Leaving Husband, Loving First Love

We’d been married for years, yet my husband treated me with the indifference of a monk. It was like I didn’t exist. That is, until his stepsister got divorced and moved back into the Getty family estate with her kid. Suddenly, the ice melted—but not for me. He was shameless with her, intimate in ways he’d never been with me. I even caught him getting off using her lingerie. "Harper," he’d told me once, cold and matter-of-fact, "I chose you because you’re obedient." That was the moment my heart finally flatlined. My love had been twisted into submission; that was my greatest tragedy. So, I filed for divorce. I needed to exile myself from his world completely. Three months later, when he showed up again, I felt... nothing. No pain, no anger. Actually, seeing him on his knees begging for forgiveness was almost comical. Next to me, Alaric, my new boyfriend, jumped back, clutching a velvet ring box. "Whoa, buddy! Back off—that’s my job!"