Adrian's POV
Emma's confession kept replaying in my head like a broken record.
"I knew the test was negative. I trapped you in this marriage."
I stood in the hallway outside our bedroom, my hand on the doorknob, frozen. Inside, I could hear nothing. No crying, no movement. Just silence.
She'd trapped me. She'd lied. She'd manipulated the situation to make me marry her.
So why did I feel like I was the one who'd done something wrong?
"Adrian?" Vivian's voice made me jump. She was standing in the guest room doorway, her phone in her hand. "Are you okay? I heard yelling."
"Fine," I said automatically.
"Emma seemed pretty upset." Vivian moved closer, her voice soft with fake concern. "I feel terrible. I didn't mean to cause problems between you two."
"You didn't cause anything."
"Are you sure? Because she seems really jealous. Maybe I should stay at a hotel—"
"No." The word came out too fast, too sharp. "I mean, you just got here. Emma will calm down. She's just... emotional right now."
Emotional. I'd always used that word to dismiss Emma's feelings. Like being emotional was a weakness instead of a normal human reaction.
Vivian touched my arm. "You're such a good man, Adrian. Always trying to do the right thing, even when people don't appreciate it."
Her hand felt wrong. Too warm, too familiar. I stepped back.
"I should check on Emma."
"Of course." Vivian smiled, but something about it bothered me. It looked practiced. Fake. "I'll be in my room if you need anything. Anything at all."
She walked away, and I finally opened the bedroom door.
Emma was in bed, facing away from me. Her shoulders were stiff, her breathing too controlled. She was awake. Pretending to sleep so she wouldn't have to talk to me.
I should have left her alone. That's what I always did—avoided difficult conversations, let problems solve themselves, kept everything buried under a layer of polite distance.
But tonight, something was different.
Tonight, I couldn't walk away.
I sat on the edge of the bed. "Emma, I know you're awake."
She didn't move.
"We need to talk about what you said. About the pregnancy test."
Nothing.
"Emma, please—"
"What do you want me to say?" Her voice was muffled by the pillow. "I already told you the truth. I manipulated you. I'm a terrible person. You can hate me now."
"I don't hate you."
"You should." She finally turned over, and my chest tightened. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. "I ruined your life, Adrian. You could have moved on from Vivian, found someone you actually loved, been happy. Instead, you got stuck with me."
"You didn't ruin my life—"
"Yes, I did!" She sat up, anger flashing through her tears. "You've been miserable for five years! You sleep in a different room, you work seventy-hour weeks to avoid coming home, you can't even look at me most of the time. That's not a life. That's a prison sentence."
Her words hit too close to home. Because she was right—I had been avoiding her. I had been keeping my distance. But not because I was trapped.
Because I was scared.
"You want to know the truth?" I heard myself say. "The real truth?"
"What other truth could there be?"
"I was relieved when your mother found that pregnancy test."
Emma's face went pale. "What?"
"That night we spent together—Emma, I knew what I was doing. I wasn't that drunk. And when I woke up next to you, I felt..." I struggled for the words. "Peaceful. For the first time since Vivian left, I felt okay."
"You're lying—"
"I'm not. You were kind to me that night when you didn't have to be. You listened to me ramble about my broken heart. You didn't judge me or tell me to get over it. You just... stayed." I looked at her. "And then we kissed, and I thought—this is different. This feels different."
Emma was staring at me like I'd grown a second head.
"But then morning came, and I panicked. Because feeling something for you felt like betraying Vivian. Like admitting she'd really broken me. So I left before you woke up, and I told myself it was a mistake."
"It was a mistake—"
"No. The mistake was running away from you." I moved closer. "When my mother found that test, part of me was terrified. But another part—a bigger part—was relieved. Because it gave me an excuse to have you without having to admit I wanted you."
"Stop." Emma's voice was shaking. "Stop lying to make me feel better—"
"I'm not lying!" I grabbed her hand. "Emma, I'm a coward. I have been from the start. I married you and immediately started pushing you away because I was terrified of feeling something real. Terrified of getting hurt again. So I kept you at a distance, told myself I was doing my duty, and never let myself see what was right in front of me."
"And what's that?" she whispered.
"That I married a woman who loved me enough to trap me. A woman who spent five years trying to make me happy while I gave her nothing in return. A woman who's braver than I'll ever be because she took a risk on someone who didn't deserve her."
Tears rolled down Emma's cheeks. "Adrian—"
"I don't know if I can give you the love you deserve. I don't know if I'm capable of it after shutting down for so long. But I want to try. I want to learn who you are, Emma. The real you, not the perfect wife you thought you had to be."
"It's too late," she sobbed. "Vivian's here, and you still have feelings for her—"
"I don't." The words came out fierce, certain. "When she hugged me today, all I felt was awkward. When she laughed, I compared it to your laugh—the one I heard once in the garden when you didn't know I was watching. Her laugh was loud. Yours was real."
Emma looked at me with hope and disbelief warring in her eyes. "You're just saying this because I threatened to leave—"
"I'm saying this because you told me the truth, so I owe you the same. Emma, I don't want a divorce. I want a real marriage. With you."
She opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly the bedroom door burst open.
Vivian stood there, her face dramatic with fake concern. "Adrian, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I just got a call from my lawyer in Paris. There's an emergency with my divorce settlement—I might lose everything. I know this is terrible timing, but could you look at some documents? You're the only person I trust with this."
I was about to say no, to tell her to call her own lawyer, but then I saw Emma's face.
The hope had died. The walls had gone back up.
"Of course he'll help," Emma said flatly. "Adrian always helps people who need him. That's what he does."
She laid back down and turned away from me.
"Emma—"
"Go help Vivian. It's an emergency." Her voice was cold. "I'll be here when you get back. I always am."
I looked between my wife and my ex-girlfriend, torn.
"Adrian, please," Vivian begged. "I could lose everything—"
"Fine." I stood up, hating myself. "Give me ten minutes, Emma. Just ten minutes, and we'll finish this conversation."
She didn't answer.
I followed Vivian to the guest room, my mind racing. Ten minutes. I'd look at her papers, tell her to hire a lawyer, and go back to Emma.
But when Vivian closed the door behind us, she didn't pull out any documents.
She pulled out a flash drive.
"What's that?" I asked.
"The truth about your wife." Vivian's smile was nothing like the woman I used to know. It was cold. Calculating. "Did you know Emma's been having an affair for six months?"
My world stopped. "What?"
"I have proof. Photos, texts, hotel receipts." She held up the flash drive. "I found them when I was helping her unpack some boxes earlier. I wasn't going to say anything, but after seeing how she's treating you—Adrian, you deserve to know."
"Emma wouldn't—"
"Wouldn't she? She already admitted she trapped you into marriage. Who's to say she hasn't been lying about everything else?"
My hands were shaking. "Show me."
Vivian plugged the flash drive into her laptop.
And there on the screen were photos of Emma. With a man I didn't recognize. Laughing. Holding hands. Kissing in a restaurant.
The timestamps showed six months ago. Three months ago. Two weeks ago.
My wife was cheating on me.
Or was she?