Chapter 4

I didn’t even want to imagine what kind of bitter, nagging wife I must have been in his eyes all these years.

But no matter how you sliced it, we were married.

I’m allergic to nuts, and he didn’t know that? A whole basket, packed full of walnuts—that was practically designed to send me into anaphylactic shock!

I was just about to fire back when the doorbell rang.

A barrel-shaped robot came zooming out of the corner.

It announced, “Ms. Vance is here! Ms. Vance is here!” as it glided over to open the door.

A soft, sweet voice floated in. “Lucas, I’m not interrupting, am I?”

A slender figure walked in from the doorway.

Lucas didn’t even look up, but his voice was warm. “Not at all.”

The little robot cheerfully pulled out the chair next to him, like this special treatment had been coded into its programming.

So this was Chloe Vance.

The only woman who could get a decent attitude out of Lucas. His first love.

No wonder the old me had obsessed over it until I went crazy and threatened to die. Your own husband, still hung up on another woman after all these years, so obviously playing favorites. Who could stand that?

Chloe gracefully gathered her skirt and sat down. She looked me up and down first, then said, politely, “Ms. Bell, I heard you were in a car accident. Are you all right?”

I could not bring myself to talk to this undercover homewrecker. I just put on a blank face, lowered my head, and said nothing.

Chloe seemed to pick up on the awkwardness. She turned to Lucas with a wounded look.

One look. That was all it took for Lucas to frown and snap at me. “Don’t you have any basic manners?”

So this was the power of a first love?

I had no idea just how much of a doormat the old me had been. Maybe I’d loved him so much that he could throw his weight around as much as he wanted.

But the me sitting here now was the eighteen-year-old me.

I wasn’t scared of anybody. I didn’t love anybody.

I just wasn’t going to let myself be wronged!

“I’m an orphan. Where would I get manners from? You married me and never bothered to teach me—don’t you feel bad about that? I gave you my youth, and you can’t even take care of me. What good are you?” I said, dripping with sarcasm.

Now it was Lucas’s turn to go gray.

Chloe quickly tried to smooth things over, looking terribly torn. “Lucas, it’s my fault. Don’t blame Ms. Bell. I came at a bad time. I’m sorry…”

“So apologize,” I said, loud and clear. “Go ahead, do it now. Are you enjoying watching a married couple fight?”

What a waste of that beautiful face. The second she opened her mouth, this is what came out?

Chloe looked stunned for a moment, and her eyes quickly filled with tears. “Ms. Bell, you’re being a little unreasonable, aren’t you?”

Lucas just scolded me outright. “Ivy, you’re the one who should be apologizing.”

What on earth had I done wrong?!

Faced with my anger, Lucas chose to ignore it completely. He turned to Chloe and they started murmuring to each other. I was invisible.

This was my husband? I must have been blind.

I’d at least hoped I could have a polite, respectful marriage with a gorgeous guy, and that even if we got divorced, we’d walk away even. Now every bit of that pretty picture was gone.

Looking at it now, I never should have saved him. Leaving him to freeze to death in that alley would have been the right call.

I don’t care how hot or how rich he is—a man who keeps stomping all over his own wife, what kind of man is that?

If you didn’t want me, you shouldn’t have married me!

I was practically radiating resentment, which only made Chloe look more radiant and lovely by comparison.

“Lucas, I actually came over to invite you—oh, and Ms. Bell, too—to my birthday party.”

I’d bet anything I was a last-minute addition. Maybe she just wanted to show off to me.

I hadn’t been planning to go. But the hostility was rolling off her in waves. Oh, she wanted to pick a fight? Then I’d go and wreck her party!

I have a round little face. Not exactly delicate, but my features work.

I narrowed my eyes and smiled, like a fox who’d just caught the smell of meat. “Sure! My dear husband and I will be there together. Thank you so much for the invitation, Ms. Vance.”

Lucas looked at me with something puzzled and a little intrigued in his eyes, but he didn’t correct me.

Chloe’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.