Page 115 of The Humiliated Wife

Sometimes the person who broke your heart shows up and reminds you why you fell for them in the first place. Sometimes your body remembers being safe before your brain remembers being hurt. Sometimes forgiveness feels like the stupidest and smartest thing you could do, all at the same time.

I don't have answers. I just have questions and wine and the unsettling realization that healing isn't linear. That moving on doesn't always move in straight lines.

To everyone else figuring it out as they go: you're not alone in the mess.

"It's too personal," Fiona said, even as part of her ached to share it. Her followers had been with her through the divorce, through building her new life. Maybe they deserved to know she was human enough to stumble backward sometimes.

"Your entire account is personal," Milo pointed out. "That's why people follow you."

Emma leaned over to read the draft again. "This is beautiful, Fi. And it's real. This is just... you."

Fiona stared at the words on her screen. Her words. Her truth. Her choice to share or not share.

"What if people judge me?" she asked quietly.

"Let them," Emma said fiercely. "The people who matter will understand that love is complicated and messy and that good people sometimes make choices that don't look perfect from the outside."

Fiona's finger hovered over the post button.

"You know what?" she said, surprising herself. "Fuck it."

She hit post.

CHAPTER 50

Dean

Dean woke up hard.

He'd barely slept, his mind replaying every moment of the afternoon—the way she'd looked at him with trust instead of hurt, the sounds she'd made when he'd worshipped her body, the way she'd taken control and made him fall apart under her touch.

Christ, she'd been spectacular.

He rolled over, pressing his face into the pillow, and let himself remember. The taste of her on his tongue. The way her back had arched when he'd found that perfect spot. How she'd said his name like a prayer when she'd come apart in his arms.

He could live there. Between her thighs, making her gasp and moan and remember why they'd been so good together. Making her forget every reason she had to doubt him.

Dean sat up, running his hands through his hair, energy thrumming through his veins like caffeine. He felt renewed. Focused. Like someone had finally told him what his purpose in life was supposed to be.

Fiona.

Everything was about Fiona now. Not his career, not his reputation, not the approval of people who thought cruelty was clever. Just her. Making her happy. Making her trust him again. Proving every day that he could be the man she deserved.

He grabbed his phone, checking the time. Early enough to stop by the bakery she loved before work. The one that made those lemon shortbread cookies that had made her smile like sunshine the first time he'd brought them home.

She'd told him this didn't change anything, but she'd also let him touch her, taste her, love her the way he'd been desperate to do since the day she'd walked out.

That had to count for something.

Dean stood up, practically burning with renewed purpose. He had work to do. A wife to win back. A life to rebuild around the only person who'd ever made him feel like he was worth something.

And he was going to start today.

Dean satin the parking lot of Fiona's elementary school, engine idling, staring at the small white bakery box on his passenger seat like it contained explosives instead of lemon shortbread.

He'd driven here on pure adrenaline and determination, but now that he was actually here, doubt crept in around the edges. Was this too much? Too soon? She'd said this didn't change anything, and here he was, showing up at her workplace lessthan twelve hours later with cookies like some kind of lovesick teenager.

But Christ, he couldn't help himself. The memory of her smile—the real one, the one that lit up her whole face when she was genuinely happy—had been burned into his brain since that first time he'd brought these home. He needed to see it again.