Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I nodded. “Fine.”

I hadn’t wanted to come anyway.

I didn’t wait for Wyatt. I picked up my bag and walked to the door.

The driver opened the car door for me. But he worked for Wyatt, and I wasn’t sure Wyatt wouldn’t kick me out, so I just told him no thanks.

Wyatt came after me and practically shoved me into the car.

He snapped one word. “Drive.”

The car was deathly quiet. The driver kept his eyes on the road, and the privacy partition between the front and back seats slid slowly up.

I leaned against the window and watched the streetlights slide past, one after another.

I remembered our wedding day. After the reception, we’d sat in the back seat just like this. He’d leaned against the far door, as far from me as he could get, and stared at his phone the whole way.

Back then I’d told myself he was just tired.

Three years later, that distance hadn’t shrunk by an inch.

“Gracie, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“So my mom said a few things. So what? She’s your elder. She likes to joke around. It’s not like she ever actually hurt you.”

“If you don’t like it, just pretend you didn’t hear it.”

When his mother said two words about Lacey, he was worried about Lacey’s reputation.

When it was me, all I got was pretend you didn’t hear it.

The difference between love and no love was that big. Even though I’d seen it coming, it still cut me to ribbons.

I didn’t say a word.

I counted the streetlights outside. One. Two. Three.

Every time he’d scolded me before, I’d rushed to apologize, even when it wasn’t my fault.

I was so afraid of upsetting him. Afraid he’d turn around and walk away. Afraid this “home” I’d finally gotten would push me out the door again.

Now I couldn’t even be bothered to say I’m sorry.

When I didn’t answer, he seemed to get even angrier.

The car pulled up in front of the house. Warm light glowed in the windows, and a servant stood at the door, waiting to take our coats.

The house was enormous. So big that after three years, there were still rooms I’d never been inside.

But it had never been my home.

My real home was in Kansas, in my adoptive parents’ old house that creaked every time the wind blew. The lights there were never this bright, but I never once felt cold.

The moment we were inside, he started dragging me toward the bedroom.

I stumbled after him and fell on the stairs. He didn’t wait for me to get up. His face dark, he hauled me into the bedroom and threw me onto the bed.

He was rough. I tried to pull myself together and go along with it, so it would hurt less.

But in the end, I just couldn’t.

All I could do was stare blankly at the ceiling while his sweat dripped onto my neck.

I’d picked out that crystal chandelier myself, right after I moved in. I’d stood under it, imagining how bright my life was going to be.

Now it was still lit, but the bedroom felt tiny and airless, like the trunk I’d been shoved into when I was ten, the time someone almost took me.

At the last moment, I reached over, pulled open the nightstand drawer, and fumbled out a box of condoms.

I’d bought them myself.

In three years of marriage, he’d never once said he wanted a baby. Every time, I was the one who quietly made sure we were careful, terrified that if I ever did get pregnant, I’d become one more joke about a woman who trapped a rich man with a baby.

He tossed the box away.

“Gracie, let’s have a baby.”

I started to fight, shoving him off me as hard as I could.

He was breathing hard, his eyes red, but he held himself back and asked, “Gracie, what’s wrong?”

What’s wrong?

I thought of the party—of that woman asking whether I wanted a baby, and me saying forget it.

So I’d already made up my mind the moment I said it.

I looked at him and said, one word at a time:

“Wyatt, I want a divorce.”