Chapter 2Marrying My Ex For Revenge

When did the rot start?

I think it was when his startup finally took off, right around the time the "Old Money" of my family's estate began to crumble. My father’s firm collapsed, a slow-motion car crash that ended in total bankruptcy.

My parents moved back to the countryside, leaving me in Nathan’s hands like a precious heirloom.

My father had said, "I’m glad I had the foresight not to stand in your way when Nathan was starting out. Now that the family name is gone, you have him to lean on. I can sleep peacefully knowing you're taken care of."

I had nodded, tears blurring my vision, grateful that I had a rock like Nathan to cling to.

But after my parents left, the rock began to erode. He started coming home later and later—midnight, 2:00 AM, sometimes not at all.

When I asked if work was really that demanding, he’d give me the same tired script: "We’re breaking into the global market, Erica. I have to be there. I’m the CEO; I have to set the example."

He’d done the same during the early days of the company. I had no reason to doubt him.

Until the day of the fender-bender.

I was stuck in traffic near the waterfront when I saw his car parked illegally by the pier. I saw Nathan—my Nathan—carrying a young woman in his arms. He looked frantic, his face etched with a desperate worry as he lifted her into the back of an ambulance.

The world went ice-cold.

In the middle of a sweltering July afternoon, I started to shiver.

I called him. Once. Twice. Ten times. He declined every single one.

In a meeting, the auto-reply text read.

Those three words felt like a death sentence.

I drove home in a trance, and halfway there, I got rear-ended. My head hit the steering wheel, and as I felt the warm trickle of blood down my forehead, a sick thought occurred to me: This is good. I would call him, tell him I was hurt, and he would come rushing back. He would leave that girl and hold me.

But as the paramedics loaded me into the ambulance, his phone was still off.

The nurse handed me an ice pack, her eyes full of a pity that made me want to scream. "Try him again later, sweetie. I'm sure he's just tied up with something important."

I sat in the sterile silence of the ER, listening to the busy signal, a strange, eerie calm settling over me.

I sent him a photo of my injury. He didn't reply.

It wasn't until I had been sitting in our dark living room for four hours that he finally burst through the door.

"Erica! My god, are you okay? Does your head hurt? Do we need to go back to the hospital?" He stumbled over the rug, rushing to gather me in his arms. The terror in his eyes looked so real.

After seven years, I knew he still loved me in his own twisted way.

But the smell of the hospital—the scent of her crisis—was still clinging to his jacket. It ignited something inside me.

"Where were you?"

"I’m so sorry, babe. Things at the office are just insane. Once this merger goes through, I promise I’ll make it up to—"

I slapped his hand away before he could finish the sentence.

I looked at him, my eyes burning with a cold, sharp rage. "You’re lying. Nathan, where were you this afternoon?"

He tried to double down. "I told you, I was in a meeting."

I picked up my phone and showed him the photo I’d taken at the pier. There he was, disheveled and frantic, holding a girl in a stained apron.

Nathan’s face drained of color.

He fell to his knees, wrapping his arms around my waist, his voice thick with a fake, desperate remorse. "I’m sorry, Erica. It was a momentary lapse. I was weak. Please, you have to forgive me."

I broke. I threw my phone, I screamed until my throat was raw, and I smashed every piece of porcelain in that room.

"Why, Nathan? Why her?"

He just kept apologizing, letting me hit him, letting me vent my fury.

"I just felt sorry for her, Erica. She has nothing. It wasn't... it wasn't like us. I'll end it. I swear. You're the only one who matters."

And I was stupid enough to believe him.

I tried to bury the memory. I tried to go back to the way we were. He proposed again—properly this time—and I threw myself into wedding planning, counting down the days until our September 9th date at City Hall.