Broken Heels and Bitter Truths

My husband and I hadnt spoken a word to each other in a year.

When he finally returned to the States and tried to initiate a truce, he reached out to take my hand right in front of his subordinates. I instinctively flinched, pulling away.

When he tried to slide his arm around my waist, I shoved him off entirely.

Later, a friend asked me why I wouldn't just give him another chance.

I couldn't help but vent.

"Devin and I are basically strangers now," I told her, swirling my drink. "Being in the same room as him gives us absolutely nothing to talk about. The silence is so suffocatingly awkward I want to dig a hole through the floorboards and bury myself."

My friends expression suddenly contorted. Her eyes darted frantically to a spot just over my shoulder.

I turned around.

There he was. Devin stood frozen a few feet away, his face completely drained of color.

Well. If it was awkward before, it was a full-blown catastrophe now. I could have dug a trench straight to the earth's core.

1.

Devin Frost and I had been locked in a bitter stalemate for twelve months.

For the entirety of that year, he had been in Switzerland, accompanying his ex-girlfriend and her parents while her father sought experimental medical treatments. He had played the devoted proxy-son perfectly.

Now that he was back in Chicago, he was the one lowering his head, asking for peace.

Before he left, he hadnt said a word of goodbye. But a year is a long time. The blinding, white-hot rage I used to feel had mostly burned out, leaving only a cold pile of ash.

When we fell apart, things had gotten incredibly ugly. I had just lost our baby. My hormones were crashing, my heart was shattered, and I was bleeding out my grief in the form of cruel, jagged words.

"I don't care that Ella's father is dying, Devin," I had screamed at him. "She spent years trying to ruin other people's happiness. This is just karma catching up to her."

I remember the way Devins features had hardened. The usual calm, detached elegance he carried himself with vanished. He narrowed his eyes, and the look he gave me was absolute ice.

"Joyce," he had growled, his voice dangerously low. "How can you be so vicious?"

That was the last time we saw each other. The very next day, he boarded a private flight to Zurich with Ella and her parents.

Since returning a month ago, Devin had been playing the role of the attentive, perfect husband to a terrifying degree.

My friend leaned in, whispering. "Jo, hes been back for weeks. Are you really going to keep icing him out? Hes gorgeous, hes a tech billionaire, and trust me, there is a line of women waiting for you to drop the ball."

She wasn't wrong. Devin came from old money and built his own empire on top of it. The line of women wanting to date him probably stretched all the way to Paris.

But he had been gone for a year. A whole year. So much had happened in the empty spaces he left behind.

During that first month, I used to stare at my phone, desperately hoping for a call, a text, a sign.

It never came.

Over time, I had reflected on my own behavior, too. I knew what I said about her dying father crossed a line.

I forced a stiff smile now, looking at my friend. "But I'm serious. Being around him is just... agonizing. We have nothing to say to each other. Its so awkward I cant breathe."

That was when she looked past me, her eyes widening, telegraphing disaster.

"What?" I asked. "Is there something in your eye?"

She just blinked harder.

I turned. Devins tall, imposing frame was rigid. His skin was pale under the dim lighting of the venue.

My mouth twitched in a grimace of sheer mortification.

His dark eyes locked onto mine, a storm of turbulent emotions swirling in their depths. Without a word, he closed the distance between us and wrapped his hand around my wrist.

I tried to twist away. I couldn't. His grip was an iron vise.

He marched me straight to the elevator, down to the parking garage, and practically folded me into the passenger seat of his Aston Martin.

I watched him from the corner of my eye. His jaw was clenched so tight I thought it might shatter.

A year ago, our marriage was a well-kept secret. The media didn't know the CEO of NovaTech was a married man. But they certainly knew about his storied, dramatic past with Ella.

The moment the engine purred to life, the Bluetooth synced to a local celebrity gossip podcast.

"...recent sightings of NovaTechs Devin Frost strolling through a scenic village in the Swiss Alps with his former flame, Ella, and her parents. Frost has spent the better part of the last year abroad, reportedly funding her father's treatments. Sources close to the couple say the old spark is definitely back..."

Devin slammed his hand against the console, killing the audio instantly.

I didn't yell. I didn't demand an explanation the way I would have a year ago.

There was simply no point anymore.

2.

A year ago. The first snowstorm of the season.

I was walking to the train after work. The drop in temperature had been sudden, catching the city completely off guard. The sidewalks were a sheet of black ice beneath a dusting of white.

I slipped.

It was just a fall. But the sheer volume of blood that followed was terrifying. Against the pristine white snow of the pavement, the bright, violent red was blinding.

Bystanders and a coworker who had been walking behind me panicked. I laid there, entirely numb, save for a heavy, agonizing pulling sensation in my lower abdomen.

The ambulance took me to Northwestern Memorial. The ER doctor looked at me with a mix of clinical detachment and pity.

"You're miscarrying," she said. "Did you know you were pregnant?"

I shook my head, the room spinning.

I tried to call Devin. It went straight to voicemail.

My parents had retired to Florida. Devins parents were on a cruise somewhere in the Mediterranean.

When the nurses told me I needed a family member to sign the consent forms for the D&C procedure, I dialed Devin's number again. And again. And again.

Nothing.

In the end, with a shaking, bloodless hand, I signed the surgical forms myself.

Hours after the surgery, as I lay staring at the ceiling of my recovery room, my phone buzzed. A single text from Devin.

On a business trip.

Three days later, I was discharged.

While waiting for the elevator, I overheard two nurses whispering at the station.

"Did you see the guy in the VIP oncology suite? Whats his name?"

"Oh, he's a big deal," the other replied. "CEO of some tech firm. Devin Frost."

"He is incredibly handsome. Does he have a ring?"

"He's got a girlfriend. That older man hes pushing around the courtyard in the wheelchair? That's his future father-in-law."

I felt the floor drop out from under me.

When I walked out into the main lobby, I saw him. Devin was standing near the entrance, flanked by the hospital's chief of oncology and a team of specialists. Standing right beside Devin, looking up at him with tearful gratitude, was Ella.

He hadn't been on a business trip.

While I was bleeding out our child on an operating table, he had gone completely off the grid to secure top-tier medical care for his ex-girlfriend's parents.

3.

The night I got home from the hospital, I waited for him in the dark. When he finally walked in, I asked him point-blank why he was at the hospital with Ella.

He frowned, loosening his tie. "Are you having me followed?"

I dug my nails into my palms to keep my voice steady. "You lied to me, Devin. You said you were out of town."

"I saw you with Ella this morning. Shes your ex. Do boundaries mean absolutely nothing to you?"

Devin looked at me, his expression infuriatingly calm.

"Jo, yes, she's my ex. But she isn't my enemy."

He spoke to me with the slow, measured cadence of someone explaining a math problem to a child.

"I was at the hospital because her father is critically ill. When you called me, I was genuinely out of state meeting with a medical board on his behalf. I didn't lie to you."

But for the entire month leading up to that day, I had noticed the shift.

Id wake up at 2 AM to find the space beside me empty, Devin pacing the hallway with his phone pressed to his ear.

Once, walking past his home office, I heard muffled, panicked crying coming through the speaker. I saw my husband's broad silhouette standing in the dark, his voice a soft, intimate murmur.

"I know. I'm here. Don't be scared. I'll come over first thing tomorrow."

He hadn't come back to our bed that night. He left before the sun came up.

I knew the voice on the other end was Ella.

"Devin," I said, my chest tight. "Shes been texting you for a month. You come home past midnight. Youre always with her. She knows you are a married man, so why does she keep pulling you away? This is an emotional affair, and she knows exactly what shes doing."

Devins eyes turned glacial.

"Joyce. Stop. She is not trying to ruin our marriage."

The immediate, defensive way he shielded her was the spark that ignited my breaking point.

"Her father was just diagnosed with stage four lung cancer," he said sharply. "Can you stop being so relentlessly cruel for one second?"

A wave of intense, suffocating grief crashed over me. I had laid in an ICU bed alone. I had signed the papers to remove our dead child from my body alone. And he had been holding her hand, moving mountains to find doctors for her father.

"I don't care, Devin!" I screamed, tears finally spilling over. "It's karma! It's what she deserves!"

The second the words left my mouth, I saw the exact moment I lost him. A dark, terrifying fury settled over his features.

His voice was a whip of cold air.

"Joyce. How can you be so vicious?"

He didn't say another word to me. He just looked at mea look of profound alienation and disgust.

Then he walked out.

That one screaming match birthed a silence that lasted a year.

When Ellas father took a turn for the worse, she decided to seek alternative therapies in Europe. Devin went with them.

The day he packed his bags, he glanced at me one last time. His eyes were devoid of any warmth. Just a barren, freezing indifference.

I knew right then that we were over.

We didn't file for divorce. We just stopped existing to each other.

Months later, when I heard through the grapevine that her father's condition was deteriorating, a pang of guilt actually hit me.

I sent Devin one single text.

I'm sorry for what I said. It was out of line. I shouldn't have spoken like that.

He left me on read.

4.

The radio broadcaster bringing up the Swiss Alps had just sucked all the oxygen out of the car.

I didn't really care about the specifics of his time with Ella anymore. Over the past year, Ellas Instagram had been a carefully curated exhibition of her life abroad.

I saw the photos of Devin consulting with world-renowned surgeons. I saw the discreet snaps of his expensive watch resting on a cafe table in Zurich.

Over the holidays, she posted a snowy landscape from a luxury ski lodge in Chamonix. Two mugs of hot cocoa on the balcony rail.

Devin finally spoke, his voice slicing through the heavy silence. His gaze was fixed dead ahead on the road, unapologetic.

"Jo."

"Her father is stable now."

I gave a short, jerky nod.

"Oh. Okay. That's good."

The car descended into the underground garage of our condo building. Devin threw it in park, unbuckled, and turned his body to face me entirely.

"Do you have anything you want to ask me?" he said, his voice dropping an octave. "I will explain everything. I don't want you making assumptions."

I forced the corners of my mouth up into a bright, brittle smile.

"Nope. No assumptions here."

His eyes darkened instantly.

5.

Devins sudden reappearance had completely derailed the fragile peace Id built in my routine.

Living alone, I had gotten used to wandering the apartment in just a flimsy silk slip after my evening shower. It was the middle of July.

When I walked out of the bathroom that night, he was standing in the hallway. His eyes dropped, lingering on the thin fabric clinging to my chest.

My face caught fire. I grabbed my robe from the hook, darted back into the bathroom, and aggressively tied it around my waist.

When I re-emerged, fully covered, I cleared my throat and suggested we officially sleep in separate rooms.

"Devin, I'm dealing with a massive project at work right now. Early mornings, late nights. I don't want to wake you."

"I told the housekeeper to make up the guest suite for me."

He frowned, the line between his brows deepening. He stared at me in silence for a long time before speaking.

"What time do you leave tomorrow? I'll drive you."

I waved my hands frantically. "No, no. It's fine. We work in opposite directions."

His gaze grew heavy. "It's on my way. I have a meeting near your corporate park tomorrow."

I blinked, desperately searching for a lie.

"Oh, well, I actually have off-site client meetings first thing in the morning, so I won't be at the office."

It was a flimsy excuse, but it got him to drop the subject.

6.

I woke up at the crack of dawn.

Devin was a creature of intense habit. He worked out every morning at the exact same time. To avoid him, I had to either leave the house before the sun rose or wait until he was in the shower.

I couldn't be late today, so I was up at 6:00 AM.

When I tiptoed into the kitchen, a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette was standing by the espresso machine.

Hearing my footsteps, he turned his head.

"You're up," he noted smoothly. "Eat breakfast."

We hadn't been alone like this in ages. He had only been back in the condo for three days.

In the old days, we managed breakfast and lunch on our own, but dinner was sacred. We always ate together.

For the past 72 hours, we hadn't shared a single meal.

Being in this sprawling kitchen with him made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

The social media algorithm is a cruel, psychic beast. Even though I didn't follow Ella and had never met her in person, my Explore page faithfully delivered every single one of her posts to my screen.

To anyone looking at her grid, they didn't look like two people who broke up years ago. They looked like star-crossed lovers who had finally found their way back to each other against all odds.

After a year of total silence, Devin and I had deteriorated to the point where I felt like an intruder in my own home.

Standing in the kitchen, under his intense scrutiny, I felt like the mistress. I felt like I was the one encroaching on Ella's man.

Even though I was the one wearing his ring.

Our eyes met. I quickly snatched a piece of dry toast from the rack and speed-walked toward the foyer.

I kept my head down as I shoved my feet into my heels.

Suddenly, the scent of cedarwood and cold morning air washed over me. He was standing right next to me.

"Sit down and eat," he commanded softly.

I shook my head. "I'm in a rush."

The corner of his mouth quirked up.

"I'll dri"

Before he could finish the word, I ripped the door open and sprinted down the hall.

7.

I wasn't actually in a rush.

I walked two blocks to a cozy corner diner we used to frequent.

It was a gritty, local spot. I always thought it was funny that a guy who grew up on a sprawling Hamptons estate, who wore bespoke Italian suits, would sit on a cracked vinyl stool and eat pancakes with plastic syrup dispensers.

But Devin was the one who found this place.

After he left for Europe, I kept coming here alone.

Maria, the owner, had asked me a few months back, "Honey, where's your handsome guy? Haven't seen him around."

I had panicked and lied. "We decided to part ways."

Maria, naturally, assumed we were divorced.

Today, out of nowhere, Maria decided it was time for me to move on.

"Jo, sweetie, since you're single now, I've got a guy for you. My nephew. Post-doc, works over at Rush Memorial. A doctor!"

I forced a polite, pained smile. "Thank you, Maria, really, but I'm not looking to date right now."

"Oh, come on! He's tall, gorgeous. Much better looking than your ex-husband!"

A shadow fell over the counter, blocking the morning light.

I looked up and locked eyes with Devin.

It had to be Mercury in retrograde. Every single humiliating thing I said, he magically appeared to overhear.

Devins face was thunderous.

"Maria," he said, his voice dangerously smooth. "She has a husband."

Maria gasped, dropping her rag. "Oh my god! You two reconciled? You remarried?"

Devin didn't break eye contact with me.

"We never got divorced."

Maria looked at me in absolute horror. "Oh, lord. Honey, I am so sorry. I thought you guys signed the papers!"

Devins jaw clenched so hard I thought a tooth might crack.

8.

I walked out of the diner and, utterly defeated, climbed into the passenger seat of his car.

He didn't even try to hide his amusement at my misery. He just stared at me, a low, mocking chuckle rumbling in his chest.

"Joyce. The firm your team is pitching to today? It's NovaTech."

My stomach dropped to my shoes.

"And if my memory serves me right," he continued, leaning slightly closer, "you don't have any off-site client meetings this morning."

It was him. He was the client.

He knew I was lying to his face in the kitchen, and he just stood there and watched me perform like a clown.

I choked on my own spit and offered him a deeply pathetic, awkward smile.

9.

We pulled up to my corporate building right at peak rush hour. The plaza was swarming with my coworkers.

I practically tumbled out of his car, keeping my head down, praying to any deity listening that no one would see me.

"Mr. Frost!"

The voice echoed across the courtyard. My spine locked into a block of ice.

A massive group of executives was walking toward usa mix of senior partners from my firm and VPs from NovaTech.

Devin stepped around the hood of the car, stopping right beside me.

Half a dozen pairs of eyes shifted between me and the billionaire CEO.

Without breaking stride, Devin raised his arm and casually, possessively, placed his hand on the small of my back.

The executives stared, their mouths slightly open.

I panicked. I violently shoved him away and let out a loud, obnoxious laugh.

"Oh, wow, these heels are a nightmare! I almost wiped out completely." I patted my chest dramatically. "Thanks for the catch, Mr. Frost."

The rejection was so blatant, so aggressively public.

The faint smirk on Devins lips vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, stunned rigidity.