The Wife He Lost

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Truth That Burns

I did not sleep.

I lay beside James and stared at the ceiling while his breathing evened out, deep and untroubled. His arm rested over my waist like it always did, familiar and heavy. Once, that weight had made me feel safe. Now it felt like something pinning me down.

I replayed every moment of the last five years with a clarity that hurt.

The IVF failures came first.

The appointments that always happened in quiet clinics tucked away from the city. The polite smiles from nurses who tried not to pity me. The doctors who spoke in careful tones about chances and possibilities and stress. Always stress. As if I was failing because I was not relaxed enough.

James had held my hand through the first few rounds. He had looked concerned. Supportive. He told me we could stop whenever I wanted. He told me children were not everything.

“I married you,” he had said more than once. “Not a womb. You're the love of my life. I don't need anything else, if I have you.”

I believed him.

Or maybe I wanted to believe him.

After the third failed round, something changed. James stopped coming to appointments. He said work was too busy. He said he trusted me to handle it. When I cried quietly in the bathroom late at night, he hugged me and told me everything would be fine, but his mind was always somewhere else.

And Valerie was always there.

Valerie with her hand on James’s arm. Valerie laughing at his jokes just a second too long. Valerie showing up unannounced with food and stories and concern that felt rehearsed. Valerie who knew exactly when James would be home. Valerie who always insisted she was just trying to help.

I remembered the way she looked at me after my last IVF failure. Not sympathetic. Assessing.

As if she were waiting for something to break.

I remembered Evelyn’s sudden coldness. Her sighs when she thought I could not hear. The way she praised Valerie for being “naturally maternal.” The way she spoke about grandchildren as if they were owed to her.

I remembered Celeste’s comments too. Casual. Cruel. Always disguised as jokes.

“You’re so strong, Daphne. I don’t know how you do it. I’d be devastated if I couldn’t give my husband a baby.”

I had laughed it off.

I had laughed off everything.

And then there was Anthony.

Anthony Hart. Calm. Observant. Always polite. The man who never once treated me like I was invisible. He had known who I was before James ever did. He had known about my family, my past, my name.

He had kept my secret without question.

Anthony had been the only one who looked uncomfortable when Valerie hovered too close to James. The only one who had ever gently redirected her attention. The only one who had checked on me when conversations turned sharp.

A year ago, Anthony died in a plane accident.

The news had felt surreal. Sudden. Final.

Valerie had screamed. She had collapsed into James’s arms. She had leaned on him heavily in the weeks that followed. Too heavily.

Evelyn had insisted Valerie stay close. “She shouldn’t be alone,” she had said. “Not after losing her husband.”

James agreed immediately.

I agreed too. I always agreed.

But now, lying in the dark, every memory shifted. Reframed. Sharpened.

Anthony’s death no longer felt like a tragedy.

It felt like a convenience.

My chest tightened, but I did not cry.

I stared at James’s sleeping face and studied it like I was seeing him for the first time. The man I loved. The man I built. The man who smiled at me in the mornings and told me I was amazing while betraying me in the worst way possible.

He had not just cheated.

He had planned.

He had let his family humiliate me while pretending ignorance. He had watched me endure injections and heartbreak while knowing Valerie was pregnant. He had listened to me talk about hope while preparing an heir with another woman.

I slipped out of bed quietly and went into my office.

The room was neat, organized, controlled. Just like me.

I opened my laptop and pulled up files I had not looked at in a long time. Company documents. Financial statements. Legal records. Everything I had created and managed from behind the scenes.

James trusted me completely when it came to business.

That trust would be his undoing.

I mapped everything out calmly. Assets. Accounts. Contracts. What was joint. What was not. What he assumed was his but technically was not. I reviewed timelines and dates, matching them against the months Valerie had been “supporting” him.

Patterns emerged quickly.

I made notes. Quiet ones. Careful ones.

I did not rush.

Panic clouds judgment. Emotion makes mistakes.

I would not make mistakes.

As dawn crept through the windows, I sat back in my chair and folded my hands in my lap. My heart still hurt, but it was contained now. Controlled. Pain could be useful if you knew how to wield it.

I thought about the woman they believed me to be.

The grateful wife. The barren wife. The disposable wife.

They thought I would beg. They thought I would cry. They thought I would cling to the scraps of dignity they left me.

They were wrong.

I had built an empire once. I had walked away from it for love.

And I could walk away from this too.

But not without making sure the truth burned everything behind me.

When James woke up, I greeted him with a smile.

I made him breakfast. I asked about his day. I kissed him goodbye like nothing had changed.

Inside, the countdown had begun.

Five days.

Five days to dismantle a marriage.

Five days to disappear from a life that no longer belonged to me.

I did not cry.

I planned.