His Twisted Lies And Golden Cage

Love Like Morning Mist, Gone Before Sunrise

Prologue

Three years ago, my fiancé cheated on me with my best friend.

When grief had nearly finished me, it was his best friend, Jameson, who pulled me out of the abyss.

So I married him.

After the wedding, Jameson was unfailingly tender. His only fear was losing me:

If a male colleague texted me about work after six in the evening, he would demand to know what right that man had to contact another man's wife.

If I laughed a little too freely at a dinner party, his palm would settle heavily on the back of my neck.

I thought it was all because he loved me too much.

Until I stumbled onto a post on an internet forum: "I took in the worn-out shoes my childhood friend was done with. Every time I touch her, I want to throw up."

The top comment, with the most likes, read:

"Cheat back on her and call it even."

"I already have," my husband had replied-and looking at his latest comment, I felt something in me turn to ash.

I bought a one-way ticket on the next flight to Portland, Oregon.

When the plane broke through the thick gray clouds and climbed into the open sky, I leaned my forehead against the cold window and closed my eyes.

The nightmare was over.

Chapter 1

Elena Hendricks POV

On Tuesday morning, while I was waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, I stumbled onto a side of my husband I was never meant to see.

Two lines. I had seen them at four that morning, in the dark of the downstairs bathroom, and then I put the test in my cardigan pocket like a lit match.

On one of those popular relationship forums, a post had been sitting near the top of a smaller board, its title spelled out in plain sight: "I Took In the Worn-Out Shoes My Childhood Friend Was Done With-Every Time I Touch Her, I Want to Vomit."

Every line the original poster wrote dripped with undisguised disgust. He wrote that his wife had been his best friend's fiancée three years earlier. He said that when his friend cheated on her with her college roommate, he had swooped in like some kind of savior. He wrote that everyone at school thought him a saint for being willing to clean up after a woman who had been left in pieces.

Then a single sentence stopped my breath: "She still uses the date her ex proposed as her phone passcode, and calls it our anniversary. I dragged her out of the mud, but in her heart I will never measure up to that man."

I stared at the screen, my fingertips trembling.

Three years ago, I had walked in on my fiancé, Cameron Cummings, in bed with my best friend, Brittany Cleveland.

In the apartment we shared, I collapsed on the floor and screamed until I had no voice left.

While my world came down in ruins, Cameron and Brittany ran off together, leaving behind a non-refundable reception deposit and a floor littered with broken promises.

It was Jameson-Cameron's best friend-who showed up at my door with groceries and moving boxes, offering a comfort that asked for nothing in return.

For the three days it took me to pack up my old life, he sat on the floor beside me in silence.

He paid the cancellation fee for the wedding venue without telling me.

Whenever I woke from a nightmare shaking, it was his arms that pulled me close.

A year later, Jameson took me to the coast and proposed.

"Elena, you deserve a man who worships the ground you walk on," he told me that night under the soft lights of the gazebo. "I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that you are always safe with me."

And I believed him.

In the two years since, Jameson had played the devoted, tender husband to perfection.

Every morning before I left for the marketing firm, he packed me a lunch.

He bought my favorite lavender bath salts by the case, terrified I might run out.

On Sunday evenings, while I sank into the couch with a book, he stood nearby carefully pressing my blouses.

Whenever I worked late, he waited in his car in the underground garage, a thermos of hot tea cradled in both hands.

But behind that meticulous devotion lurked something unsettling, something obsessive.

If a male colleague texted me about work after six in the evening, Jameson's jaw would go tight.

He would take my phone, read the message three times over, and then demand to know what right that man had to contact another man's wife.

If I laughed a little too freely at a company dinner, his palm would come down heavy on the back of my neck.

He always said his jealousy came from nothing but the fear of losing me.

"You have no idea how much it hurt to watch Cameron take you for granted," he murmured in the dark, holding me hard against his chest. "I lived in his shadow for years. Now I will never let anyone take you from me."

I had thought his fear was born of love.

I had thought he had simply seen how badly I had been hurt, and that was why he overprotected me.

Now my eyes moved down to the comment section.

Hundreds of anonymous strangers were piling on the wife.

"OP is right," one top comment read. "This woman is obviously still hung up on her ex. Once a woman's been with a scumbag, she's damaged goods for life."

"Cheat back on her and call it even," another user wrote. "Show her what happens to a woman who keeps her ex in her head."

And twenty minutes ago, the original poster had replied.

"I already have," the poster wrote. "I found a woman who worships me. Getting my self-respect back feels incredible."

Nausea surged into my throat.

I tapped on the anonymous poster's profile.

The account was set to private, but his latest activity showed that two hours earlier he had uploaded a photo to the local city board.

The post was geotagged: Denver, Colorado.

And Jameson was in Denver on a business trip, negotiating a corporate merger.

I opened the thumbnail.

It was a hotel balcony at first light, looking out at the snow-capped Rockies.

A cup of black coffee rested on the glass railing, and beside it lay an expensive gold fountain pen.

At exactly six that morning, Jameson had texted me from his personal number.

I switched back to our message thread and pulled up the photo he had sent me.

The same photo.

The same angle.

The same snow peaks.

The same gold pen, his initials engraved on the clip.

The air in the kitchen seemed to vanish all at once, leaving nothing to breathe.

Under that photo, in our private messages, he had written: "Good morning, my beautiful wife. Every minute of every hour, I am counting down to the moment I can hold you again."

On the forum, under the identical photo, he had written: "Woke up in a luxury suite with a woman who actually understands me, who appreciates me, lying next to me. My wife is at home right now, probably still fantasizing about my good old friend. The stupid bitch has no idea."

I stared at the screen until my eyes blurred.

For two years, Jameson had shared every minute of his life with me in exhaustive detail.

Photos of lunch, boarding passes, conference badges, even receipts-he photographed all of it for me.

Whenever I told him he did not have to report every little thing to me, he would smile and kiss my forehead.

"A man who hides nothing is the only kind of man who can be loyal, Elena," he always said. "I would never let you doubt me, not for a single second."

All of it, then, had been costume and performance.

While he sent me sweet words, he was publishing his disgust for the whole internet to gawk at and mock.

I sagged onto a kitchen stool and, with shaking fingers, scrolled into his post history.

Every post methodically took my last three years apart.

The cold blue light of the phone spilled across the counter as I read word by word, skinning away, layer by layer, every lie I had ever loved.