He Jilted Me at the Altar. I Married His Enemy by Midnight. Chapter 13

He Jilted Me at the Altar. I Married His Enemy by Midnight. Chapter 13

I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry.

That’s how you know a heart has scar tissue-the old breaks don’t shatter loud anymore. They just go quiet

I sat down in his desk chair with the envelope in my lap, and I did the thing I’d trained myself out of and apparently back into: I made his case for him. He’d signed these before the crash, probably. Before the hospital. Before I love you. A careful man, papering the exit like careful men do. Maybe he’d forgotten they

existed.

Or maybe.

Maybe the contract said one year, and I was the only one of us who’d stopped counting.

Once the arrangement’s done, I move to the endgame, said the phone call in my memory. He’d explained that call. He’d explained everything. And I’d believed him, because believing him had felt like breathing after

drowning.

But my whole life, every person who was supposed to stay had kept the exit paperwork current. My father

had a price sheet. My fiancé had an arrangement. Why not-

No, I said out loud, to the empty study. “No, that’s the old voice.j

But my hands were already moving. That’s the thing about the old voice-it doesn’t need your agreement,

only your hands. I found myself in our bedroom pulling a suitcase from the closet, moving with the terrible efficiency of a woman who has packed her life in one night before, folding maternity clothes at 2 a.m. with the envelope propped on the dresser like a court summons.

This time I leave first. This time nobody films my face while it happens. This time-

“The last page.J

I froze.

Damian stood in the doorway in the dark, and he wasn’t looking at the suitcase. He was looking at the

envelope. And his face-

His face wasn’t guilt.

It was something closer to terror. The face of a man watching nine years balance on a coin flip.

Aria. Did you read the last page?j

I read enough-J My voice cracked down the middle. It’s signed, Damian. Dated. You signed our divorce

while I was-while we were-was any of it-J

‘Yes, I signed it. In October. He didn’t move from the doorway. He held very still, the way you hold still near

something wild you can’t bear to startle. Three days after you found the paintings Three days after I saw

your face in that studio and understood exactly what I’d done to you.J

What you’d-J

I stalked you, Aria.J The words came out flat and unflinching, a man laying his own charges. Call it what it is. I searched nine years for a stranger, and when I found her, she was cornered-jilted, pregnant, disowned, thirty minutes from a deadline-and I put a pen in her hand. You never had a choice. I told myself the marriage protected you. It did. It also caged you, and I knew it, and I did it anyway, because I am not a good man about

you. I have never been a good man about you.J

He took one step into the room.

So I had those papers drawn. Signed. Irrevocable from my side-my attorneys have standing instructions

that if you ever file them, no one contests, no one negotiates, you take everything you came with and half of

everything I have, and I never contact you again.J

“Why, I whispered.

Because the girl on Halloway Street stayed because she chose to. His voice finally broke, right down the

center, and it was the most honest sound I’d ever heard him make. “That’s the only version of you I’ve ever wanted. Not obligated. Not grateful. Not cornered at 11:47 p.m. Choosing. Those papers are the door, Aria. I

built you a door and I’ve been living every day since October knowing you might walk through it.j

The suitcase sat between us. The envelope sat on the dresser.

Read the last page, he said quietly. Please. And then-whatever you decide, I’ll stand here and take it.j

I picked up the envelope with shaking hands.

Behind the signed petition, behind the settlement terms, there was one final sheet-not legal paper. Heavy

artist’s stock. Something drawn on it, and beneath the drawing, a single handwritten line.

I turned it over.

And my heart stopped for the third time in one lifetime.