Chapter 1Marrying My Ex For Revenge

A year ago, he left me standing alone at City Hall for a girl who scaled fish at the harbor for ten dollars an hour.

I can still see the shadow of a smirk in his eyes when he told me, "Erica, you don’t understand. She’s... refreshing. She’s real."

I watched him walk away, a hollow, wintry ache settling behind my ribs. It felt like my entire life had been gutted and left to dry in the sun.

It only took him six months to regret it.

The girl from the docks was a novelty, a splash of salt air in his curated life, but eventually, the smell of the harbor wouldn't wash off. The gap in their worlds became a chasm he couldn't bridge. He crawled back, begging for forgiveness, certain that I would still be there, waiting to be his wife.

And I did marry him.

For the first six months of our marriage, he was the picture of a perfect husband. Attentive. Gracious. Desperate to atone.

But why should I be the only one to know the copper taste of betrayal? Why should I be the only one who had to swallow the glass of a broken heart?

Six months into our "happily ever after," I made sure he caught me with another man.

Nathan’s eyes were bloodshot, his face a mask of fractured sanity as he demanded to know why.

"Are you punishing me? Erica, I’m done with that life! I’ve been home every night. I’ve given you everything. Where did I go wrong?"

* * *

Clothes were strewn across the hardwood floor in a frantic, tell-tale trail. I sat on the edge of the bed, draped in nothing but a silk robe that revealed far too much, watching Nathan unravel.

He stood in the doorway, a dark, suffocating silhouette against the hallway light.

"Get out," he spat at the man behind me.

The man didn't move. He looked at me first, searching my face for a signal. When I kept my gaze fixed forward, cold and unblinking, he finally stood, dressed with a practiced, lethal efficiency, and left.

Then, it was just me and Nathan.

He was shaking with a suppressed, violent kind of grief. He grabbed a stray shirt from the floor and tried to force it onto me, his fingers fumbling with the buttons.

"Erica, I can overlook this. This once. But if you ever—" He stopped mid-sentence, his breath hitching as he saw the faint bruises on my collarbone. His grip tightened, his movements turning rough as he shoved my arms into the sleeves.

My wrist twisted painfully. I winced, my brow furrowing.

"Nathan, stop it! You’re acting like a psychopath!" I shoved him back, my voice echoing in the silent room.

He lunged forward, pinning my wrists, his teeth bared. "A psychopath? I walk into my own home and find my wife in bed with a stranger, and I’m supposed to what? Stand here and applaud?"

Watching the agony ripple across his face, the sharp pain in my wrist felt like nothing. It felt like a fair trade.

I looked up at him, a slow, sharp smile spreading across my lips. "I just wanted to see for myself. I wanted to see if the world outside was really as 'refreshing' as you claimed it was."

Nathan recoiled as if I’d slapped him. "You married me... just for revenge?"

"I’m done with her, Erica! I haven't seen her in months!"

"Done?" I let out a sharp, jagged laugh. It started in my chest and climbed up my throat until it turned into hot, stinging tears. "You crawled into her bed over and over again. You think 'ending it' scrubs that clean? You think I can't smell the salt on you every time you touch me?"

Nathan’s eyes were crimson. He paced the room like a caged predator, gasping for air, before his fist collided with the wall.

A streak of blood smeared down the paint. The violence of it seemed to ground him.

"Erica," he said, his voice dropping to a low, terrifyingly calm register. "We’re even now. You’ve had your pound of flesh. From now on, we move past this. We live our lives."

I laughed again, the sound brittle. "You slept with her a thousand times, Nathan. You think one night with someone else balances the scales?"

"What do you want from me?" he rasped, his voice breaking.

"I. Want. A. Divorce."

"A divorce?" He looked at me with a sudden, cruel flash of derision. "Erica, look at yourself. You aren't the girl you used to be. Who’s going to take you now? Who’s going to give you this life? You think you can find someone who loves you more than I do?"

He reached out, his voice softening into a patronizing silk. "Be a good girl. I’ll forgive you this time. Let’s just forget the past and start over."

In that moment, I felt a profound sense of the absurd. This man, the boy who used to bring me wildflowers and talk about our future under the oak trees—how had he turned into this monster?