Once His Wife, Now His Worst Regret

ara Hayes-Blackwell stood in the kitchen with her hands wrapped around a mug that had long gone cold. The cit

as printed across skyscrapers. Success demanded nights alone, dinners that grew cold, birthdays he missed. She

zzed. A mess

ate. Don'

istance dressed up as business. She set the phone down beside the untouched meal she had pre

ned off t

gers to the fabric and inhaled the faint scent of him-cedarwood and something expen

back didn't look thirty-she looked tired, older somehow. The

egun to feel like waiting fo

hed through the window, and with it came a sudden, unexplai

would drop off the contract he had left on the c

sing block. Maybe he really was busy. Maybe she was paranoid. But deep

with surprise. "Mr. Blackwell's still upstairs, ma'am," the gu

private ele

the gap-warm, golden, and soft. She heard laughter, a woman's

ntract in her hand until the paper

oment, the world

oman's neck, his hands where they had no right to be. The woman

thunder, the lights-all of it disappea

faint and hollow.

was exactly wha

She had spent years defending him, silencing every whisper, every rum

tract on his desk. Her hands didn'

she said quietly. "You seem to

ked away before th

rself. Her reflection in the mirrored surface was pale and exp

torm without an umbrella. Cold rain soaked through her clothes

eaking. And beneath the thunder, a single thought

t this. He wou