My Husband Called Her Late-night Flirty Pic A Mistake

"Uncle Lyon. Can we pretend tonight never happened? I was drunk and went into the wrong room."

Sama Arthur stared at her phone screen, her thumb hovering over the send button. She had possessed Lyon Summer’s number for three years—a digital artifact of the Monroe family tree—but she had never dared to use it. Until now. She hit send, the message bubble turning blue, then waited.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. A cold knot of anxiety tightened in her chest. She frowned and sent a follow-up.

"?"

The instant she tapped the screen, a red exclamation point appeared. Below it, the system message read: You are no longer friends with this user. Please send a friend request to continue chatting.

Sama bit her lip until she tasted copper. Lyon had unfriended her. He hadn't just ignored her; he had scrubbed her from his digital existence as violently as he had ordered the hotel surveillance deleted. A strange mixture of relief and humiliation washed over her. At least it was over. He wanted nothing to do with the mess she had become, and that suited her perfectly.

She arrived back at the Monroe estate just after 6:00 a.m. The air was damp from the night’s storm, and the house felt like a tomb.

The moment she stepped into the foyer, she saw Jack. He was sprawled on the velvet sofa, still wearing the dress shirt from the day before, now wrinkled and stale. He sat up the moment the door clicked, his eyes bloodshot and heavy with a lack of sleep.

"Where were you last night?" Jack demanded, his voice gravelly. "I called you dozens of times. Why didn't you pick up?"

Jack stood up and bridged the distance between them in three long strides. He reached out to grab her hand, his expression a mix of desperation and authority, but Sama recoiled. She pushed his hands away as if they were covered in something toxic.

Jack froze, his hand hanging in mid-air. He looked ready to launch into a practiced defense, but Sama cut him off. Her voice was as cold as the marble floor beneath them. "You can stay out all night, Jack, but I can't? Is that the new rule in this house?"

In eight years, Sama had been the soft one. The peacemaker. The wife who smoothed over his rough edges with kindness. This was the first time she had ever looked at him with such crystalline loathing.

Jack’s face darkened. He saw her red, puffy eyes and the way her coat was buttoned crookedly. He didn't look guilty. He didn't look panicked. He looked like a man who had finally been caught and decided he was tired of hiding.

"You know, don't you?" Jack asked. His tone was flat, devoid of remorse.

The sheer arrogance of his lack of apology was the final straw. Sama’s long-held anger finally boiled over. She swung her heavy designer bag at him, the leather striking his shoulder with a dull thud. She hit him again and again, her eyes blazing with a lunatic rage.

"Jack Monroe, why would you do something so disgusting?!" she screamed, her voice breaking. "If you didn't love me anymore, you could have asked for a divorce! Why did you have to turn our life into a joke?"

Every memory of their joy—their wedding on the coast, the quiet mornings, the plans for the nursery—was being ground into the dirt. Reality had woken her up to the fact that she had been living a lie, and the pain made her want to claw her own skin off.

Seeing her tears, Jack finally seemed to feel a sting of regret. He lunged forward, catching her in a crushing embrace, pinning her arms to her sides. "Sama, I’m sorry. Stop it."

"Don't touch me with your dirty hands!" she shrieked, shoving him away with enough force to make him stumble. "Is it so hard to be faithful, Jack? Since we got married, I’ve had men approach me. I’ve had opportunities to cross the line. But I never did. Because I valued us. If I could do it, why couldn't you?"

Jack’s jaw set, his fists clenching at his sides. The mask of the doting husband was slipping, revealing something much more possessive.

"Sama, I love only you," he insisted. "It was an accident with Pete. It didn't mean anything."

Sama let out a jagged, hysterical laugh that turned into a sob. "An accident? You accidentally went to a villa? You accidentally ripped her nightgown? So, what you’re telling me is that I can go sleep with another man and call it an accident? That I can give my body away as long as my heart still belongs to you?"

A flash of genuine ruthlessness crossed Jack’s eyes. He stepped closer, his towering height intended to intimidate. "If you ever dare, I’ll murder you and that man together in the bed. Don't even joke about that."

A chill raced down Sama's spine. The hypocrisy was staggering. He knew betrayal was a death-tier offense, yet he had committed it without a second thought because he assumed she was too weak to leave.

She took a slow, deep breath, forcing her voice to remain steady. "Do you remember what I said when you proposed? On that beach?"

She had told him then: If you ever betray me, I won't forgive you. I will leave, and I will never look back.

Jack’s expression shifted from rage to a flicker of genuine fear. "I won't let you go, Sama. You're my wife."

She wiped the tears from her cheeks, her face settling into a mask of ridicule. "Whether you let me or not, I’ve made up my mind. I’m divorcing you. You don't deserve my forgiveness, and you certainly don't deserve me."

Without waiting for his response, she turned and marched upstairs. She could feel his dark gaze burning into her back, but she didn't falter.

Inside the master bedroom, Sama went straight to the bathroom. She stripped off her clothes, feeling the phantom weight of the night on her skin. As she applied the body wash, she caught sight of herself in the steam-fogged mirror. There were faint, red welts on the pale skin of her chest.

Memory flooded back: Lyon’s large, rough hands roaming over her in the dark. The scent of pine. The way he had pinned her down.

She wrinkled her face in a mix of shame and disgust. She grabbed a loofah and scrubbed the marks until her skin was raw and bright red, trying to erase the touch of one Monroe with the rage she felt for another.

When she finally stepped out of the shower, wrapped only in a white towel, she found Jack sitting on the edge of the bed. He was staring at the floor, his head in his hands. Sama scowled and walked past him toward the closet. She intended to ignore him until the lawyers took over.

Jack looked up. The sight of her stopped his breath. Her wet hair dripped onto her shoulders, and her freshly washed face was flushed from the hot water, making her look like a rose in full bloom. The towel clung precariously to her curves, and her long, pale legs were fully visible.

"Sama."

His voice was husky, thick with a sudden, unbridled hunger. Jack had spent the last hour thinking of how to keep her from leaving. He had decided the only way to bind her to him forever was to give her what she had wanted for years: a child. He had planned to approach her slowly, to apologize again, but seeing her like this made his logic vanish.

Sama reached for her pajamas, but before she could grab them, a pair of strong arms locked around her waist from behind.

"Sofia, please," he groaned, using the middle name he only used when he was being particularly affectionate.

The touch that used to make her melt now made her stomach turn. She spun around, shoving him back with everything she had. "Don't touch me! I feel dirty just being in the same room as you!"

Hurt flashed in Jack’s eyes, quickly replaced by a stern, frantic determination. He caught her wrists, his grip firm. "Didn't you always say you wanted a baby? Let's do it now. Right now. Let's start over, Sama."

She shook him off, her eyes wide with disbelief. "That was before, Jack. That was when I thought you were a man worth building a family with. I might have a child one day, but I swear to God, it will never be yours."

The words acted like a match to a powder keg. Jack’s temper, fueled by his own guilt and possessiveness, exploded. He lunged, pushing her back onto the bed and pinning her down with the full weight of his body.

"Say that again!" he hissed, his eyes ablaze with a dangerous light.

Sama didn't flinch. She stared directly into the eyes of the man she had loved for nearly a decade and saw a stranger. "I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it. I am sickened by you. I would die before I let you put a child in me."

Before the last word could leave her lips, Jack crashed his mouth down onto hers in a kiss that wasn't about love, but about reclamation.