this, how upset do you think she will be when she finds out something is wrong?" I stared right back into those gentle eyes of his. God, it was so sickeningly ironic. Just ten minutes earlier, those same eyes had been locked on another woman writhing and moaning on my own bed. And now here he was, looking at me like I was the only woman in the world, all soft and devoted. I tilted my head away, dodging his touch. My whole body ached with exhaustion, and I did not have a single word left to say to him. "Sign it," I said, pointing at the agreement on the table. The gentle smile on Julian's face slowly faded away. He held me under his gaze for a long few seconds, then actually started laughing, like he was too worked up to be angry anymore. "Fine, fine, fine," he said. "Do whatever the hell you want." He snatched a pen off the table and, with a few sharp scratching strokes, scrawled his name across the bottom of the paper, then flicked the agreement straight at me. "Take it," he added. "I know you don't actually want a divorce anyway. When you've thrown your little tantrum and gotten your head straight, you can come find me." With that, he turned on his heel and walked out, leaving me alone in the room. I clenched the agreement so tight in my fist that the sharp edge of the paper dug into my palm, stinging like crazy. But I barely felt it. I just let out a bitter, hollow laugh. Things were different this time, Julian. I would never go back. There was no reason to, anyway—after all, Nora, our only child, had been dead for three days.