Page 16 of The Humiliated Wife

The room didn’t seem to care that her life as she knew it was over. Around her, the table was still buzzing with post-award energy. Someone was ordering another round. Someone else was laughing about the speech. The woman who'd called her their "team mascot" was taking selfies.

Fiona's knuckles were white. She felt like her skin was too tight.

The room felt too bright. Too loud. Like she was trapped inside a fishbowl.

Her body didn’t know what to do. Her vision blurred—not with tears, not yet—but from something stranger. Like her brain was refusing to fully process what she was seeing. Her hands went clammy. Her face burned. She couldn’t tell if she was sweating or freezing.

The woman’s hand covered hers. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I thought... I thought you should know.”

Fiona couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe.

Everything made sense.

The way Roxanne had known about the president story. The way Dean's friends always seemed to be laughing at some inside joke. The way they looked at her—with that particular kind of amused condescension people reserved for pets or small children.

She really was as much of a fool as he thought she was.

Her pulse pounded behind her eyes. Her limbs tingled, distant and unreal, like she was floating an inch outside of her own body.

Shewasthe joke.

And Dean—Dean, who she trusted with everything, who she thought saw her and loved her and cherished her—Dean was the one telling it.

He’d held her like she was precious. Whispered that he loved her. Kissed her like she was important.

And all the while, he thought this about her.

"Fiona?" June’s voice seemed to come from very far away. "Are you okay?"

No. No, she was not okay.

She had thought he was kind. Supportive. That he respected her.

Dean wasn't any of those things.

Dean was just... good at pretending to be.

Fiona handed the phone back to her with hands that felt disconnected from her body.

"Thank you," she whispered. "For showing me."

Then she stood up, smoothed her dress, and walked toward the bathroom with her head held high.

Every step felt wrong, like her legs weren’t quite working—like her heels were too tall or the floor was slanted or gravity itself had turned against her.

She felt like a zoo animal that had wandered into the wrong enclosure, surrounded by predators wearing evening wear.

Behind her, someone raised a toast. Laughter echoed. The camera flashes kept going.

CHAPTER 8

Dean

Dean watchedfrom the stage as Fiona's chair pushed back from the table. Even from this distance, he could see the rigid set of her shoulders, the too-careful way she smoothed her dress before walking toward the back of the hall.

Shit.

Someone was still talking beside him, but Dean's focus had narrowed to a pinpoint. Fiona's retreating figure. The way she held herself like she was made of glass.