The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 318

The Love He Hid From Me 

MARY’S POV: 

Somewhere deep down, in a place I didn’t want to acknowledge, I realized the truth: I still wanted to believe him. Even now. Even after seeing Vesper in that bed. Some pathetic, desperate part of me still wanted all of this to be a nightmare. I wanted the video to be edited. I wanted Vesper to be just an old friend. I wanted there to be some perfectly innocent explanation for why she was sleeping in my guest room in the middle of the night. 

Because if I asked the questions out loud-if I said the words are you sleeping with her or do you love her or have you ever loved me at all-then they would become real. They would exist in the world, spoken aloud, impossible to take back. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for that kind of reality. 

So I had stayed silent. 

I had closed the door. 

And I had pretended, just like I had been pretending for seven years, that everything was fine. 

A car engine rumbled outside the window. 

I leaned toward the crack in the curtains and peered out through the gap. A black sedan was pulling into the driveway. Alistair’s car-the one he drove when he didn’t want to be recognized, when he was coming home late from somewhere he shouldn’t have been. 

I watched him step out, and my heart did something complicated in my chest. Something between relief and dread and a strange, hollow ache that I couldn’t quite name. 

He looked rumpled. Tired. His shirt was different from the one he had been wearing last night-a fresh one, pale blue, no cake stains. He had changed somewhere. In the guest room, probably. While Vesper slept in the bed beside him. 

I felt something twist in my stomach. Something hot and acidic and sharp. 

But I didn’t confront him. I didn’t run downstairs and throw open the door and demand to know why he was wearing different clothes. Instead, I waited. I listened. I stayed in Elowen’s room until I heard the front door open and close, until I heard his footsteps moving through the foyer. 

Then I got up. I smoothed down my hair. I wiped the tears from my face. And I walked downstairs to greet my husband like nothing had happened. 

“Mary,” he said when he saw me. He was standing in the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee like he owned the place which, technically, he did. “You’re up early.” 

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