Three hours ago. That was all it had been. Three hours since I had walked down the aisle in that dress, the dress now stained with my husband and his mistress's lust dressed up as marital bliss, leaning on my best friend's arm as she handed me off to the man standing in front of me.
A tide of nausea surged up my throat.
The ring cut into my palm. My whole body shook with a pain I couldn't contain.
He took off his coat and draped it over my shoulders, wrapping an arm around me, his voice low and soothing. "Why are you shaking? Mrs. Stephens will always be you."
Those dark, languid eyes of Noel Stephens,
still brimming with devotion so thick it looked real.
As if the man who had just casually confessed to sleeping with another woman for months, tangled up with her in my wedding dress, were someone else entirely.
The sheer absurdity of it tore through me,
and I couldn't breathe.
He let out a helpless sigh.
"I know this doesn't sit well with you. But the girl has no title, no status, and she still chooses to stay with me. She's even gracious enough not to fight you for the Mrs. Stephens name. If I don't spend a little more time with her after all that, what kind of man would I be?"
"Florence isn't like other women. She's innocent, she's principled. If she didn't love me, she'd never agree to be someone's kept secret. She's lowered herself this far for my sake. I can't let her down. You've got a temper, sure, but you've always been reasonable. You get where I'm coming from, right?"
Love?
I nearly laughed myself to tears.
I loved him too.
I had a temper, yes, but around him I turned soft as water, bending myself small, making myself less, always less.
I was reasonable, yes, but I'd gone to war with paparazzi over a single tabloid rumor about him, badgered elders I respected into clearing his name.
My love he treated like air. Another woman's love he held like treasure.
I curled my frozen fingers inward, closed my eyes, and let the bitter smile settle on my lips.
"If you love each other that much, let's get a divorce."
Noel blinked, then let out a short laugh. "I just complimented you on keeping your cool, and now you're throwing a fit again?"
"You've been with me since you were eighteen. You've lost two pregnancies because of me. Walk away, and tell me, what man out there would want you?"
I stared at him.
My chest felt like a red-hot coal had been dragged across it.
Twenty-eight years.