Chapter 2: He'd Only Have Children with Another Woman

Elena's POV

Dog fur?

I thought about the raw, tearing soreness between my thighs — different from anything I'd felt before. I thought about the sound I'd heard in the dark. My hands were shaking as I picked up one of the black strands.

"Lucas," I said. "Was there a dog in our bed last night?"

"A dog? Baby, what are you talking about?"

Lucas rose from the edge of the desk and crossed the room toward me. When his eyes landed on what I was holding, he paused for a beat — then moved fast, knocking the dog hair from the bedsheet onto the carpet before plucking the dark tuft from my fingers and dropping it into the wastebasket beside the bed.

"Right, it must've been the housekeeper," he said, voice easy and unbothered. "She got lazy before her days off and didn't clean the bedroom properly — some stray must've gotten in and shed on our bed."

I noticed he never once looked me in the eye the entire time.

Every move he made — the quick hands, the discarded evidence, the tidy explanation — felt less like reassurance and more like cleanup.

He was lying.

And in the year we'd been married, we had never lied to each other, not once. Which was exactly why it cut the way it did — not sharp and clean, but slow and grinding, like a dull blade working through flesh, over and over.

It hurt.

"Elena, what's wrong with you?"

He only noticed something was off when he was already dressed and heading for the door.

He turned back, and did what he always did when I was upset or sad — cupped my face in both hands and kissed me. He loved to coax my tongue with his, drinking in the sweetness of my mouth, breathing himself into me.

He used to say that kissing someone that way — really kissing them — was something you could only do when you loved them. Like wanting to dissolve completely into another person.

But this time I kept my teeth together. I let him try to work his tongue past them, and I let him fail, and after a long moment he pulled back and looked at me with his breath still warm on my face.

"You're being strange today."

My eyes burned, but I didn't cry. I hadn't earned the right to cry yet — not until I knew. I held his gaze and asked the question slowly, one word at a time. "Lucas. Last night I heard a dog. It was in our bed, wasn't it."

He held out a few more seconds before he folded.

He pulled me into his arms first, then stepped back just enough to hold me by both shoulders, his expression shifting into something careful and tentative — nothing like the quiet, brooding authority he usually carried with him. Seeing him like that made my chest tighten.

I already regretted asking.

I was terrified he was about to tell me he hadn't been in this room at all last night — that he'd left me to spend the night in bed with a dog while he went somewhere else.

And where would he have gone? To the woman who had sent me those photos? In the space of a few seconds, my mind had already assembled a dozen dark possibilities.

Then Lucas cupped my face in his hands, and I had no choice but to look at him.

"All right," he said. "You're right. I'm sorry — I shouldn't have lied to you, Elena. The truth is, I had a dog before we got married."

I stared at him. "You — what?"

"I knew you were afraid of dogs. So I sent him to stay with a friend. But I'd had him for years, and I missed him. You were away on your trip, so I asked my friend to bring him back for a couple of days. I didn't expect you to come home early. I had him picked up first thing this morning. Elena, I'm truly sorry."

I cut off his apology and reached up to hold his face, my own guilt rising fast to meet his. "No — no, this isn't your fault."

I hated myself for ever having suspected him. He had thought of everything, as he always did — sent his dog away because I was afraid, only brought him back when I was gone, never once made me feel responsible for any of it. What kind of husband did that? And I had stood here and doubted him.

The guilt settled heavier in my chest. I leaned in and kissed him.

He kissed me back, his tongue finding mine, and the kiss deepened quickly. I didn't know how long it lasted before he pressed me back onto the bed, jacket and shirt already gone, his bare chest warm and solid above me. I had nothing on, which made it easy for him — one hand closing over my breast, the other sliding down between my thighs, fingers pressing toward my entrance.

"Ah—!"

I'd forgotten. I was swollen, and even his fingers couldn't enter without pain.

"Baby, what happened?"

He'd been working his mouth over my nipple when the sound I made stopped him cold. He lifted his head immediately. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sore. Down there."

Even after a year of marriage, even after everything we'd done together in this bed, saying it out loud still made my face hot.

He moved to look, and I shoved him back and pulled the sheet over myself.

"I'm fine. I'll put some cream on it."

"Elena, I'm sorry — if I'd known you'd be this hurt, I never would have—"

"You're going to be late," I said, and made myself smile. "I was exaggerating anyway. I lied to get you off me. Go eat breakfast. Go to work."

Lucas gave a helpless laugh and pressed his lips to my forehead. "I've called the staff back in. Breakfast is ready. Be good — actually eat something."

"I know, I know."

I watched him button his shirt, shrug back into his jacket, and walk out. Even from behind he looked like someone who had everything handled. I stayed in the doorway longer than I needed to, aware of a quiet, foolish ache that made me want to call him back.

But I knew work mattered to Lucas just as much as everything else. I wasn't going to be the thing that got in his way.

I dressed, made my way downstairs, and ate.

After breakfast, I thought some sun might do me good — warm me through, settle the lingering soreness in my body.

I'd graduated university and met Lucas almost in the same breath. He'd fallen for me immediately and pursued me without hesitation, and we were married six months after we first met. He didn't want me working. He said he wanted me to live my life for myself, not spend it answering to a boss and a schedule. He said a husband's money was his wife's money, and he meant it — I could spend whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and on the rare occasions I came home with less than usual, he'd actually seem troubled, quietly wondering if he'd done something to upset me.

Thinking about all of that now, the guilt from this morning pressed down harder. I'd really had no right to doubt him.

I'd just stepped outside when a voice came from next door.

"Young lady — yes, you. Come here. Over here!"

Mrs. Grey, my neighbor from the house on the right, was leaning over the white picket fence, waving me over with her cane.

I smiled and walked toward her. "Good morning, Mrs. Grey!"

"There's nothing good about it. I didn't sleep a wink — your house had a dog barking all night long. It was insufferable." She fixed me with a sharp look. "Since when do you people have a dog?"

My heart knocked once, hard. "Didn't my husband keep a dog — before we married, about a year ago?"

"No." She said it without a flicker of hesitation. "I've lived on this street for decades. There was never a dog in that house. Not once. I'm telling you now — if it happens again, I'm calling the police. And I don't make empty threats."