My Husband Planted His Mistress in Our Bedroom

I woke to the sound of voices in the hallway outside my room. My body still ached from the surgery, a constant reminder of what had been taken from me. The pain medication made my thoughts foggy, but I forced myself to focus on the conversation taking place just beyond my door.

"You'll be more comfortable in here," Zeke was saying, his voice carrying that false concern he'd perfected. "The guest room has better light for your recovery."

I pushed myself up against the pillows, wincing as the movement pulled at my stitches. The door opened, and Zeke appeared, flanked by two staff members carrying my belongings.

"What's happening?" I asked, my voice still weak.

"We're moving you to the east wing," he replied smoothly. "The master suite has too many... memories. You need space to heal."

Space to heal. The words echoed hollowly as I watched them remove the last traces of my presence from what had been my bedroom—our bedroom. The room where I'd once felt safe.

"But where will you stay?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Zeke's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Skye and Mercy will be taking the master suite. They need the attached bathroom for Mercy's baths."

Of course they did.

---

That night, I lay awake in the unfamiliar guest room, listening to the sounds of laughter drifting through the thin walls. Zeke's deep chuckle mingled with Skye's higher-pitched giggle, punctuated by Mercy's excited squeals.

"Again, Daddy! Again!" the little girl cried.

"Who's my favorite princess?" Zeke's voice boomed.

"You are! You are!" Mercy shouted.

I pressed my face into the pillow to muffle my sobs. The bed beneath me felt too soft, too strange. This wasn't my room. Nothing felt like mine anymore.

Through the wall, I heard Skye's voice drop to a seductive whisper. "She's asleep. Come to bed."

Their laughter resumed, now tinged with a different quality—intimate, exclusive. I curled into myself, arms wrapped around my middle where the doctors had cut me open and taken away my future.

---

"Stand up straight," Zeke hissed in my ear as he guided me into the dining room three nights later. "Smile, damn it."

The room was filled with Seattle's business elite—investors who'd known my father, board members who'd once respected me. Now they watched with curious eyes as Zeke paraded me around like a damaged trophy.

"Lorelai's still recovering," he explained to the room at large. "The doctors say she may never fully... recover."

The pause was deliberate, designed to make everyone uncomfortable. I felt their pity like a physical weight.

"Mrs. Jensen," one of the investors said carefully, "we're all so sorry about your... ordeal."

Before I could respond, Skye appeared at my side, a glass of red wine in her hand. "Lorelai, you look pale," she said with false concern. "Perhaps you should sit down."

As she gestured toward a chair, her hand "accidentally" tipped, sending a cascade of deep red wine across the front of my white dress.

"Oh!" she gasped, eyes wide with mock horror. "How clumsy of me!"

The cold liquid seeped through the fabric against my skin. Gasps rippled through the room as the stain spread across my chest and stomach.

"Look what you've done!" Zeke snapped at me, as if I'd spilled the wine myself. "Can't you even sit down without causing a scene?"

He turned to our guests, his face a mask of embarrassment. "I apologize for my wife's... instability. The trauma has affected her coordination."

I stood frozen, the wine dripping down my ruined dress, as twenty pairs of eyes stared at me with varying degrees of pity and contempt.

---

The opportunity came a week later when Zeke took Skye shopping for "household essentials." I waited until they'd been gone an hour before slipping out of the house, taking a taxi to the City Clerk's office downtown.

"I need to file for divorce," I told the clerk, a middle-aged woman with kind eyes.

She nodded sympathetically. "Name?"

"Lorelai Graham. Lorelai Graham Jensen."

She typed into her computer, frowning slightly. "And your husband's name?"

"Zeke Jensen."

More typing. More frowning.

"I'm sorry," she said finally, looking up at me with confusion. "There's no record of a marriage license for Zeke Jensen and Lorelai Graham."

My heart stuttered. "That's impossible. We've been married for years."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid not, ma'am. There's nothing in the system."

I gripped the edge of the counter, suddenly dizzy. "Check again. Please."

The clerk's fingers flew over the keyboard once more. "No marriage license, ma'am. I'm sorry."

The world seemed to tilt beneath my feet as realization dawned. I wasn't married to Zeke. I never had been.

Which meant...

"He has no claim to my assets," I whispered, more to myself than to her.

The clerk looked at me strangely. "Only what you've given him through power of attorney or other legal documents."

Power of attorney. The papers I'd signed when my parents died, giving Zeke control of my affairs "until I was ready to take over."

I'd never revoked them.

But now I knew something he didn't know I knew.

And that knowledge might be my salvation.