Replacing my ex

Chapter 1

Today was supposed to be a good day. Not the complete disaster this turned out to be.

Today my marriage was not supposed to come to a screeching halt. I was not supposed to be sitting here on a cold hotel bathroom floor, ugly streaks of mascara running down my face. I was not supposed to scream until I was hoarse.

Today was our five-year anniversary. It was supposed to be romantic.

I woke up at 5am like I always do.

Every morning, I pick out my husband’s outfit, iron it to perfection, and make him a protein shake or smoothie. I pack it lovingly into his bag alongside a sweet, handwritten note. Today I was in the best mood. I had plans.

Walking back into the bedroom, I looked down at Ryan Miller. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep. Everything was always so much better when he was asleep.

He hates alarms, so I leaned down to wake him gently, just like he used to ask me to in the beginning.

“Honey, you need to wake up now. You’ll be late to work,” I murmured, kissing his forehead.

He dragged himself out of bed, slammed the bathroom door, and showered. When he walked out, I was standing nearby, trying to hand him his watch.

“Stop hovering!” he snapped, his voice sharp. “You’re suffocating me!”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I refused to let him ruin my mood. Downstairs, I waited for him to come down and held out his breakfast bag.

“Not today,” Ryan said, walking right past me. No hug. No kiss. He didn’t even look at me.

“Don’t forget tonight, my love,” I called out as he opened the front door. He only let out a heavy sigh in response and slammed the door.

Ryan’s behavior this morning was not really a shock to me. Over the past year he had become a ghost, speaking to me in a dismissive tone, if at all. I couldn’t even remember the last time we shared a meal together. Initially, I would try to bring it up with him.

“Honey, lately I feel like you’re a little distant. Is everything okay?”, I’d ask

“I’m fine, Lila. Work is busy,” he’d answer.

That answer became shorter and shorter until he would just ignore me completely. I always excused it, chalked it up to work being hectic. He was always locked away in his study and had lots of meetings and work trips. He said it was because of a new investor. Apparently this new investor was extremely demanding, expecting my husband to be at his beck and call at all hours of the day.

Things were not always bad with Ryan. We met at a diner. I was working there as a waitress while attending night classes at the local college to get my degree in business administration. Ryan came in for lunch once and immediately became a regular, always sitting in my section and always leaving a good tip.

Eventually he asked me out to dinner and from then on we were inseparable. We talked about everything - our dreams, our lives and our traumas. He told me about his dream to quit his 9 to 5 and start his own business. I was very supportive of this dream, encouraging him to go for it and talking him out of any fears and anxieties. When he quit his job, I became his unofficial partner. We had many late nights brainstorming, pitching and building the business from scratch. When the business gained momentum, we got married.

It was pure bliss in the beginning despite my mother in law from hell. She has never approved of me. She was constantly breathing down my neck and blamed me for everything, especially the fact that I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet. I had been to every fertility specialist in the city, and they could never seem to find a medical explanation for why I couldn’t conceive. But that has never been enough for my mother in law. To her, I was the devil incarnate, always trying to ruin her angel son’s life.

But tonight was going to fix everything. I was going to reignite our spark.

After Ryan leaves for work at 6:00am, I usually go back to bed for a bit, but not today. Instead, I took a quick shower and hoped into my car to make the 2 hour drive to pick up a cake from Ryan’s favorite “pastry” shop. I feel uncomfortable even calling what they serve pastries. The shop specializes in low-carb, high protein options for regular pastries and they use things like sugar substitutes, Greek yogurt and lots and lots of protein powder. I’m not too crazy about these “pastries”, but Ryan loves their version of a chocolate cake.

After dropping the cake off, I went to my beauty appointments, getting all sorts of treatments for my hair, face and body.

By 5pm I was already waiting at home in a stunning dress.

The plan was perfect: we’d head to The Sovereign, a luxury hotel downtown, have a candlelit dinner there and spend the night in their honeymoon suite, which I booked weeks ago. The cake I’d picked up would be waiting for us in the suite along with champagne and rose petals strewn around tastefully.

By 7pm, Ryan still wasn’t home. He wasn’t picking up my calls or answering my texts.

Panicking, I called his secretary.

“He’s not here, Mrs. Miller. He left the office early today, around 4pm,” she told me.

Trying to stay positive, I assumed he went straight to the hotel to surprise me. I drove down there, checked into the suite, and waited at the hotel’s restaurant until the staff politely asked me to leave because it was closing.

Back upstairs in the empty, silent honeymoon suite, I was pacing, into the bathroom and back, thinking about calling Ryan again, when my phone finally buzzed.

It wasn’t Ryan. It was a notification from an unknown number. Then another. And another.

Is it someone asking for a ransom?

My mind raced to the worst case scenario.

It wasn’t a ransom text though. It was so much worse.

“Stop calling. You’re pissing Ryan off,” the first text read.

Still pacing, I continued to read the texts.

“We’re busy,” the second one followed.

We?

Then came the pictures.

The first photo was of a woman, half-covered by a white sheet, lying directly on Ryan’s bare chest. My blood turned to ice. I recognized her instantly. It was Willow Black - Ryan’s ex.

More pictures flooded in, followed by screenshots of their text messages. Ryan telling her he had always loved her, that I mean absolutely nothing to him, and that he wanted to leave me but I was “refusing to sign the divorce papers”

Tears blinded me, but I couldn’t look away from the screen. Then, I saw it. The last screenshot.

“I’m pregnant, Ryan. We’re finally having a baby🥳”