My Marriage: His Debt to Another Woman Chapter 04

My Marriage: His Debt to Another Woman Chapter 04

If I had never learned the truth, I might have gone on believing I was happy.

I used to think Jake was a good husband. He was always gentle with me, and he supported my design work. He helped me turn the room with the best light into my studio.

“Do what you love, Elara,” he’d told me. “You’re talented. You shouldn’t waste it.”

If it weren’t for the backyard barbecue three months after our wedding, I might have kept believing him forever.

That day, I’d baked his favorite lemon pie as a surprise. But when I wove through the crowd and stepped onto the patio, I saw him holding Chloe.

She was sobbing in his arms, her whole body trembling while he patted her back, his own face dark with anger.

“How could he do that?” Jake said, his voice tight with suppressed anger. “What right does he have to turn you down? What could possibly not be good enough about you?”

I stood there, my heart seizing in my chest.

Then I heard Chloe’s tear-choked reply.

“But Jake, he doesn’t want me.”

Her sobs grew louder.

“Mark said… he said the person he’s always wanted was Elara.”

The pie slipped from my fingers. The box hit the flagstones and split open, shattering the perfect crust.

In that instant, I understood everything.

Why Jake had appeared out of nowhere with that ring and proposed, just one day before Mark and I were supposed to announce our engagement.

He hadn’t wanted to save me.

He just couldn’t stand that Mark had chosen me.