The Unwanted Wife's Fiery Rebirth

his affairs while refusing to touch me. My existence was a

sn't jealousy. It was violence. He stabbed me with a letter opener and threa

her's death-he forced me to my knees. I had to publicly apologize

ideo from a decade ago. It proved Aubrey hadn't just been t

swore he'd find her killer-

sed a button on a remote, and my mother's garden exploded into dust and ash. In that

pte

Salina

. He refused to touch me, but he touched every model and actress in the city. Everyone whispered about it at ever

fresh-faced ingenue, was draped across him on a yacht in St. Barts. The pho

lines screamed. "Still

wed out by five years of this charade. Bu

in our sprawling penthouse, the city lights a distant blur. He stood

ng at me. His voice was smooth, laced with a fam

isdain, as if my feelings meant nothing. And to him, they didn't. I

, a man who had once promised me the wo

isingly steady. It was a whisper, but it hu

His eyes, usually cold, held a flicker of someth

his footsteps faded, replaced by the thrum of the city below. He was gon

half my age. The whispers turned to roars. The world waited for my reaction. Would

wasn't that Elena anymore. That

ers trembling slightly. This

They were hungry for a scoop, anything to get noticed.

rd's perfect image out of the water," I said, m

on the other end was

e, the kind Julian would never imagine me stepping into. I bought a set o

scene. I went to Julian's study, a room he rarely let me enter. His desk was littered with papers, a half-

fell upon a framed photo of Julian and me from our wedding day. We looked so youn

Julian's smiling face, then mine. The glass cracked, a spiderweb of destruction spreading across our pa

rs. I rummaged through my closet, pulling out a silk robe, expensive but simple. I to

tered a few of Julian's shirts on the floor, some mine too, as if thrown off in a passionate rush. A half-ea

posed on the bed, the ripped silk robe barely covering me, my hair artfully disheveled. My eyes, usually downcast, held a

. I reviewed them, meticulously, until I found the one. It was perfec

tip. "Elena Salinas," the message read, "Julian's wife

evastating. I knew it would send Julian into

dfire, eclipsing Julian's St. Barts vacation in minutes. T

! Who knew she

ally getting a taste

he myste

nge satisfaction. I had set the trap, and Julian, my con

kyline. The city, once a symbol of my gilded cage, now

, he would see exactly what that meant. My heart, long numb, finally felt a fl

had jus