The Shattered Illusion
The scent of roses still clung to my skin. I had spent the last hour arranging the bouquet I bought myself, telling my reflection in the mirror that tonight, maybe, just maybe, Adrian would come home early. He had promised dinner together. A rare promise, but I clung to it the way a drowning woman clings to driftwood.
I was a fool.
By the time the clock struck nine, the food on the table was cold. I paced the length of our penthouse living room, heels clicking against the polished marble. I told myself traffic must be heavy. Maybe a business meeting had dragged on. Maybe
The lie cracked when I saw the forgotten cufflinks on the table. Adrian never went to meetings without them.
A prickle ran down my spine. My chest tightened with the same uneasy dread I had been ignoring for months.
I grabbed my purse and car keys, driven by an instinct that felt heavier than my own heartbeat.
The city’s nightlife glimmered as I drove through downtown. Adrian’s sleek black Porsche was hard to miss, parked outside the luxurious Grand Pearl Hotel. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel until my knuckles whitened.
I shouldn’t go in. A part of me screamed to turn back, to swallow my suspicions and pretend. Pretend I still had a marriage. Pretend I was still the adored wife of Adrian Blackwood, heir to one of the wealthiest families in the city.
But lies don’t stop bleeding once the cut is open.
The receptionist’s eyes widened as I stormed past. Money and privilege had always smoothed Adrian’s sins, but they wouldn’t save him tonight.
The elevator ride was suffocating. My pulse thundered in my ears, louder with each floor it ascended. When the doors slid open, muffled laughter and the low thrum of music guided me down the hall.
I stopped at the suite door, his suite. I didn’t even need the keycard. The door was cracked open, a careless mistake.
The world inside was everything I feared.
Champagne glasses littered the floor. Adrian’s shirt lay discarded across the sofa. And on the king-sized bed, my husband moved with practiced hunger over a body I knew all too well.
Vanessa.
My best friend.
Her nails raked down his back, her moans filled the room, and Adrian, my Adrian laughed in the deep, throaty way he used to laugh with me.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. My vision blurred as if my brain refused to process the betrayal.
Then the sound slipped out of me. A broken, strangled gasp.
Adrian’s head snapped up. His eyes widened, shock flickering across his handsome face before twisting into irritation. He didn’t scramble off the bed. He didn’t even look ashamed.
“Elena,” he said, his voice sharp, impatient. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Vanessa had the audacity to smirk, draping the sheet around her naked body like some queen caught in stolen pleasure.
The world tilted. I felt the floor beneath me, but my body was numb.
“What am I doing here?” My voice was barely more than a whisper, but it trembled with fury. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Adrian swung his legs off the bed, unconcerned about his nakedness. He looked at me as though I was the intruder.
“You weren’t supposed to see this.” His tone was cold, businesslike, as if discussing a ruined contract. “But since you have… let’s not be dramatic. We both know this marriage hasn’t worked for a long time.”
My nails dug into my palms until blood threatened to bloom. “You humiliated me… with her? My best friend?”
Vanessa finally spoke, her voice dripping with mockery. “Oh, come now, Elena. Don’t act so surprised. Adrian deserves passion, not… cold politeness at the dinner table.”
Her words sliced deeper than any blade.
Adrian folded his arms. “Stop acting like a victim. You’ve been nothing but a burden. Do you think I married you for love? My father insisted. He thought you were respectable. But respect doesn’t keep a man satisfied.”
It was right then in that filthy hotel room, that I realized the truth. The man I had loved for years, the man I sacrificed everything for, never loved me back.
And worse… I wasn’t broken. I was free.
My voice steadied, low and dangerous. “You’re right, Adrian. This marriage is over.”
His brows rose in disbelief, as though I had no right to speak those words. “What did you just say?”
“I’m filing for divorce.”
For the first time, fear flickered in his eyes. Not because he loved me. Not because he cared. But because Adrian Blackwood had never imagined a world where I walked away first.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he hissed.
I turned on my heel, heart pounding, eyes burning, but my spine straight.
As I walked out of that suite, past the cheap perfume, the lies, the shards of a marriage I had wasted years on, I made a vow.
I would never cry for Adrian Blackwood again.
And as fate would have it, I would soon find myself entangled in the arms of the one man Adrian feared most.
His father.
