AFTER DIVORCE

Chapter Two: The Cheat Is Home

Chapter Two: The Cheat Is Home

I was still on the floor when the knock came again.

"Isabella!"

I dragged myself up, quickly wiped my face with the back of my hand, and pulled the door open.

Margaret didn't wait.

Her hand hit the door before I had it halfway open, pushing me hard into the house as though the door already belonged to her. Her handbag swung from her elbow as she looked around the living room and her eyes moving around the living room the way they always did the moment she walked in, like she was checking if anything had been moved without her permission.

"You look terrible," she said, still not looking at me.

I closed the door behind her.

"Good morning, Ma."

She turned and looked at my face properly for the first time. She noticed my swollen eyes, the lack of sleep on my face, and the fact that I was still wearing yesterday's clothes.

"Where is Edward?"

"He's not back yet."

"Hmm." She moved to the sofa and sat down like she had been expected.

"Business?"

"That's what he said."

She held my gaze for a second too long. Something passed through her eyes that I could not read. Then she looked away and smoothed her skirt with both palms like the conversation was already over.

"I didn't know you were coming," I said.

She looked at me like I had said something genuinely stupid. "Do I need to book an appointment to visit my son?"

I didn't answer.

The silence stretched between us the way it always did. She had been doing this since the day Edward brought me home. Little digs wrapped in politeness, doors pushed open before you could properly answer them, eyes that said you don't belong here while her mouth said absolutely nothing.

I had never understood it. I had tried. For four years I had tried.

Our grandmothers were the ones who started all of this. Two women who had built a business empire together and, somewhere along the way, decided that wasn't close enough. They wanted the families tied permanently. So they made a promise over my cradle, before I could even hold my own head up, that their grandchildren would marry. That the business would become one household.

Edward and I grew up side by side because of that promise. We went to the same events, sat at the same family dinners, were pushed toward each other so naturally and so often that by the time we were old enough to have opinions about it we had already fallen in love on our own.

Margaret had watched all of it happen and smiled through the wedding and toasted to our future with a glass of champagne.

And looked at me the entire time like I was something she was trying to figure out how to get rid of.

"Isabella."

I came back to the room.

"Are you going to stand there like a statue," Margaret said, "or are you going to serve me breakfast?”

---

I had made breakfast for two.

Me and Edward. The husband I’d been awake waiting for since two in the morning. The husband who had just messaged me from a hotel bed saying, "Your baby is coming right home to you," with a woman's arm still wrapped around his chest.

I stood in the kitchen, staring at the two plates as I pressed my lips together.

Then I picked up my plate and walked it out to Margaret.

She took it without looking up from her phone. No thank you. No acknowledgment. Just her fork going straight to the food before the plate had fully landed on the table.

I went back to the kitchen.

I stood at the counter and stared at the wall.

I was not hungry. I had not been hungry since 2 a.m., and I did not think I was going to be hungry for a very long time.

---

I was carrying her empty plate to the sink when I heard it.

One short press of a car horn came from the driveway. It was a specific sound and rhythm, one I had heard a hundred times before.

My hands paused on the plate.

What moved through my chest wasn't warmth. It wasn't the feeling a wife was supposed to have when her husband came home.

Finally. The word sat in my chest like something burning. The cheat is finally home.

My eyes burned before I could stop the tears. I set the plate down in the sink and pressed my palm against my face, trying to keep myself together.

Hold it together. Not here. Not in front of her, I told myself.

I straightened up, took a deep breath, and walked into the hallway. I needed to be somewhere I could see the door. I wanted to look at his face the moment he walked in and find out whether four years of loving this man had taught me enough to recognize a lie.

The front door opened.

I held my breath.

And then my shoulders dropped.

It was Daniel. Edward's driver. Standing in the doorway in his uniform, holding Edward's briefcase in one hand, his jacket folded neatly over the other arm, wearing the careful expression of a man who has been sent ahead with luggage and knows better than to say very much.

"Good morning, ma'am." He held the briefcase out toward me. "Mr. Edward asked me to bring these things ahead. He said he will be home shortly."

I looked at the briefcase.

Then I looked at Daniel.

"He sent you ahead with his things."

"Yes ma'am."

"Where is he coming from, Daniel?"

It wasn't really a question. The flatness in my voice made that clear, and Daniel understood. His eyes moved just slightly, the small careful shift of someone who knows more than he is going to say and is hoping very much that this conversation ends soon.

"His meetings, ma'am." His voice stayed steady but his eyes did not quite meet mine. "He said he will explain everything when he gets in."

"Mm."

I took the briefcase from him.

"Thank you, Daniel."

He nodded and left quickly, looking relieved to be out of the house and away from the conversation.

I stood in the hallway holding my husband's briefcase.

From the living room Margaret's voice floated through. "Who was that?"

I did not answer her.

I placed the briefcase down at the foot of the stairs and stood there looking at it. His initials were on the leather tag the way they always were. E.O. Small and gold and familiar.

I had bought him that briefcase as his birthday gift two years ago.

He

had kissed me and said it was perfect.

My jaw tightened when I remembered that vividly.

I heard another car pull into the driveway.