Page 24 of The Humiliated Wife

Without a word, Fiona got out of the car and walked up the steps. Emma opened her arms and Fiona folded into them. The warmth, the weight, the quiet safety of being held by someone who didn’t need a story or an explanation.

The adrenaline that had carried her through packing, through walking away, through driving these winding roads—all of it drained out of her at once. She felt hollow, scraped clean, like someone had taken a spoon to her insides and left nothing but the ache.

They stood like that for a long moment.

Then Emma pulled back and said, “I made banana bread.”

Fiona laughed—a small, surprised sound. “Of course you did.”

Inside, the house smelled like cinnamon and butter. Fiona sank onto the couch, tucking her knees up. The cushions sagged exactly the way she remembered. Safe. Lived-in. Real.

“I left Dean,” she said, eyes on the chipped polish of her thumbnail.

Emma sat beside her. “Want to tell me what happened?”

Fiona opened her mouth—and then closed it again.

The man she loved thought she was a joke.Madeher a joke. Publicly and unapologetically.

She couldn’t make sense of that yet, let alone speak it.

She swallowed. “I don’t think I can talk about it yet.”

Saying it out loud would make it real. Would mean accepting that the man she'd built her life around had spent years turning her love into content, her trust into entertainment. Would mean admitting that she'd been living with a man who thought she was a joke. Who thought she was a foolish, childish moron, who didn’t think she was his equal—intellectually or socially.

Emma reached over and squeezed her hand.

Fiona felt something in her begin to shift.

She felt her shock, her sadness, coalesce into something new.

Anger.

CHAPTER 13

Dean

She hadn’t come homelast night.

Dean stood in the kitchen, staring into the mouth of the French press while he waited for the kettle to boil. His hands were jittery. Too much adrenaline, not enough sleep.

The bed had been cold when he woke up. Her pillow untouched.

The whole apartment felt off-kilter. Her shoes weren’t by the door. Her scarf was missing from the hook in the hallway. She was gone.

Notgonegone, he told himself. Just… cooling off. Needing space. Women were emotional. She just needed time to process things. This wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be.

He leaned on the counter, rubbing the back of his neck.

She’d overreacted. That was the truth. The account had been lighthearted. Funny. Endearing. He’d never posted anything cruel—okay, maybeteasing, but people loved it.Shemight even have loved it too if she hadn’t been blindsided like that.

Dean gritted his teeth. That dumb award.

If she’d found out differently—if he’d had the chance toframe it—it wouldn’t have blown up like this. He could’ve walked her through it, explained the tone, the context. She didn’t get that kind of high-level media culture, not the way he and his friends did. Cam, Roxanne, Ava, even Jared—they understood irony. Virality. Theygotit.

But Fiona? You had to explain things to her. She was just... less cynical. Slower to catch the subtext. He had to remember that. Not everyone could read a room the way he could.

She could’ve been in on the joke if she’d let him guide her through it. But instead, she’d taken it personally. Like it meant something it didn’t.