Half a million dollars for my signature. After my husband’s mistress became pregnant with twins, his family offered me five hundred thousand dollars to sign the divorce papers. I signed without hesitating and left the United States.
Only when he was secretly planning his wedding to the other woman did he receive the finalized divorce decree—along with a copy of my positive pregnancy test—leaving him in shock. My name is Sophie. That night in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA, the rain lashed against the floor‑to‑ceiling windows.
The sound was like someone drumming a slow, heavy rhythm on my chest. I was in the kitchen, warming up the beef stew Ethan loved so much, when his phone vibrated again. He was in the shower, and his phone lay on the counter.
The screen lit up with a name I’d never seen before: Clara. I’m not the type to snoop. In five years of marriage, I’d learned that to live peacefully in another family’s world, you have to maintain appearances and mutual respect.
But that name kept flashing on the screen, again and again. On the third call, Ethan’s voice echoed from the bathroom, slightly irritated. I picked up the phone with icy fingers.
I had barely brought it to my ear when a choked female voice said:
Ethan burst out of the shower, water still dripping from his hair, and snatched the phone from my hand. He turned his back to me, his voice suddenly soft, almost syrupy. I stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen.
The spoon slipped from my fingers and hit the tile with a sharp clatter, a small sound that somehow fractured the entire house. From that night on, everything changed color. My mother‑in‑law, Eleanor, went three months without calling me once.
The family dinners she used to insist on hosting became nothing more than faded memories. My father‑in‑law, Arthur—always a man of few words—started looking at me as if I were a worn‑out piece of furniture. And Ethan… Ethan still came home, but like a visitor.
The collar and cuffs of his shirts sometimes carried a sweet, unfamiliar perfume. I told myself it could be a client, a colleague. I repeated it so many times that when I finally said it out loud, it sounded like a lie even to my own ears.
One morning, my phone rang. It was an unknown number, but as soon as I answered, I recognized my mother‑in‑law’s voice. Gone was the practiced sweetness of her old “my dear girl.” Her tone was cold and sharp.
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