Got Hotel Call, I Divorced Him At Once

Chapter 2

I made up an excuse about a work trip and never went home.

That night, I slipped back in secret.

The moment I pushed open the front door, the sight in the entryway hit me like a slap. Ryan's custom dress shoes were knocked sideways across the floor.

A pair of red stilettos sat carelessly on top of them, one heel hooked through Ryan's shoelace.

Those were Ava's shoes. I'd bought them for her birthday last month, out of my own pocket.

The living room was dark.

The door to the master bedroom was left ajar. Through the gap, the sound of running water tangled with low, ragged breathing, drifting out in broken waves.

"Baby... not so fast..."

"Still not satisfied after last night, you little minx?"

His voice was loose, urgent, carrying a hunger I had never once heard from him before.

I kicked the bedroom door open.

Behind the frosted glass of the shower stall, two overlapping silhouettes went rigid all at once. The rush of water stopped dead.

"Who's there!"

His voice, frightened now, stripped of everything it had been a moment ago.

I stood in the doorway and stared at the glass. "Get out here."

The shower door was wrenched open.

Ryan grabbed a towel and barely wrapped it around himself as he lurched out. His feet skidded on the wet tile and he went down hard, crashing onto the floor.

"Honey! I thought you were away on a work trip. What are you doing back?"

He didn't even register the bruise blooming on his knee. He crawled across the floor toward me and locked his arms around my legs.

"It was her! She threw herself at me. She was drunk, she came onto me! I pushed her off, I swear I pushed her off!"

From inside the bathroom, Ava emerged at a leisurely pace, wearing my silk robe, the sash hanging loose and half-undone.

Pale skin caught the light as she drifted to the doorframe and leaned there, running her fingers through her damp hair, a slow smile curling at the corner of her mouth.

"Ryan, that's not what you were saying last night at the Amber Crystal."

She let her hand drop.

"You said the sad little housewife back home was a total bore. That you didn't even want to touch her."

The color flooded Ryan's face. He scrambled up from the floor and swung his arm.

The slap cracked hard across Ava's cheek.

"Shut up!"

He spun back to me and dropped to his knees, arms reaching for my waist.

I stepped aside. His hands found nothing.

Nausea surged through me in a thick, suffocating wave.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the divorce agreement I'd had printed at the copy shop downstairs. I slapped it onto the coffee table.

"Sign it. Then take this woman and get the hell out of my house."

Ryan stared at the top of the document. His eyes found the words. Every trace of panic and pleading drained from his face.

He snatched it up, tore it in half, and hurled the pieces at the floor.

"Who do you think you are, Zoe Lynn! You want me to walk away with nothing?"

He jabbed a finger in my face, every vein in his neck standing out like rope.

"Sure, you put down the down payment, but I've been carrying this mortgage! I built that company from the ground up. You think you can throw me out like garbage? Keep dreaming!"

A cold laugh rose in my throat. I reached into my bag, unhurried and deliberate, and pulled out a second set of documents: the printed bank records from when I'd sold my parents' house to bail him out.

I flung them at his face without mercy. Pages scattered across the floor like falling leaves.

"Who do I think I am? This house is half mine."