Rejected by my Husband novel Chapter 16

Reid’s POV

My knuckles hurt as I punched him again. The sound echoed, dull and sharp at once. His head snapped back, blood running from the corner of his mouth.

“Tell me!!!” I barked. My chest rose and fell like a man about to lose control. “What’s the truth?”

Adrian groaned, his voice broken but sly, slippery. “Believe me, Mr. Carter… I’m telling you the truth…” His swollen lips curved into something almost like a smile, a cruel one. “Your wife ..Mrs. Carter herself...came to me the moment you left her. She said it… she said she was feeling horny. She didn’t want to sleep alone.”

I froze for a second, the word cutting deep. “What did you just say?”

He coughed, wiped his mouth, and forced himself to look me in the eye. “You heard me. She wanted it. She told me you left her cold… that she needed someone to… to touch her. To make her feel wanted.”

Rage swirled inside me, but under it, a sharp stab of doubt twisted. “You expect me to believe that?” I hissed, pressing my fist against his jaw again.

He winced, but his voice turned steady, more confident with each lie. “Yes. Because it’s the truth. I even saw her earlier that night, with another man. He left her, Reid. And then she came to me. What does that tell you?”

My stomach clenched. “Man?!” I roared, slamming him against the wall. “What man?”

Adrian smirked through the pain, his split lip bleeding. “Don’t know his name. Didn’t need to. He walked out… and she walked in. That’s all I needed to see. She wanted company, Reid. She wanted someone else, not you.”

My grip tightened on his throat, my rage trembling on the edge of snapping his neck. “If it’s a lie, Adrian, if you’re making this up. I swear I’ll kill you right here.”

His laugh was low, bitter, broken. “It’s not a lie. You can beat me until my bones break, but the truth doesn’t change. Your wife doesn’t love you the way you think. She found her satisfaction elsewhere. That night… she chose me.”

My vision burned red. My hand trembled where it pressed into his skin. He looked terrified, yes, but under the fear, there was a quiet triumph. He knew what he was doing. He was planting poison in my head.

And God help me… it was working.

My fists still stung from the first blows, the phantom ache a steady drum beneath the fury. I shoved Adrian back into the couch and stared down at him until his bravado cracked.

“You’ll take a DNA test,” I said, flat and final. “If this child is yours, fine. If not, then you’re free to say whatever lies you want. But prove it.”

Adrian’s eyes flicked to me, panic flickering like a candle. “Okay. Okay, I’ll take it.”

I didn’t wait for his relief to settle. I was already on my phone, calling someone who could move faster than guilt and faster than nonsense. Paperwork, sample kits, the chain of custody everything had to be clean. Clean meant trustable. Trust meant truth.

The other part, quieter, rawer, felt something like grief. Real, sharp grief that the woman I loved might not be the woman I had believed.

“You’re telling me this like it settles everything,” I said, voice low, the words tasting old. “But if this child isn’t mine or yours, then who...?”

Adrian shrugged, as if the question were an ornament he’d removed. “Does it matter? She’s had options.” His tone made it sound like a verdict rather than gossip. “Maybe you should have watched closer.”

Anger flared so hot I could feel it under my skin. I wanted to close the space between us, to let my fist do the speaking. Instead I breathed in, hard, and reminded myself that I would not be played like a fool. Dominance wasn’t just about immediate violence; it was about control, about choosing the next step. I had to be colder than I wanted to be.

“You’re finished here,” I said finally, slow and precise. “Leave. Now.”

Adrian scrambled up and fled before I finished the sentence, his fear a wet thing on his heels. Alone, I dropped into the chair and rubbed my temple again until stars pricked the edge of my vision.

The paper lay on the desk like a verdict written by a stranger. The CCTV clips looped in my head. Karline’s face, her expression in those frames, kept replaying. I could still see her, laughing, leaning into someone else’s hand.

My heart ached in a way I hadn’t felt in years. Not the furious, vengeful ache, that was simpler. This was a hollow, slow pain that pounded behind my sternum. The woman I loved, the one whose name I had worn like a shield, might have betrayed me. My hands curled into fists and then unclenched. I breathed out, slow and controlled.

My heart ached with great pain of whatever she had done.