I love my husband and I thought I knew he loved me. But that changed when I saw him ki-ss another woman.

At Thanksgiving Dinner, I was taking a picture of the over-priced gazebo my in-laws recently built to send to my friend with an eye-roll emoji, and guess what my iPhone immortalized in digital format?

My husband was ki-ssing Diana. Talk about things not to be thankful for.

I let out a dry laugh, which burned my insides. It hurt like a motherfu-cker.

Then I printed ten photographs of the ki-ss and put them into the envelope.

I picked up the red and green acrylic pens I'd set aside for just this purpose and, with the viciousness of a woman scorned, wrote my husband's name and mine on it.

To Aiden. From Mia.

Then I contacted my friend, a divorce lawyer.

Heartbreak changes you—I would've never known, would never have believed it until it happened to me.

I'm not mercenary by nature. But I've been pushed to a point where I'm going to choose me, since my husband, the love of my life, doesn't give a rat's a-ss about me.

Now he could choke on it.

——————

Mia

My last name might be Winter, but Aiden Winter and his parents, his sister, his brother, his...well, all his family, look at me and treat me like I'm just taking up space, the same exact space they'd rather fill with their favorite family friend—a woman who is probably fertile, considering I am not.

I'd have never asked for a divorce, no matter how bad things got, except....

I love my husband. I thought I knew he loved me.

But that changed when I saw him ki-ss another woman.

Oh, he backed away immediately, had a whole, 'what have I done' look on his face, but the genie was out of the fu-cking bottle.

"So, this is what it takes?" my best friend asks, as she gives me a measured look.

Katya isn't a fan of Aiden or his family. She sees them as snobs who think that if your bank account doesn't have a zillion zeroes, then you aren't worthy of their time. She also sees Aiden as their enabler.

"They'd invite Ted Bundy over and treat him better than they do you if he came from money," she once quipped.

"Not just money," I corrected her, slurring my words because we'd finished a whole bottle of wine between us, "it has to be old money."

"You sure this is how you want to do this?" she asks me, again, as she slides the divorce papers into a manila envelope.

We're sitting at her dining table in her cute cottage just outside of Burlington. It has three bedrooms. I'll be residing in one of them shortly, right after Christmas.

Katya and I grew up together.

When my parents died in an accident, her parents took me in. I was sixteen. I miss my parents every day, but Anya and Ivan made me their daughter in every way. So, Katya, in fact, is both my sister and best friend.

Losing Ivan three years ago was harder than when I lost my parents.

Anya now lives in an a-ssisted living facility, a couple of hours from Burlington. Katya tried taking care of her, but early-onset dementia isn't something that can be managed at home.

It's progressive and heartbreaking.

Sometimes, Anya is lucid, but most of the time, she isn't.

Katya and I mourn the woman she was before the disease took over—and try to be grateful that she's still with us, that there are moments where she knows us, when she reaches for Katya or me, and remembers our names. And then it's gone, like the tide pulling back before we can even feel the wave.

Katya and I used to visit Anya once a week, though now she mostly goes on her own. I have not been able to accompany her regularly. She understands that I have social responsibilities since I'm a Winter.

I can still hear Aiden say, "She's not even your mother. I don't understand why you have to go. This charity lunch is important to my parents, Mia."

I didn't argue. I stayed back.

I was weak and pathetic, so afraid to lose him that I just let go of myself.

No more!

"Yes, I'm sure. But use this." I pull out an envelope from my tote. It's gorgeous and golden—one Aiden gave me two Christmases ago with a card in, a card that simply said: 'Paris Vacation'.

We still haven't gone.

My husband is the CEO of Winter Financial, a hedge fund company that manages gazillions of dollars. His father, Nelson, is Chairman of the Board. He's a piece of work, by which I mean a complete misogynist and a-sshole.

"The one thing you should be able to do, which is get knocked up, and you can't do that. Why the fu-ck is he still married to you?" he once said to me.

I'd then said it was because he loved me.

What the fu-ck did I know?

I'm a kindergarten teacher; I don't usually swear. But since that ki-ss, something has been unraveling inside of me.

"Oh, and don't forget to add this." I hand her ten printed photographs of the ki-ss. For each print, I used a different filter. The noir one looks particularly romantic.

Yes, I took a photo.

No, it wasn't intentional.

It was by accident.

I'd needed to breathe, so I had left the family house while pie was being served at Thanksgiving Dinner.

I was taking a picture of the over-priced gazebo my in-laws recently built to send to Katya with an eye-roll emoji, and guess what my iPhone immortalized in digital format?

Yep, you guessed it!

My husband was ki-ssing her.

Talk about things not to be thankful for.

Katya snickers. "This is truly diabolical. I never thought you'd do it."

"I never did, either," I admit.

Her expression softens with compa-ssion. "How hard is this?"

I let out a dry laugh, which burns my insides. "It hurts like a motherfu-cker."

"You keep up with that language, and they'll kick you out of Little Luminaries," she teases, but her voice is gentle. She knows how much I love Aiden. Knows that this is painful. Knows that I feel lost and afraid.

"Then you can hire me at your firm."

Katya is a divorce lawyer. And right now, it is conveniently handy.

Every woman whose husband cheats on her should have a divorce lawyer as a best friend.

"And you're sure you don't want to talk to him and get his side of the story?" She gives me the sealed envelope.

"He ki-ssed her. That's the end of the story, babe."

I pick up the red and green acrylic pens I'd set aside for just this purpose and, with the viciousness of a woman scorned, write my husband's name and mine on it.

To Aiden. From Mia.

I add some sketches of holly and sh-it—so it looks Christma-ssy.

"Mia, I am so sorry." Katya puts a hand on my shoulder.

I hold her gaze, my eyes dry. I'd cried myself dry for three weeks now, and I didn't have anything left.

"I'm not."

She tilts her head and gives me a look that says, "I don't believe you, babe. But A+ for faking it."

I shake my head as I set the acrylic pens on Katya's desk. "I've put up with enough."

"I know that."

"Years of doing everything I can to make his family accept me, make him happy, and what do I get in return? I get to photograph him ki-ssing Diana fu-cking Valentine."

"I've never heard you cuss this much," Katya notes.

"Well, Miss Goody Two-Shoes is done being good."

Heartbreak changes you—I would've never known, would never have believed it until it happened to me.

I take a cleansing breath. "Now, let's walk through that blasted prenuptial agreement."

I'm not mercenary by nature. But I've been pushed to a point where I'm going to choose me, since my husband, the love of my life, doesn't give a rat's a-ss about me.

And, let's face it, the Winters have it coming. After all, they were the ones who'd put the infidelity clause in that prenup; certain a harlot like me would be the one who'd stray.

Now they can choke on it.

As the heroine in William Congreve's 1697 play, The Mourning Bride, declared, "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor he-ll a fury like a woman scorned."

Aiden

"Baby, you haven't eaten anything."

I looked at Mia's plate, barely touched. She'd cooked dinner like she always does—fish and rice, and vegetables.

She opened a bottle of dry Riesling to go with it. She'd drunk two gla-sses. One more than usual.

She looks small, lost, and guilt swarms through me.

That ki-ss!

God! How could I have done that to my marriage? To myself?

The only saving grace is that it was one ki-ss, and Mia didn't know. I can't stand the idea of her finding out. She'll break.

My wife loves me. Completely.

My family doesn't see it.

"Not hungry," she says, her eyes staring into the distance.

"You packed?" I ask because she's not looking at me, and I'm trying to extend the conversation so she will.

Now, she does. But there's a faraway look on her face. I've never seen it before. She seems detached. "I packed."

We leave for Stowe, Vermont, tomorrow for the Winter Christmas week, as we always do.

Bliss—the estate that has been in the Winter family for several generations—is a forty-minute drive from Burlington. There are several cabins around the estate and one large house, my parents', where we stay and spend most of our time during this week, eating, drinking, and being a family.

"Skis?" I ask.

"Of course."

I nod and press my lips. "Are you alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" She looks confused enough that I wonder if I'm transferring my guilt onto her.

I feel like sh-it.

Diana and I grew up together.

Her parents were close friends of mine. When they pa-ssed when we were in our twenties, we enfolded her into our family. She got married and lived in Los Angeles, but after her divorce, she returned and has become a fixture.

She's close to my sister and sister-in-law. She goes on spa days with my mother. My father adores her. She works at Winter Financial as the Chief Financial Officer. We spend a lot of time together at work.

My colleagues joke and call her my 'work wife'.

When I ask my a-ssistant to let my wife know I'll be late, she teases and asks me which one. It's usually Mia who has to hear from my a-ssistant.

I don't love Diana. Not like I love Mia. However, over the past two years, since Diana returned to Vermont and started working for me, I have been to more restaurants with Diana and had more meals with her than with my wife.

"Be careful," Huxley, my oldest and closest friend, warned me when we met a few months ago for drinks.

He owns a chain of hotels across the state. We met in high school and have been close since.

"What do you mean?" I asked, perturbed.

"You're planning a business trip and missing your wedding anniversary."

"And?"

"And...you're taking a business trip with Diana to Paris."

I shook my head. "What the fu-ck are you trying to say?"

"I'm not trying, Aiden, I'm telling you that you're having a fu-cking affair and you're going to lose your wife over it."

I laughed. Hard. "I'm not having an affair. Diana is family, Hux. We're colleagues and⁠—"

"You're having an emotional affair. Your colleagues call her your work wife."

I waved a dismissive hand. "Everyone has a work wife. Means nothing."

"How does Mia feel about her?"

"My wife isn't insecure," I snapped.

"She's not happy about all the time you spend with Diana. I can guarantee that, even if she hasn't said a thing."

It's not like she hadn't, but she understands that work is work, and Diana is family. She brought it up a lot when Diana first moved back to Vermont, but I shut it down by telling her to grow a spine and trust me.

"You don't know Mia, so stop pretending like you do."

"But I know Diana," he pointed out. He did. We all grew up together. "She wants to be your wife."

"But I don't want her. Not like that. Never like that."

He gave me a measured look. "You sure about that?"

I lied to him then and said I was.

But the truth?

I enjoy Diana's company.

She looks up to me and talks to me like I'm some kind of financial genius. It soothes my ego.

Mia is a kindergarten teacher. She knows nothing about high finance. I love her. But for a while there, she didn't excite me.

Even remembering how I felt makes me feel guilty, especially now, after that da-mned ki-ss.

Especially now that I realize I confused new and shiny with excitement, which made me ignore my wife, maybe even resent her a little.

I can't believe I let it happen. Let another woman ki-ss me. Place her lips on mine. Be intimate with me.

It was after Thanksgiving Dinner.

Diana says she wants to talk about work. We go outside in the snow and walk to the gazebo. My mother just had it built.

It comes with a gla-ss cover.

It's pleasant, even on a frigid day.

"Aiden, I want to ask you something." She looks nervous. I give her a rea-ssuring look.

"Anything, Di."

She smiles, licks her lips. "I...don't...." She trails off, shaking her head. "I...never mind."

"Sweetheart, what's up?"

She looks at me with moist eyes, and my heart pounds in my chest. Something is wrong, and I want to fix it. I don't like seeing Diana upset.

"Are you happy in your marriage?" Her words are a whisper.

I frown. "What?"

"Are you?"

"Yes...I think so."

She puts a hand on my chest. "We spend a lot of time together, Aiden. I can feel it, too."

I look at her painted nails, Fire Engine Red, against the white of my dress shirt. I raise my eyes to hers. "Feel what?"

"Us."

She steps closer. Goes on tiptoe and...places her lips against mine.

It's a shock.

My mouth opens without me thinking about it. Her tongue touches mine.

For a moment, we stay locked.

Then, an eternity later, reality slams into me. I step back, away from her, away from the man I don't want to be.

"What the he-ll, Diana?" I snap, furiously swiping my mouth with the back of my hand, as if I can scrub away the taint she's just put on my marriage.

Whatever flicker of attraction I once felt for her—something I can admit now—vanishes in an instant, burned out by anger and disgust.

She's exciting. Interesting. Understands my work. Is beautiful as fu-ck.

But she isn't Mia.

She isn't soft, warm, and gentle. She doesn't make me laugh with stories about her students. She doesn't make sure that I have my migraine pills with me, because she can see, even before I can, that it's coming. She doesn't hold my hand when my father makes me feel small. She doesn't do any of that.

I love my wife.

I'm happy in my marriage.

What the fu-ck have I done?

"I know," she breathes. Steps closer.

I hold a hand up to stop her, to keep her away from me. "Know what?"

"That you're not happy in your marriage."

"What the fu-ck are you talking about?"

My entire being is horrified at what just happened.

I ki-ssed another woman. I couldn't wrap my head around it. Since I met Mia, there has been no one else. Not even in fantasy. Even when I masturbate, it's to her.

"I know you want a child."

I freeze.

Her words slice through me like a sharp, merciless blade.

I told Diana recently—something that isn't a secret in the family—that Mia can't have children. Endometriosis stole that from her. She wants to adopt, and God, I wish I could give her that without hesitation. But my parents are dead set against it, and the truth is, so am I.

I know exactly how they'll treat an adopted grandchild—like they're less than—and I can't bear the thought of bringing a child into that. So, I said no. And every time I think about it, I feel like I've failed Mia twice over.

"And?"

"I can give you a baby, Aiden. She can't."

I shake my head as if that's going to help clear this mess I made.

"She's my wife, Diana. I love her."

She scoffs at that. Her blue eyes blaze with irritation. "Do you? You spend more time with me than with her, even on weekends. You have more dinners with me. You have more breakfasts with me than you do with her."

"That's work, Diana." But I'm lying. It was not always the case. I know it. She does, too.

"You missed your wedding anniversary to be with me in Paris."

"We had a client meeting," I protest.

"You took me out to dinner on your wedding anniversary. A romantic dinner at the Eiffel Tower," she reminds me.

"That was...that was just because you said you wanted to eat at the Eiffel Tower."

Why did I do that? Why did I miss my wedding anniversary and take this woman, who isn't my wife, anywhere?

I clench my jaw. "It appears I have given you some signals that I didn't intend. I love my wife. I don't care that she can't have children. I'm not interested in you...se-xually. What you just pulled, Diana?" I let out a huff of breath. "Don't ever do something like that again."

Three weeks have gone by since Thanksgiving, and that ki-ss weighs like a ton of bricks inside of me.

At work, I've cut my interactions with Diana down to the bare minimum. No more casual chats, no more small talk. If I speak to her, it's strictly business—and whenever possible, I make sure there's a chaperone in the room. Sometimes two.

She's not taking it well.

"I know you're feeling guilty, but if a marriage is not working, it's not," she tells me after my first week of keeping her at an arm's length. "I know from experience. You're a good man. You don't want to hurt Mia. But staying with her when it's not right will end up hurting you both in the long run."

I ki-ssed another woman. I'm definitely not a good man.

However, that ki-ss made one thing crystal clear—I don't want Diana.

She might have been a stimulating mind to spar with about Winter Financial, but that's all she ever was: a colleague, not a partner. She was never someone I could be with emotionally. She's been a decent sounding board for the CEO in me, but never for the man I am. The man I am needs Mia. Loves Mia. Without her, my days would turn black.

"Don't talk to me about this bullsh-it again," I retort. "If you do, I swear to God, Diana, you'll be looking for a new job."

She went straight to my father, who told me to man up and take what I want. In the past week, my mother has told me that maybe it's time to let Mia go. My sister, Gianna, has also shared her thoughts on the matter, as has my brother, Tristan.

My family's never liked Mia—never thought she was right for me. And when they found out we couldn't have kids, that pushed them right over the edge.

But my wife? he-ll, she's a saint. She still tries with them. Still smiles. Still offers kindness they don't deserve. Still holds her patience, even when I know every word from them is designed to cut.

And what do you do, Aiden?

You let her work hard for their approval and never tell them to accept your wife for who she is.

Why the he-ll else would they think you'd be interested in leaving her?

Since that ki-ss, I've spent more time in introspection than my whole life put together. I can see I've been a terrible husband to the best wife a man can have.

Mia's love is clean. Pure.

She has no one. Like Diana. No siblings, no parents. Her friend Katya's family is hers, just like the Winters are Diana's. But the similarities end there. Diana is entitled. I can see that now. Mia is absolutely not. Diana is polished but also a little fake. Mia is genuine. And most importantly, there isn't a situation, not even with a gun to her head, where Mia would make a pa-ss at a married man.

"I'm going to bed," Mia announces, bringing me back to our dining room, to our marriage that I know is fraying at the edges. She looks at the table and the dishes in the kitchen and sighs. "I'll take care of it tomorrow."

The hits keep coming.

She cooks and cleans.

After dinner, I usually go into my home office and spend a couple of hours there. I've always worked long hours. But since I took over as CEO after my father stepped down a couple of years ago, around the time Diana joined Winter Financial, I've been busier than ever.

Mia says she understands but implores me to pursue balance. "Can't work all the time, Aiden. You have to make room for play, to relax, to even get bored."

"I'll clean up, baby." I smile at her.

There's a flare of surprise in her eyes.

That's the kind of sh-itty husband I am that my wife is shocked I volunteered to help her with a household chore.

She shrugs. "You don't have to."

She doesn't wait to see if I agree with her or not. She just leaves.

I know something is very wrong. I can feel it.

My premonition proves correct.

Mia

I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.

My heart hurts.

My Aiden ki-ssed another woman.

My Aiden doesn't love me.

My Aiden is not mine.

We met eight years ago. I was so young. Just twenty-two, studying to become a kindergarten teacher. He was thirty, having already completed the educational part of his life, and was working at his family's business.

I had no money. He had too much.

I had no family. He had everyone, even grandparents.

Nothing much has changed, has it? I still have no money. I still have no family.

We live in a very nice home in Burlington, Vermont, one we bought together. With his money, obviously. But he always said everything he had was mine. It was our money.

It felt like a dream. Like I'd won the lottery, not the financial kind but the kind of love I thought only happened in movies.

The first time he saw me, I was shelving books in the children's section of the bookstore where I worked part-time. He walked in, tall and polished in a charcoal-gray coat, lost in the stacks like he didn't belong among the tiny tables and mismatched rugs.

I asked if I could help him. He wanted to buy a book as a Christmas present for his two-year-old nephew. I recommended Corduroy.

He thanked me. Said I had beautiful eyes.

He kept coming back.

Every Friday at 4 p.m., like clockwork, he would buy another book for his nephew.

When he finally asked me to dinner, I said no the first time. And the second.

I knew who he was. In Burlington, everyone knew the Winter family. They were wealthy beyond belief.

He kept asking, especially when I told him that he was not in my league. He said he loved that about me, that I wasn't like the women he knew. That I saw him, not his bank account.

He made me feel special.

Chosen.

That's the part that hurts the most now.

Because when he ki-ssed her, Diana Valentine, he un-chose me.

After all these years of loyalty—of swallowing my pride and putting up with his family because he loves them—even though they treat me like dirt ground into their custom Persian rugs...he still discarded me.

All the times I smiled through his mother's digs about my wardrobe being 'too schoolteacher-like', sat through dinner parties where she practically introduced me as Aiden's charity case, swallowed his father calling me barren, endured his sister's little jabs—like saying I probably couldn't even spell "fiduciary"—and his brother and sister-in-law's constant reminders that we were childless because my body had failed Aiden....

And what do I have to show for it?

Nothing.

No—that's not true. I have a broken heart to match my broken uterus.

It wasn't like this all the time. I wonder how many women, who see their marriage disintegrate, say that.

Before Aiden took over as CEO, he would wake up before me, make me coffee, and we'd drink it together while we ate breakfast. He was always home for dinner. He sent me text messages all day.

Even after the doctors said I had endometriosis, which had made me infertile, he never made me feel bad about it. When I suggested we should adopt, he told me that would be a bad idea, considering his parents would have a problem with it. We talked about surrogacy. We talked about a lot of things regarding having children—not once did he tell me that he resented me for us not being able to have children.

All that changed when he became the CEO and Diana returned to Burlington.

It started slowly, the way these things usually do.

A missed dinner—followed by an apology.

A missed birthday—followed by flowers and an apology.

A missed wedding anniversary—followed by a gift, flowers, and an apology.

And then he started missing more and more...and stopped apologizing.

Just a casual, "You understand, don't you, baby? It's so busy."

As if I didn't even deserve an explanation.

I took it. I swallowed my hurt. I wanted to be supportive. I wanted to be a good wife.

I wanted to—God help me—keep him.

Tears fill my eyes.

I was afraid of losing him.

That's the reason I let his family abuse me.

Let him disrespect me by spending more and more time with another woman.

I allowed this to happen.

I was so busy being a good wife, I didn't realize that I was compensating for him being a sh-it husband.

I mean, who takes his work wife (yeah, I know what they call Diana) to Paris on his wedding anniversary? An a-sshole does. A man who isn't worthy of being called husband.

I let my need for a family take precedence over my need to be seen. I kept shrinking, kept smiling, kept hoping and praying that Aiden wouldn't leave me.

And now?

Now, I'm lying in a bed we picked out together, in a house I helped turn into a home, wondering how long I've been disappearing—little pieces at a time.

I turn my head to look at his side of the bed. It's empty. Devoid.

Deciding to leave him has resulted in heartache, absolutely.

But surprisingly, there is also peace.

I no longer have to live in fear that he's going to abandon me, because that already happened. I don't have to be terrified of him asking me for a divorce, because that's happening. I don't have to be petrified of the idea that he's going to choose another, better woman, because...he's done that, too.

All my nightmares have come true, so I don't have to fear them anymore.

I lay a hand on the cold pillow.

Is he working in his office downstairs, or is he mourning the version of us that I'm still fighting to remember?

My eyes fall on the photo on his nightstand. It's his favorite. At least that's the bullsh-it he sold me.

It's when we got engaged. It's candid.

The bookstore manager took it. That's where he proposed to me, where we first met. Aiden had told her he was planning on proposing to me, so she was ready for it.

I'm laughing while he ki-sses my lips.

The ring is beautiful.

My eyes are filled with happiness.

His smile is wide.

We look like a couple who'll make it.

I look away from it, draw my hand back from the unoccupied pillow, and rest my chin on the fist I curl beneath it as I turn my back to his side of the bed.

I don't cry.

I've cried enough.

I have pain, yes. But I also have a plan.

I have the divorce papers. I am going to reclaim my dignity. I'm not going to be a doormat any longer. I'm going to be someone I can be proud of.

But...the ache in my chest tells me one thing⁠—

No matter how broken he's made me feel, I still love him.

And that might be the cruelest betrayal of all.

When the bedroom door opens, I close my eyes, pretending to be asleep.

I've never done this.

I waited for him, cuddled with him, and talked to him. And, now I realize, forced him to pay attention to me.

I hear the gentle click of the handle, the faint shuffle of his bare feet on the carpet.

Aiden. He moves quietly, like he thinks I might be asleep. Or maybe he's hoping I am?

He goes into the bathroom. I hear the sounds of the shower, the toothbrush, of Aiden—familiar sounds, routine, intimate.

Will I miss this in two nights?

Those are the number of nights we have left together.

Tonight.

Tomorrow night.

And then it's Christmas Eve, when we'll open presents after dinner, as is the Winter tradition. The kids get their presents before dinner so they can be put to bed right after they finish eating—shuttled off with nannies who don't get Christmas off.

That's when I will end this.

Aiden slips under the covers beside me, his body warm and familiar, and somehow, because of that ki-ss I saw him sharing with Diana, cold and strange.

I used to turn toward him, automatically. My cheek would find his chest, his arm would wrap around my waist. I'd exhale like I'd come home.

I don't move now. I lie there, tense, facing away.

A moment pa-sses. Two.

Then his hand rests lightly on my hip.

"Mia," he murmurs, voice low. He shifts closer, his body curling around mine.

His fingers brush the bare skin at my waist, under the edge of my sleep shirt.

His mouth finds the curve of my neck, presses a ki-ss there. Soft. Tentative.

I feel nothing. No spark. No flutter. Just a rising wave of cold.

I make a sound like I'm fast asleep.

He ki-sses my shoulder.

"Baby, wake up," he cajoles, trying again, like we haven't drifted into two entirely different solar systems.

I mumble something like I'm in the middle of my REM cycle.

I don't know if I'm fooling him or not, but I don't care.

I can't make-love with him. Not after he was with another woman.

I saw them ki-ss, but they've probably had se-x, too. Did he ever make-love to her and then come home and fu-ck me? Because that's what it is, isn't it? fu-cking...when there is no love?

I relax my body to convince him to leave me alone so I can sleep.

How many wives do this as a way to not have se-x with their spouses?

The cliché of it stings, but the truth behind it is worse. I'm in so much pain, from what he did, from holding back the truth, from pretending we're still us.

He hesitates. His hand lingers a moment before he withdraws it.

I can feel the tension seeping out of him.

Confusion.

Frustration.

Guilt?

I almost want to comfort him. The old me would. She would've rolled over and ki-ssed him. Told him it was okay. That she understood. That tomorrow would be better.

But that Mia has packed her bags and left.

I feel his lips brush against my cheek. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

That guts me. He calls Diana sweetheart, too. Is he thinking of her right now?

I don't say anything.

If I open my mouth, I'll scream. Or cry. Or admit that I miss him, too, and that would be worse than either of those.

He lies on his back.

I listen to his breathing settle.

It doesn't take him long—it never does. Five minutes later, he's out.

It takes me longer to fall asleep as I grieve the loss of the illusion of Aiden, of a man who made me believe love was enough. A man who doesn't exist.

I have to face facts. He doesn't love me; if he did, he wouldn't have touched Diana. If he did, he wouldn't have abandoned me the way he has.

The ki-ss I witnessed is the culmination of what's been going on for two long years.

That ki-ss was my wake-up call.