Faking My Death to Divorce You

The champagne flutes caught the candlelight, casting tiny rainbows across the mahogany dining table. I stepped back to admire my work, smoothing down the silk of my red dress—Julian's favorite, the one he'd bought me in Paris during our honeymoon when he still looked at me like I was something precious.

Three years. Three years of marriage, and tonight would be different. It had to be.

The penthouse felt cavernous around me, all glass and steel and cold perfection, but I'd transformed our dining room into something warm and intimate. Rose petals scattered across the table, his favorite scotch breathing in a crystal decanter, and the meal I'd spent all afternoon preparing—beef Wellington, just the way his mother's chef used to make it before she fired him for being "too expensive."

My hand drifted unconsciously to my still-flat stomach. Two weeks. The pregnancy test had shown those two pink lines two weeks ago, and I'd been carrying the secret like a fragile bird in my chest ever since. Tonight, I would tell him. Tonight, everything would change.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed nine o'clock. Then ten. Then eleven.

I sat at the table, watching the candles burn lower, the wax pooling in elegant puddles. The Wellington had long since gone cold, the carefully arranged vegetables wilted and sad. My phone remained stubbornly silent—no calls, no texts, no acknowledgment that today was supposed to matter.

By the time midnight struck, something hard and familiar settled in my chest. The same feeling I'd carried for months now, the weight of loving someone who had forgotten how to love me back. But tonight was different. Tonight, I had news that would remind him of what we could be.

I slipped on my coat, grabbed my purse, and checked my reflection one last time. The red dress still looked perfect, my makeup unsmudged despite the hours of waiting. The small velvet box in my purse contained the pregnancy test I'd wrapped carefully in tissue paper, along with a note I'd written and rewritten a dozen times: "Our greatest adventure begins now."

The elevator to Knight Industries' executive floor required a special key card—one Julian had given me years ago, back when he still wanted me close. The building was eerily quiet at this hour, just the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant rumble of the city that never slept.

My heels clicked against the marble floors as I walked toward his corner office, my heart hammering against my ribs. The anticipation was almost unbearable—I could picture his face when I told him, the way his eyes might soften the way they used to, the way he might pull me close and whisper that he loved me, that we were going to be a family.

The elevator dinged softly as it reached the forty-second floor. I took a deep breath, smoothing my dress one more time, checking that the gift box was secure in my purse. The doors began to slide open, and I stepped forward with a smile already forming on my lips.

Then the world tilted sideways.

Julian was there, but not alone. Not working late at his desk like I'd imagined. Not buried in contracts or financial reports or any of the important business that kept him away from home night after night.

He was pressed against the conference table, his shirt half-unbuttoned, his dark hair disheveled. And beneath him, her red hair fanned across the polished wood, was Victoria—his secretary, his assistant, the woman who answered his phone and organized his calendar and smiled at me with such practiced politeness whenever I visited the office.

Victoria's blouse hung open, her skirt pushed up around her waist. Julian's hands were tangled in her hair, his mouth on her throat, and the sounds they were making—low, desperate, intimate—cut through me like shattered glass.

I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't process what I was seeing even as every detail burned itself into my memory with crystal clarity. The way Julian's wedding ring caught the light as his hand moved across her skin. The way Victoria arched beneath him, her manicured nails digging into his shoulders. The way neither of them had noticed me standing there, frozen in the elevator doorway like a statue.

The gift box slipped from my numb fingers, hitting the marble floor with a sharp crack that echoed through the silence. The sound made them both look up.

Julian's eyes met mine across the room, and for a moment, time stopped entirely. His face went white, then red, his mouth opening and closing like he was drowning. But he didn't move away from her. Didn't scramble to explain or apologize or even cover himself.

Victoria, however, smiled.

It was a slow, satisfied curve of her lips that made my blood turn to ice. She didn't push Julian away or show even a flicker of shame. Instead, she pulled him closer, her arms winding around his neck as she pressed her mouth to his throat.

"She's so pathetic," Victoria murmured, her voice carrying clearly across the room, pitched just loud enough for me to hear every word. "Waiting at home like a little housewife, playing dress-up in her pretty red dress." Her lips moved against Julian's skin as she spoke, trailing kisses down his neck. "You never loved her anyway, just her father's company shares."

The words hit me like physical blows, each one driving the air from my lungs. I watched, paralyzed, as Victoria's hand moved to the back of Julian's head, holding him against her as she continued her assault on my heart.

"Poor little Sophia," she whispered, her green eyes never leaving mine. "Did you really think a man like Julian could love someone so... ordinary?"

Something inside me cracked—not broke, but cracked, like ice under pressure. The baby. Our baby. The secret I'd been carrying, the hope I'd been nurturing, the future I'd been dreaming of—all of it crumbling in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

I felt it then, the first sharp pain low in my abdomen, followed by a warm wetness between my legs. My hand flew to my stomach as the cramping intensified, and I knew with horrible certainty what was happening.

The stress, the shock, the devastating realization that my marriage was a lie—my body was rejecting it all, including the tiny life I'd been so desperate to protect.

"No," I whispered, the word barely audible even to myself. "No, no, no."

But Victoria heard it, and her smile widened. "Oh, Julian," she purred, loud enough for me to hear. "I think your wife is finally getting the message."