Page 7 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

He watches me closely, waiting for a reaction. He notices the movement immediately. A cruel smile curves his mouth—and that smile hurts most of all, because it isn’t his. It isn’t the smile of the man I loved. It’s the one forged by two years of grief and bitterness.

“You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?” he says softly. “Or did you forget Bianca too? Your best friend. The one you abandoned along with me.”

You couldn’t be more wrong.

The man I once loved is looking at me with contempt.

Not hatred. Something worse.

People come back from hatred. Hatred is still passion, still attachment.

Contempt means someone has already given up. Already drawn the line.

And I can’t say anything in my defense. Because I still don’t know where his loyalties lie. Because if he once loved me without reservation, he now sleeps beside the woman who plotted my death. And until I know where his allegiance stands, every word out of my mouth could become a weapon in the wrong hands.

So I stay silent.

And watch him come closer, one step, then another.

I catch the scent of cedarwood and citrus. The same cologne he always wore. My body remembers it too well.

Instinctively, I straighten the moment his hand twitches—an impulse he stops before it fully forms, before it can reach me. His arm falls back to his side. He looks away.

When he speaks again, something in his voice has changed.

“Why did you come back?”

The fury is gone. What remains is worse: a deep exhaustion, almost resignation. The kind that comes after anger burns itself out and leaves only emptiness behind.

“I came back to reclaim what belongs to me.”

My voice doesn’t shake. I’m almost surprised by it myself.

“I want my shares in Aurenza returned to me.”

He flinches. His eyes widen for the briefest second before narrowing dangerously.

“Of course.”

A bitter laugh escapes him, humorless.

“So you heard about the funding round.”

Contempt drips from every word. He thinks I came back for the money.

Suddenly, the realization hits me with brutal clarity:

We don’t know each other anymore.

He thinks I’m greedy.

I doubt his loyalty.

After five years of marriage and two years apart, we’ve become strangers again.

Worse.

Opponents.