Three Reasons to Leave

Audrey's POV The other woman's red thong was hanging over my towel rack when I pushed open the master bathroom door. For a ridiculous few seconds, I stood there staring at the damp lace, genuinely trying to convince myself there was another explanation. Maybe the cleaning lady accidentally left it behind while doing the laundry. Maybe Preston had friends over for drinks by the pool. Maybe I was finally losing my mind after seven years of pretending my life was normal. Then the sound of the rainfall showerhead echoed against the tiles, followed by a woman's high, breathy laugh. The steam rolled out from behind the glass door, carrying the scent of vanilla perfume that definitely didn't belong to me. I pushed the glass partition open, my hands numb. Preston was standing under the warm spray with his arms wrapped around a brunette girl whose face I had never seen before. He didn't look startled or grab a towel to cover himself up, or even look remotely embarrassed to see me home three hours before my flight was supposed to land. He just looked annoyed. He shut off the water with a twist of his wrist, grabbed a white bath sheet from the hooks and wrapped it around his waist. "Don't even start, Audrey," he said, letting out an irritated sigh before I could say a word, like I was an unruly child interrupting his evening screen time. "I have an early meeting with important investors tomorrow morning, and I really do not have the patience for your dramatics tonight." "In our bedroom, Preston?" I asked, my voice coming out in a thin, strangled whisper. "You couldn't even bother to take her to a hotel? You brought her into our bed?" The brunette girl pulled a towel over her chest, stepped out of the shower stall, and slipped past me into the dressing room without saying a word. Preston walked to the mirror, wiping the condensation away with his forearm so he could check his stubble. "I stopped considering this marriage real a very long time ago, Audrey," he said, his tone as flat and indifferent as someone reading off a weather report. "The fact that you still cling to the title is your own problem." "This is my home," I choked out, my fingernails digging into the palms of my hands. "It is my house," he corrected smoothly, turning around to lean against the marble counter. "I bought the property, I pay the property taxes, and I allow you to live comfortably here. You should be down on your knees thanking me instead of causing a scene." He took a slow step toward me, his dark eyes narrowing into something cold and annoyed. "If you scream, or break anything, or make another scene like last Thanksgiving, I will have my accountant freeze your personal cards by midnight," he said quietly. "Do not test me on this. You know exactly what happens if that account gets shut down." The threat worked instantly, silencing the scream building in my throat. It wasn't because I loved his money or cared about expensive clothes. It worked because Preston knew the exact leverage he held over my life. He knew about the private nursing home bills that kept my paralyzed aunt in stable care. He knew every single financial thread keeping my family's remaining dignity together ran straight through his checking account. I had spent years convincing myself that staying inside this massive, cold house was safer than packing up and starting over from scratch. My mother had died five years ago believing her daughter had married a decent, wealthy man who would take care of her forever. The house in the reputable parts of Chicago, the respected family name, the illusion of security—all of it was supposed to prove that I had finally made something of myself after the messy, broken past I left behind in college. If I walked out that front door, I would have to admit that everyone was wrong about my perfect life. I would have to admit to myself that I was a coward who stayed for seven years with a man who couldn't even stand the sight of me. I swallowed the burning bile in my throat, turned my back on him, and walked out of the bathroom without letting a single tear fall down my cheeks. I grabbed my car keys from the foyer table and drove straight across town until the luxury high-rises faded into the background. I ended up at Drink & Think, the dingy dive bar where I used to waste my Friday nights during my college days. The air smelled like stale beer, cheap lemon disinfectant, and bad decisions. I sat down at a sticky booth in the back corner, ordering double shots of cheap whiskey until the burning humiliation in my chest finally began to dull into a quiet numbness. Around midnight, the front door rattled open, and I lifted my heavy head, my gaze lazily scanning the patrons crowded around the pool tables. Then my whole body locked up, the glass slipping slightly between my fingers. Three men were standing near the center of the bar, talking to the bartender with an easy confidence that immediately set them apart from the regular college kids in hoodie sweaters. Seven years had passed. They were older now, their shoulders broader, and their dark suits screaming the kind of obscene wealth that made Preston look like a junior clerk. Yet they were still unmistakably them. Jude stood in the center, his tall frame leaning slightly against the wooden bar, that faint white scar still cutting cleanly through his left eyebrow. Asher stood beside him, watching the crowd with that same arrogant, dangerous half-smile he always wore whenever he knew something nobody else in the room understood. And then there was Tristan. He had his back turned halfway toward me, but his fingers were moving in that familiar, rhythmic motion, flipping a worn silver coin over his knuckles. It was the exact same antique coin he’d stolen out of my jacket pocket back in college, flipping it during study sessions and pretending he won it fair and square whenever we played heads-or-tails. I sat frozen in the shadows of the booth, my heart slamming violently against my ribs like a trapped bird. These were the three boys I once knew better than anyone else in the entire world. The three boys I had spent seven long years running from, desperately trying to erase every memory of their hands and their promises from my mind. I pushed myself up from the booth on shaking legs, driven by some reckless, alcohol-fueled instinct I couldn't control. I took one unsteady step toward their table. Then another. The neon signs above the bar began to blur together into streaks of red and yellow light, my vision swimming dangerously as the whiskey caught up with my brain. My knees buckled under me, the floor rushing up to meet my face. The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me whole was Tristan suddenly snapping his head up, his piercing gray eyes cutting through the crowded room and locking onto mine. When I woke up the next morning, my head felt like it had been cracked open with a sledgehammer. I was lying in the guest room bed of Preston's house, wearing an oversized, faded grey college T-shirt and sweatpants. I stared at the ceiling, taking several slow breaths as I convinced myself that the bar, the whiskey, and those three faces had just been a vivid, alcohol-induced hallucination triggered by the trauma of finding Preston's mistress. Then Preston's loud voice echoed up the stairwell from the main foyer. "Audrey! Get down here right now!" he called out, sounding unusually excited and hurried. "My primary investment group arrived early to finalize the development fund! Put on a smile and come meet them!" I groaned, dragging myself out of bed and heading straight down the stairs without bothering to brush my tangled hair or change out of the sloppy clothes. I didn't care about impressing his buddies anymore. I rounded the corner into the grand living room, the words to brush him off already forming on my tongue. The words died right in my throat. Three men were sitting across our cream velvet couches. Jude looked up at me, his handsome face shifting into a cold smile that carried no warmth. Asher was leaning all the way back against the cushions with his ankles crossed on the glass table, looking like he already owned every single brick of the house. Tristan was sitting on the center armchair. His fingers slowly closed over the silver coin in mid-air, bringing the flipping motion to a stop. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as his predatory gaze traveled slowly down my oversized shirt and bare legs. Tristan's lips curved into a wicked, familiar smirk before his deep voice broke the dead silence of the room. "Audie-Bear. Long time no see. Still wearing other people's things, I see." My heart dropped straight to the floor.