My husband protected his mistress

My husband protected his mistress.

NOVEL STATUS: COMPLETED

PUBLISHED CHAPTERS: 14 CHAPTERS

My husband protected his mistress – Sneak Peek

The last person who sounded genuinely happy to hear my voice was three thousand miles away.

I hung up the phone, my uncle’s warmth still buzzing in my ear. “I’m so happy, Wren! After all these years, you want to come back.” His voice had cracked on the word “back,” and something in my chest cracked with it.

Before I could hold onto that feeling, Julian appeared in the doorway. He brought with him a perfume that wasn’t his—something floral and aggressively sweet, the kind that clings to fabric like a confession.

“Who were you talking to?” He didn’t look up from his phone.

I could have answered. I could have said “my uncle,” and watched his face cycle through its usual repertoire—mild surprise, then disinterest, then the half-nod that meant he’d already stopped listening. But before I could speak, his phone rang.

He picked up, and a woman’s voice spilled into the room, syrupy and theatrical: “Mr. Ashford, thank you SO much for bringing me those medicines the other day! If it weren’t for you, my cold would have gotten so much worse. I don’t know what I’d do without you!”

I watched Julian fumble with the volume, his thumb jabbing at the side button with the panicked urgency of a man trying to defuse something. Too late. The words hung in the air between us, obvious and absurd.

I didn’t react. Not because I was being stoic or dignified—I simply didn’t have the energy for it anymore. We were getting divorced. Whatever this was, it belonged to a version of me that had already packed her bags.

I went back to warming my glass of milk. The microwave hummed its low, indifferent hum. Julian, done with his call, settled onto the sofa with his financial newspapers—the same ones he read every night, in the same position, with the same frown that made him look ten years older.

It took him a few minutes to notice. No herbal tea on the side table. No carefully steeped cup waiting for him like a small daily offering he’d never once thanked me for.

𝘑𝗼і𝘯 𝗍𝗵𝘦 𝖼𝗈𝗺𝘮𝗎𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 at 𝘨𝗮lո𝘰𝘷е𝗅ѕ.𝗰𝘰𝗺

His irritation surfaced quickly.

“Is all this because I didn’t come when the elevator broke down?” He folded the newspaper with a sharp crease. “Your claustrophobia isn’t anything serious. Don’t be so dramatic.”

He paused, as if reviewing his arsenal. “Besides, I agreed to the divorce you asked for. Do you really need to walk around with that face all day?”

That night came back to me in flashes. The elevator shuddering to a stop. The lights cutting out. The walls pressing in from every side in the darkness. I’d left work late—the building was nearly empty. My phone battery was at three percent. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking long enough to press the right numbers on the screen.

When I finally reached Julian, his voice was flat with impatience. “Can’t you handle it yourself? I’m really busy.”

The phone died. Then I did too, in a way—consciousness slipping away somewhere between the third and fourth floor. I don’t know how long I lay curled on that elevator floor. I only know that when the maintenance crew finally pried the doors open, I was cold, disoriented, and no one was waiting for me on the other side.

I found out later that he’d given Ivy several days off that same week. “Busy” had meant driving across town to deliver cold medicine to her apartment. My husband, who couldn’t spare five minutes for his wife trapped in a steel box in the dark, had played delivery boy for a woman with the sniffles.

That’s why I asked for the divorce. Not in a fit of rage. Not to make a point. I asked because I understood, with a clarity that felt like stepping out of a fog, that I was alone in this marriage and had been for longer than I wanted to admit.

“Don’t worry,” I said, not looking up from my work. “When the divorce is finalized, you won’t have to see my face anymore.”

I expected relief. Maybe even a thank-you. Instead, his voice rose.

“Don’t you dare regret this later!”

When I didn’t respond—didn’t flinch, didn’t cry, didn’t give him whatever reaction he was looking for—Julian slammed the door on his way out. The walls rattled. A picture frame on the hallway shelf shifted half an inch to the left.

I didn’t bother analyzing his mood swings. I’d spent years doing that, turning his silences and outbursts over in my mind, convinced that if I just found the right angle, everything would make sense. I was done searching for sense in places where there was none.

I finished my work. Warmed another glass of milk. Took a long, hot bath—the kind where you stay until the water goes lukewarm and your fingers prune, and the silence feels like something you chose instead of something that was left behind.

Then I went to bed.

-Continue in My husband protected his mistress chapter 1 –