The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 321

The Hidden Past 

MARY’S POV: 

I felt something crack a bit inside my chest. 

“Cancel it,” I said. 

“Excuse me?” 

“The party. Whatever he’s planning. Cancel it.” 

He stared at me for a long moment. Then his mouth curved into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t take orders from delusional women who pretend to be married to my friends.” 

“I’m not pretending.” 

“Then where is he?” He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the empty foyer, the silent staircase, the closed doors “If you’re his wife, where’s your husband? Why isn’t he here? Why hasn’t he mentioned you? Not once. In all the years i have known him. Not a single word.” 

I opened my mouth and then closed it. 

Because he was right. Alistair wasn’t here. I didn’t know where he was-upstairs, probably, or already gone, slipped out the back while I was standing in the kitchen pretending to cook for his mistress. And my phone was still in the kitchen, untouched since last night, and I hadn’t seen a single message or missed call from the man who was supposed to be my husband. 

The man- this stranger with his leather jacket and his knowing smile-saw my hesitation. Saw the crack in my armor. And pressed his advantage. 

“See?” he said, his voice almost gentle now, the way you might speak to a child who didn’t understand something obvious. “Alistair has always had women around him. Groupies. Hangers-on. Women who think they’re special because he smiled at them once at a party.” He tilted his head, studying me with something that might have been pity. “You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. But you are the most dedicated. I’ll give you that. The apron is a nice touch.” 

“I’m his wife,” I said again, but my voice sounded weaker now. Thinner. Like a rope fraying under too much weight. 

“Then prove it.” 

I looked around the foyer, searching for anything-anything at all-that could prove my relationship with Alistair. The walls were covered in photographs, but they weren’t photographs of me. Elowen’s school pictures. Alistair with his business partners. Alistair with his mother at some gala. Alistair with his college friends at a football game. 

There were almost none of us together. 

How had I not noticed that before? How had I lived in this house for seven years and never realized that my face was absent from its walls? 

The man I still didn’t know his name, didn’t care to know it was watching me with growing amusement. Behind him, the staircase stretched upward toward my daughter’s room, and I felt a spike of panic in my chest. If Elowen woke up and came downstairs and found this stranger in our house- 

“You need to leave,” I said. 

“I’m not going anywhere until I see Vesper. 

“Leave. Now.” 

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