Chapter 1 #1

Chapter 1 #1
Chapter 1
~ Shailyn ~
The coffee was still hot in my hands when I pushed open Dante's office door.
I'd made it exactly the way he liked it — two sugars, a splash of cream, in his favorite mug. Every day at 2 PM for five years, I brought him coffee. It was our routine. One of the few things that made me feel useful, like I still mattered to him somehow.
"Dante, I brought your…"
The words died in my throat.
He was bent over his desk, his pants around his ankles. One of his secretaries, Vanessa, the new one with the long legs, was sprawled across the table surface, her skirt hiked up around her waist, her blouse torn open.
They both froze when they saw me.
For one horrible, crystalline moment, nobody moved. The coffee mug trembled in my hands.
Then Dante's face twisted with rage.
"Get out, Shailyn! Who asked you to come in here unannounced!"
His voice cracked like a whip. Vanessa scrambled to cover herself, her face flushed, though whether from embarrassment or exertion, I couldn't tell.
I stumbled backward, my hip catching the doorframe. The coffee sloshed over the rim, burning my hand, but I barely felt it.
"I'm sorry, I just…"
"OUT!"
I yanked the door shut and pressed my back against it, my whole body trembling.
This wasn't the first time. It wasn't even the tenth time I'd caught my husband with his pants down, buried inside one of his secretaries or assistants or whoever caught his eye that week.
But this time... this time was different.
Because as I stood there, I heard them start up again unlike before where he sends the lady in question out because I ruined the mood, he literally continued banging this one and I could hear her moan and the rhythmic slap of skin on skin.
He hadn't lost his arousal from the interruption, he’d just… continued.
Like I was a minor inconvenience, quickly forgotten.
Hot tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them.
"Mrs. Belmar?"
I looked up. Jessica, one of the secretaries, stood a few feet away. Her face showed pity, but I knew she was only doing what she knows how to do best. Witness the whole drama so she can spread it around with the other employees.
I gave her the coffee mug with my shaky hands and walked toward the elevator, like I was controlling someone else's body.
‘Don't cry. Not here. Not in front of them.’
But the tears came anyway, hot and bitter, streaming down my face as I jabbed the elevator button over and over.
The doors finally opened. I stumbled inside and collapsed against the wall.
Five years! Five years of this hell, and I'd stayed. Why?  I was pathetic.
The elevator dinged as it reached the third floor where my office was, I picked up my bags without glancing at anybody and signed out for the day. 
…
The drive to the hospital was a blur. I'd turned on another podcast, some motivational speaker talking about confidence and self-worth. I'd been listening to these for weeks now, desperate for something to make me feel less... broken.
"You are worthy," the woman's voice insisted through my car speakers. "You are enough."
I almost laughed. If I was so worthy, why did my own husband prefer every other woman in the entire Kington city to me?
My phone buzzed with a text from Dante: \[Don't you ever come into my office uninvited again. Understood?\]
I gripped the steering wheel tighter, the familiar itch starting between my legs. Syphilis. The latest gift from my faithful husband. At least this round of antibiotics was done. Until the next infection.
Last year it was Chlamydia. The year before, Trichomoniasis. Before that, Gonorrhea. My doctor had stopped lecturing me about safe sex. She just looked at me with the same pity I saw everywhere else and prescribed more antibiotics.
I pulled into the hospital parking lot and killed the engine. My reflection stared back at me from the rearview mirror with my red, puffy eyes, smudged makeup, tangled hair.
Pathetic wife.
That's what they all saw me as 
"If he hadn't married your pathetic ass, you'd still be alone." 
They were probably right. A brilliant billionaire like Dante Belmar settling for someone like me…it had always seemed like a miracle.
I should've known better. Back in college, I'd been the top student in our Computer Science program. Dante had come in second, always second to me. But he'd been so charming, so persistent. When he asked me out after graduation, I thought it was real.
I gave him everything. Including H-GPT.
The AI code I'd developed from my late father's work, a work I'd studied since I was a child, piecing together his genius from old notebooks and files my aunt had saved. I'd poured everything into that code, and when Dante saw it, his eyes had lit up.
Three weeks after our wedding, he'd presented H-GPT to his father as his own creation.
Tyler Belmar made him CEO of SentientIQ on the spot.
And I was hired into SentientIQ as a debugger. Someone who checks other people's code for errors.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
I grabbed my purse and headed inside.

Mom was asleep when I entered her room, her chest rising and falling slowly beneath the thin hospital blanket. She'd been here for two weeks this time, another stroke scare.
"Finally," Aunt Patricia said from the chair beside the bed. "I've been waiting for hours."
"Sorry, I had to…"
"I need more money, Shailyn." She stood up, her arms crossed. "Your mother's medication isn't cheap, and I've been taking care of her for twenty-eight years. You're married to one of the richest men in Kington. Stop being stingy."
Guilt twisted in my stomach. Patricia had raised me when Mom couldn't because of her stroke. She'd fed me, clothed me, sent me to school. I owed her everything.
"I'll send you some money tonight," I said quietly.
"You better." She grabbed her coat. "Oh, before I forget… your mother wrote you something."
She handed me a thick envelope. My breath caught.
"She... wrote this?"
"Took her almost a year. She'd work on it every day, one letter at a time." Patricia slung her purse over her shoulder. "I'm leaving for the market, Max has to eat something. Lock up when you go."
The door clicked shut behind her.
I stared at the envelope, my hands trembling. Mom had barely spoken five full words at once to me my entire life. Her stroke had stolen her voice when I was born, leaving her trapped inside her own body. And now... now she'd spent a year writing to me.
I started to open it, but the itch between my legs flared up, sharp and insistent.
Dammit.
I shoved the envelope in my purse and hurried to the bathroom, and it turned out my monthly cycle started. 
…
I was flushing up when I heard two women entering the bathroom, their voices echoing.
"Did you see Chantel’s new Birkin? Dante definitely bought her that."
My hands stilled from opening the door of the toilet stall, were they talking about my husband, Dante?
"Girl, Dante buys everyone gifts. It doesn't mean anything."
Then a phone rang.
"What the fuck, Priscilla! Why is Dante calling you?"
The slap came so fast I flinched. Then chaos…screaming, struggling, nails scratching.
"He's MY man! MINE!"
"Bitch, please! He gave me syphilis! YOUR ex gave you syphilis, and you gave it to Dante, and now I have it too!"
My vision tunneled.
They had syphilis. The same syphilis I had from Dante, so it was actually my Dante.
I stood in the stall, paralyzed. They were right outside. If I opened the door, they'd see me. They'd know I'd heard everything. They might attack me. Mock me. Or worse… pity me.
Despite Dante’s cruel treatment towards me a year after our marriage, he never ceased to show me round the world as his wife, possibly because of guilt from stealing all the credits to my A.I model - H-GPT.
My heart hammered against my ribs. The podcast from this morning echoed in my head: ‘Face your fears.’
I took a breath. 
Now or never, Shailyn.
I pushed open the stall door.
The two women froze mid-fight, their eyes going wide as they recognized me. One had a split lip. The other had scratch marks down her neck.
I didn't look at them. I walked to the sink, my legs shaking so badly I thought they'd give out. I turned on the water. Washed my hands. Pumped soap slowly, methodically.
In the mirror, I watched them watch me. Stunned and silent.
I dried my hands with a paper towel. Pulled out my compact and fixed my makeup, filling in the smudges under my eyes. I'd learned to do this — to always look presentable. Ever since that photo went viral of me jogging without makeup and looked ugly in my swollen morning face, turned into a meme: ‘When you marry for money but can't afford mascara.’
I snapped the compact shut and walked past them without a word.
Only when I reached the hallway did I let out the breath I'd been holding.
My hands were still shaking, but... I'd done it. I'd faced them. I hadn't hidden or cried or apologized for existing.
For the first time in five years, I'd stood my ground.
A small smile tugged at my lips.
Maybe that podcast was onto something.
… 
My phone rang as I stepped back into Mom's room. Tyler Belmar's name flashed across the screen.
"Hello?"
"Shailyn! Perfect timing." My father-in-law's warm voice filled my ear. "Can you pick up some ginseng drink on your way to the manor? The herbal kind, you know the one."
I frowned. "The manor? I didn't know we had plans tonight…"
"Dinner at seven. The whole family. Didn't Dante tell you?"
Of course he didn't.
"Oh, right," I lied. "It slipped my mind."
"See you soon, dear."
The call ended. I looked at Mom, still sleeping peacefully, and felt the familiar sting of tears.
Dante had excluded me again. Like always because I didn't matter.
‘You are worthy,’ the podcast lady whispered in my memory. ‘You are enough.’
I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. If I was going to face the Belmar family tonight, I'd need to pull myself together.
…
The ginseng shop was tucked in the corner of Kington Mall, small and fragrant with dried herbs. I grabbed a bottle of Tyler's favorite blend and turned toward the register…
…and slammed straight into a wall of muscle.
The bottle flew from my hands, shattering against the floor in an explosion of glass and liquid.
"Oh my God, I'm so…"
The words died in my throat.
The man I'd collided with was... breathtaking. Tall, broad-shouldered, with sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that seemed to look straight through me. Tattoos crept up from beneath his collar, wrapping around his throat like serpents.
He looked down at the broken bottle. Then at me.
Then he simply... walked away.
No apology or acknowledgment. Absolutely nothing.
Burning anger flared in my chest, I have been through enough for one day. Before I could stop myself, I shouted:
"Stop right there!"
The entire shop went silent. People turned to stare.
And to my shock... he stopped.
My heart pounded as he slowly turned around, one eyebrow raised. Those dark eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my knees weak.
‘What now, Shailyn? What the hell do you do now?’