"I already told you, ever since we got back together, Joan and I are done."

"Today's a special situation. I was just going to talk to her..."

I gave him a mocking smile.

"Do you honestly think I'd believe that?"

This exact scene had played out more times than I could count.

During those two years of his affair, I'd been hysterical. I'd screamed, sobbed, interrogated him like a woman losing her mind. I couldn't understand why Brian had to betray me. I smashed everything in the house to pieces. I clawed his face until it bled.

All it earned me was his contempt.

But now, there was nothing left to feel. Just numbness, still and flat as dead water.

Especially after Brian had crossed every line, lied to me without a shred of conscience, time after time. After he'd sworn up and down that he and Joan Henson were finished, then kept sneaking around, kept meeting her, kept betraying me.

I'd learned the hard way: not a single word that came out of a man's mouth was worth believing.

Brian's lips twisted into a cold smile. He backed me into the corner, one arm braced against the wall beside my head.

"Eleanor. Be a good girl."

"I know you only brought that friend of yours home to get under my skin."

"Nothing actually happened between you two, right?"

"Ten years of marriage. What couple doesn't fight?"

"But I know you too well. You'd never stoop to playing tit for tat."

I lifted my gaze, lazy and unhurried. "Is that so."

A look of smug certainty settled across Brian's face.

But the very next second, that certainty shattered.

Right in front of him, I tore open a packet of high-potency aphrodisiac, dumped it into my water glass, tilted my head back, and drank every last drop.

The color drained from Brian's face in an instant.

"Eleanor, have you lost your mind?!"

He stared at me in disbelief.

He knew exactly how potent that aphrodisiac was. It was the very reason he'd ended up in Joan's bed all those years ago. The woman had slipped it into his drink. He'd been wrecked the entire night before the effects finally wore off, his body so hollowed out that it took him the better part of a month to recover.

And he understood something else, too.

Ever since his affair, I had never let him lay a finger on me again.

"Eleanor, spit it out right now! Your body can't handle this!"

Brian's face was ashen. He pounded on my back, clawing at me, even trying to shove his fingers down my throat to force it out.