The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 327

The Viral Wife 

MARY’S POV: 

The elevator touched the ground floor, and the doors slid open into a lobby that suddenly felt like a stage. 

I walked across the marble floor with my head high, my heels clicking in rhythm with my heartbeat. The security guard at the front desk glanced up at me, then looked away. A group of employees huddled near the coffee kiosk, laughing about something I couldn’t hear. None of them knew. None of them had any idea that the woman walking past them had just delivered divorce papers to the CEO of the company they worked for. 

That was fine. They would know soon enough. 

The drive home was quiet. Too quiet. The radio played something soft and forgettable, and I let the sound wash over me without really hearing it. My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary. My mind kept circling back to the folder on the receptionist’s desk, to the way her smile had crumbled, to the words I had finally said out loud after one years of swallowing them. 

I’m his wife. 

Such a small sentence. Such a small claim. And yet it had taken me seven years to say it to someone who didn’t already know. 

I pulled into the driveway and sat there for a moment, the engine ticking as it cooled. The house looked the same as it always had, white walls, dark shutters, a porch swing that Alistair had bought for me when Elowen was a baby and that I had sat on alone for every summer since. But something felt different. The air was heavier. The light was dimmer. Or maybe that was just me. 

I walked inside and set my bag on the kitchen counter. The house was empty, Elowen at school, Vesper God knows where, Alistair still not answering his phone. I should have felt relieved. Instead, I felt like I was holding my breath, waiting for something to happen. 

Something was happening. I just didn’t know it yet. 

I found out around noon. 

I was standing in the kitchen, staring at the refrigerator without opening it, when my phone buzzed. Then it buzzed again. Then again. A steady stream of notifications, one after another, like rain tapping against a window. 

I picked it up and looked at the screen. 

T*****r. I*******m. F******k. Messages from numbers I didn’t recognize, from usernames I had never seen, from people who had somehow found my profile and decided to share their opinions with me. 

You should be ashamed of yourself. 

He was never yours. 

Vesper deserves him, not you. 

Leave him alone. You’re just in the way. 

I scrolled through the messages without understanding what I was reading. My fingers felt numb. My vision blurred at the edges. And then I opened one of the links, and I saw the photos. 

There were dozens of them 

Vesper and Alistair at the beach. Her in a white bikini, her dark hair wet and slicked back, laughing at something off-camera. Him beside her, shirtless, younger-so much younger-with a smile I hadn’t seen in years. His arm was around her waist. Her hand was on his chest. They looked like the type of couple that belonged on postcards, on magazine covers, in the pages of a story that wasn’t mine. 

Another photo: Vesper and Alistair at a restaurant. A fancy one, with white tablecloths and candles and wine glasses that caught the light. She was wearing a red dress. He was wearing a suit that looked expensive even then, even before the money had poured in, even when we were still sleeping on a mattress on the floor of our first apartment. 

Another photo: Vesper and Alistair walking through a park. His hand was intertwined with hers. They were both in jeans-him in worn denim that I recognized because he had worn those same jeans on our first date, on our honeymoon, on the day Elowen was born. She was in ripped shorts and a tank top, her hair in a messy ponytail, her feet in sneakers that looked like they had walked a thousand miles. 

They looked happy. 

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