CLARA'S POV
The woman who opened my bedroom door was wearing nothing but my husband's towel.
The woman looked me up and down with polite confusion.
"Yes?"
I blinked once, certain this was some kind of mistake. I and Victor's marriage wasn't a perfect one but throughout our 5 years of marriage, I was sure that he never has and would never cheat on me. I was still sure of this even while looking at a woman stand at the doorway of my bedroom in a towel
"I think you are in the wrong place," I said slowly. "This is my house and my bedroom."
The woman didn't move. Instead, she frowned slightly like I had just said something ridiculous.
"Excuse me?"
Before I could respond, footsteps sounded behind the woman.
It was Victor.
Relief rushed through me so suddenly.
"Victor," I called.
Then the woman stepped aside and my husband appeared in front of me.
Everything finally felt normal again. I was finally seeing my husband again after being dead worried. Everything about him was the same. Same tall frame, the same sharp features, the same unreadable expression he had worn through most of our five-year marriage.
I let out a small breath I didn't realize I had been holding.
"Finally," I said softly. "I've been trying to reach you for weeks. Your phone…"
Victor's eyes settled on me and they stayed there. The way he looked into my eyes was cold and blank as if he were looking into a stranger's eyes. Something in me felt troubled.
"Victor?" I said carefully.
He glanced at the woman beside him before looking back at me.
"I'm sorry," he said.
His voice was calm and polite as if he were speaking to someone he had never met before.
"I think you have the wrong house."
I laughed, though it was just a small and confused sound.
"Victor, stop joking."
The woman whispered something to Victor and slipped her arm through his and he didn't pull away. Instead, he said the words that made my world tilt.
"You're my ex-wife."
I stared at him.
"Your… what?"
"I don't want to have anything to do with you again, Clara," Victor continued coolly. "I moved on."
The woman beside him smiled faintly while I felt like I was done for. I had only been gone for two months just for me to be back to this. My fingers slowly curled into fists inside the sleeves of my coat because beneath my coat was the two-month-old child Victor Hale didn't even know existed.
I swallowed the pain burning in my throat.
"Right," I whispered.
Then I turned to walk away from the house that used to belong to me but out of curiosity, I decided to turn back and find out what exactly happened.
"Victor, what's going on? I'm back to you. I'm back to make our marriage better," I said to him.
"Get out of my house, Clara."
Victor's voice came out harsh and sudden.
I simply stared at him, certain I had heard him wrong.
"Victor… why are you doing this?" I asked quietly, my fingers tightening around the strap of my bag. "I'm your wife."
The words sounded fragile even to my own ears but his expression didn't soften. If anything, the anger in his eyes grew darker.
"I said get out."
Before I could react, Victor grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the door.
"Victor, stop!" I gasped, struggling to keep up with his long strides. "You're hurting me!"
He didn't stop.
The front door swung open and then he pushed me forward. I stumbled onto the front porch, barely catching my balance before the door slammed shut behind me with a sharp and final sound.
I just stood there.
After five years of marriage, though it was never an affectionate but silent one, my husband threw me out of the house claiming that I was not his wife.
I stared at the closed door, my mind struggling to understand how everything had fallen apart so quickly.
How had we gone from a quiet marriage to this? How had the man who once asked me to come home because he missed me suddenly decided I didn't belong there anymore?
My thoughts drifted back to the night everything began to change.
The night Victor sent me the message that I felt would be the beginning of being loved by the man I have loved unconditionally for more than a decade but never reciprocated my love.
*****
The first time I saw the message, I thought it was fake.
The message came in the middle of the night and I didn't notice it immediately because I had fallen asleep on top of the hotel sheets with my laptop still open beside me. Work had stretched later than usual that night and the numbers on the screen had started blurring together. At some point, I must have closed my eyes just for a moment.
When I woke up, the room was quiet and dark except for the soft glow of my phone on the bedside table. I stared at it for a few seconds.
Creston City was still weeks away. I was in Barcelona finishing the final phase of the international design project my firm had sent me to supervise. The trip was only supposed to last six weeks and it had already lasted almost four weeks.
My phone vibrated again and that was when I finally reached out for it. The sender's name made my hand freeze.
Victor.
My husband rarely texts me. Actually, that wasn't exactly true. He used to text me when it was necessary. Just for short and practical things like,
"I will be having dinner with clients"
"I'll be late"
"Send the file to my assistant"
Our marriage had always been like that. It was efficient, polite, and carefully distant. So when I opened the message, I thought for a moment that I had read it wrong.
"Clara, I miss you," I read.
I sat up slowly in the bed and rechecked just to find that the words were still there. I simply stared at them, the way you stare at something that doesn't quite belong in your life. Victor Hale had never once told me he missed me. Never in our five years of marriage.
Another message followed underneath it just as I was still trying to process the initial one.
"Come home soon. I have a surprise for you."