The Heart Condition That Wasn't

The Heart Condition That Wasn't

Gavin

5.0
Comment(s)
36
View
11
Chapters

My life was stable. I had a good tech job, a beautiful home in Seattle, and a decade-long marriage with Jessica, who I thought was the love of my life. She was supposed to be on an overseas work assignment, a big career move we celebrated. Then the key turned in the lock-a sound I hadn' t heard in two years. And she wasn't alone. She pushed a double stroller into our living room. "Michael," she calmly announced, "meet Leo and Lily. They' re mine. And Ethan' s." Ethan. Her high school sweetheart, the one she always said was terminally ill and she was just "helping." My heart jumped, then plummeted. For ten years, Jessica had told me her heart condition made pregnancy too dangerous. I believed her, mourned the children we couldn't have. Now, she waved a dismissive hand, "My doctor said IVF was perfectly safe." Then she handed me a baby, telling me to quit my demanding job. "They need a stay-at-home dad. My work is too important right now." It got worse. I found intimate emails between her and Ethan spanning years, even our wedding anniversary. And a second mortgage on our house, taken out without my knowledge, the money likely gone to him. The final, gut-wrenching blow: I followed her to a honky-tonk bar. There, Jessica, who claimed to hate country music and beer, was line-dancing, beaming up at Ethan-tanned, fit, and very much alive. The woman I married was a stranger. My world was built on a decade of calculated lies. Whatever I felt for her shriveled up and died. I was done arguing on her terms. The next morning, I had divorce papers drawn up. I wouldn' t let her destroy me. I would reclaim my life.

Introduction

My life was stable.

I had a good tech job, a beautiful home in Seattle, and a decade-long marriage with Jessica, who I thought was the love of my life.

She was supposed to be on an overseas work assignment, a big career move we celebrated.

Then the key turned in the lock-a sound I hadn' t heard in two years.

And she wasn't alone.

She pushed a double stroller into our living room.

"Michael," she calmly announced, "meet Leo and Lily. They' re mine. And Ethan' s."

Ethan. Her high school sweetheart, the one she always said was terminally ill and she was just "helping."

My heart jumped, then plummeted.

For ten years, Jessica had told me her heart condition made pregnancy too dangerous.

I believed her, mourned the children we couldn't have.

Now, she waved a dismissive hand, "My doctor said IVF was perfectly safe."

Then she handed me a baby, telling me to quit my demanding job.

"They need a stay-at-home dad. My work is too important right now."

It got worse.

I found intimate emails between her and Ethan spanning years, even our wedding anniversary.

And a second mortgage on our house, taken out without my knowledge, the money likely gone to him.

The final, gut-wrenching blow: I followed her to a honky-tonk bar.

There, Jessica, who claimed to hate country music and beer, was line-dancing, beaming up at Ethan-tanned, fit, and very much alive.

The woman I married was a stranger.

My world was built on a decade of calculated lies.

Whatever I felt for her shriveled up and died.

I was done arguing on her terms.

The next morning, I had divorce papers drawn up.

I wouldn' t let her destroy me. I would reclaim my life.

Continue Reading

Other books by Gavin

More
Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Mafia

4.3

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

You'll also like

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book