I Can Smell Every Lie, and My Husband Reeked of Betrayal Chapter 01

I Can Smell Every Lie, and My Husband Reeked of Betrayal Chapter 01

I could smell everyone.

Love smelled like roses. Loyalty smelled like lilies.

Lies smelled like sharp vinegar. Betrayal smelled like stale, bitter mold. Disappointment smelled burnt, with a bitter edge.

The day my mother left, I smelled that stale bitterness.

The day my sister ran off with a man, I smelled something bitter and thick. She never came back after that.

So from then on, whenever I fell in love, I always got out in time.

Until I met Finn Carter.

He always smelled like roses and lilies. It was the best kind of smell.

I thought I’d found the real thing.

But on his birthday, the year we planned our future together, he broke his promise.

When he finally walked in that night, the scent of flowers was still on him. But underneath it, a faint sourness—and it turned my stomach.

I thought, it’s time to go hunting for clean flowers again.

…

“Finn. What’s that smell on you?”

He’d just come in, bent over to switch his shoes. My voice froze his hands mid-motion.

“Smell? Probably the booze. A couple of old classmates dragged me out for drinks.”

He smiled, stood up, and walked toward me.

The roses were there. The lilies were there.

But threaded through them was a layer of vinegar, like someone had doused the flowers in acid.

And that stale bitter mold.

Faint, there and gone. Like food left out long enough to turn bitter.

I couldn’t pin it down, but my stomach was already turning.

He reached out and brushed his hand gently over my arm.

“How have you been holding up lately? Anything weighing on you?”

I didn’t move away. But acid climbed straight up my throat.

“Didn’t you say you weren’t doing your birthday this year?”

A month ago, I’d asked him what he wanted to do. He’d said skip it—what was a thirty-year-old man celebrating for? Focus on our future plans instead.

I’d believed him.

So tonight I’d made beef stew and left it warm on the stove, waiting for him to get home.

Finn shrugged off his jacket, hung it up, and tugged at his tie.

“The old crew insisted. Chloe put it together—said turning thirty deserved a real night.”

Chloe Warren.

The second her name left his mouth, the vinegar thickened.

Not because the words were a lie.

Because he was playing it down on purpose.

“Who’s Chloe?”

“High school. We sat next to each other. You’ve met her—the one at the reunion with the little girl.”

I thought it over. A face surfaced out of the blur—round, long hair, a soft smile, a four-or-five-year-old always perched on her lap.

At the end of that night, she’d tugged Finn’s sleeve and thanked him for fixing her car door.

Just that one moment. I hadn’t thought twice about it.

“She organized it?”

“Yeah. She rallied in the group chat. Seven or eight of us showed up.”

He walked into the kitchen and lifted the lid off the pot.

“Beef stew? You made this?”

“Mm.”

“Let me have a bowl.”

He ladled some out and sat down across from me.

I stared at his collar.

There was a mark on it, pinkish-white.

Like smudged foundation.