My Asexual Husband Slept with His Best Friend for 8 Years Chapter 04

My Asexual Husband Slept with His Best Friend for 8 Years Chapter 04 Flowers and Fire

Eight years I’d held on. Tonight, I bought a one-way ticket to Pxris.

I picked up the phone and called Jack Fontaine. His voice came through the line like a door I’d forgotten was unlocked. “Welcome back, Chloe. We’ve been waiting.”

Everything I’d buried for that man, I was digging back up.

When Jack heard I was coming alone, there was a pause. The kind where you can hear someone set their coffee down.

“Does Sebastian know? Didn’t you say you two were about to have a baby?”

I laughed. It tasted like rust.

“We’re done.”

The prenup had an infidelity clause-automatic termination if either of us ever strayed. I’d insisted on it back when I still believed marriage meant something.

The irony? Now that I had one foot out the door, Sebastian suddenly wanted to put a baby in me.

Every morning, the kitchen counter looked like a pharmacy. Bottles, capsules-he started popping supplements like a man possessed.

Overnight, the man who’d spent eight years going soft in my hands learned how to stand at attention. Every night, he’d reach for me. I’d turn away. Every single time.

His desperation for this baby reminded me of the way he used to chase me in college-obsessive, relentless, wearing me down until I said yes.

Maybe it was because, for all these years, I’d wanted a real marriage with him-and he’d refused me too many times.

Maybe he thought that was all it took this time, too. Get me pregnant, and everything I’d seen, everything I knew about him and Serena-it would all just disappear.

Like my pain was a problem a baby could solve.

But I wasn’t going to tie myself to this man for eighteen more years just because he felt guilty.

The night before I left, the old crowd planned a going-away dinner. I almost didn’t go.

Big mistake.

Serena-who was supposed to be in some Swxss clinic getting her “condition” treated-was holding court at the center of the table.

Surrounded by her admirers. Wearing that cold, mocking smile.

I turned to leave.

I didn’t make it two steps before a glass of red wine hit my face.

Jesus, Chloe. You look like a ghost. Here-let me wash that off for you. Don’t mention it.”

The room erupted in laughter. Not surprised laughter-knowing laughter.

They’d all known. For years. Every single person in this room knew my husband was fucking his childhood friend and they’d done nothing.

Probably running bets on how long I’d keep playing the fool.

Serena leaned in. Just for me.

“Must be nice, huh? Getting claimed by the Vance family after all this time.” Her breath smelled like wine and malice. “But it doesn’t change the fact that your husband only gets hard for me.”

“So I heard he’s trying to put a baby in you. Please tell me you’re not happy about it. Here’s the thing. sweetie-I don’t want to ruin my body pushing out his child. So he’s using you as an incubator. A nice, convenient womb to rent.” She laughed, high and cruel. “But even when you’re fat and pregnant with his kid, guess whose bed he’ll still be crawling into every night?”

Then, her laughter was louder. Pitching her voice to the back of the room.

“Chloe, babe. You can’t handle him. So step aside. And let me take care of him.”

A month ago, I would’ve slapped her.

But I had a flight to catch in the morning.

I wasn’t going to let her bait me into giving her a scene.

I turned to leave-but before I could take two steps, Serena threw herself backward, hitting the marble floor with a thud.

Her knee split open on impact-real blood this time, not the fake tears she usually trafficked in.

“Oh my god, Chloe! Just because you can’t have a baby doesn’t mean you have to take it out on me! What is your problem?”

I hadn’t even moved yet. And there Sebastian was-at her side, on his knees, gathering her up like something precious. I’d been played.

When he looked up at me, his face twisted with disgust,

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” His voice shook. “I agreed to give you what you wanted-a baby, a family-and you try to kill her? You just hate that she makes me feel like a man.”

“You know what?” His voice was a snarl. “Fuck the baby. Fuck you. I’m having a kid with Serena. There’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.”

Before I could respond, he grabbed a wine bottle from the table.

“Go ahead,” he said, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Have your little meltdown.”

The glass shattered against my skull. Tiny shards glittered in my skin like grotesque jewelry. Wine and blood ran down my face in the same red stream.

Then his boot hit my chest like a hammer. The air left my lungs in a single violent rush. I was airborne an then I was falling. Into the ten-foot-deep pool beside us.

I can’t swim. I just went straight down.

The moment I hit the water, the smell hit me. It wasn’t water. It burned. My skin began to blister, the flesh peeling away in sheets.

His face went white. He lunged for me-but Serena caught his arm, pulling him back before he could ge

close.

“Seb, please-” She was clutching the blood streaking down her leg, face twisted in theatrical pain. “Take me to the hospital.”

His arm went around her like I was already a ghost.

“Okay, baby. Let’s go now. Let her cool off for a minute. Maybe she’ll learn to control that temper.”

They left. Just like that.

The world had become a blur of red. I was shaking in pain.

When they were gone, I fought my way to the edge, inching toward my phone on the deck.

Before I could reach it, Sebastian’s call came through.

His voice was a blade. Pure rage.

“Serena needed five fucking stitches. Five. Because of you. You don’t get to have a baby. Not until Serena forgives you!”

The laugh tore my face apart. I could feel the skin sliding off in pieces.

“Sebastian. I came here tonight to tell you-”

The line went dead. He hadn’t even let me finish about the prenub.

The water took me before I could take another breath. The memories flooded in-college, the chase, the wedding. All the sweetness I’d once known.

Nothing stirred in my heart.

It turned out heartbreak wasn’t the burning rage they wrote about in books. It was clarity. It was looking at someone you gave everything to and realizing they were never worth the sacrifice.

The water closed over my head, and I whispered-“We’re done, Sebastian.”