My Husband Realized He Loved Me After I Stopped Loving Him Chapter 02
I hung up before he could answer.
I didn’t need to guess what Grant would have said.
Last time, I really had drugged him. The morning after, the way he’d looked at me—cold enough to run me through where I stood.
Even so, I’d still let myself hope, foolishly, that if we had another child, things might turn around.
And now…
I touched my stomach and felt like a punchline.
After a while, I hauled myself out of the tub, grabbed the abortion pills off the counter with a blank face, and swallowed a fistful.
Then I texted my attorney to draft the divorce papers.
Once it was done, I leaned against the headboard, hollow.
Grant came home at eleven that night as if nothing had happened, carrying the necklace I’d casually mentioned wanting weeks ago.
Thinking back, this past year he’d been almost unbearably good to me.
He reported his every move without being asked, brought me to every event, drowned me in gifts.
If I hadn’t stumbled onto him at the hospital, sitting beside Chloe at her prenatal appointment, I might never have realized the truth.
What I’d taken for rekindled affection had only ever been him protecting her.
Lost in thought, I found the gift box already pushed across the table toward me.
His voice was flat, carefully neutral.
“This afternoon I went to see Chloe. I showered there and left—thirty minutes, total. Ask your private investigator if you don’t believe me.”
“After that I was at the office the whole time. Ask whoever you’ve planted there.”
“On the way home I bought the necklace you wanted. Nowhere else. Your paparazzi should already have the photos.”
Word for word, careful and formal, as if I were a monster he had to manage.
Even though he’d already bought off every person I’d hired, turning them into bodyguards secretly protecting Chloe, his guard against me never wavered.
My chest ached, but I laughed anyway.
“Is that right?”
If Chloe hadn’t added me on WhatsApp that afternoon, I might have actually believed him.
I handed him my phone. On the screen was a string of photos Chloe had sent.
Grant’s back as he cooked. His profile as he mopped the floor. Even the clumsy way he’d bent over, squinting at baby products in a store.
Over three hundred photos, every angle, all of a Grant Ashworth I had never once seen.
In ten years of marriage, Grant had never done a single chore.
Even when the housekeeper took time off, he’d let the house run out of toilet paper for a week without noticing.
I stared at those photos for a long time and thought: ten years, and I’d lost so completely I couldn’t even argue with the result.
The last photo—of him walking away—had been taken half an hour ago.
The lie collapsed on the spot.
The instant Grant saw the screen clearly, his pupils shrank.
He snatched the phone from me, grabbed my throat, and pinned me to the wall, forcing out every word through clenched teeth.
“What did I tell you about keeping your hands off Chloe?”
“Do whatever you want to me—but not her!”
My stomach took a dull blow against the wall, and my face went another shade paler.
But he didn’t even notice.
Watching him lose control like this, I couldn’t help sneering.
“So as long as I don’t touch her, I can do anything to you?”
I shoved him off, grabbed the wine bottle off the table, and raised it over his head.
He flinched—then, visibly, relaxed.
He closed his eyes.
“Smash it over my head if you want.”
When he opened his eyes again, he looked past me, somewhere else entirely, as if he couldn’t even bring himself to look at me.
“It’s not like it’s the first time anyway.”
“Take it all out on me. Just leave Chloe alone.”
I stood there, bottle raised, frozen.
Suddenly the whole thing felt utterly pointless.
I set the bottle down and reached to take my phone back.
The instant my finger touched the screen, his face changed completely and he clamped down on my wrist.
“Were you about to send your people after Chloe again?!”
The force of it sent me stumbling backward, and I fell hard onto the floor.
Everything went black for a second before I came back.
I looked up at him, chest heaving, somewhere between fury and fear.
He really did love her to distraction.
So much that even my normal breathing made him flinch, as if I might hurt her just by existing.
I laughed, hollow. “Grant, actually, I already—”
His phone’s custom ringtone cut me off.
His hand, halfway to helping me up, froze midair, and he answered without hesitation.
Chloe’s tearful voice leaked out of the receiver.
His expression darkened instantly, and when he looked back at me, both contempt and warning nearly overflowed from his eyes.
“Vivian. As long as I’m here, you won’t touch her.”
“If you want a war to the death, don’t blame me for what happens next.”
The door slammed shut faster than I could finish my sentence.
I stood there a moment, then almost laughed.
What I’d meant to say was—the divorce papers were already drafted. They’d arrive by morning.
I’d decided to let him go. To let myself go, too.
Though now, I supposed, there wasn’t much left worth saying.