My Husband Hired All Thirty-Six of My Boyfriends

My husband cheated first. So I collected thirtysix boyfriends, and all of New York decided Mrs. Vance was the filthiest woman in it. A sweet goldenretriever type on Monday.

A wholesome college boy by Friday. Everyone said I was the kind of woman who always settled the score. After I cut loose the last one, I finally asked Roman Vance for a divorce.

Thirtysix of them. Not one had ever touched me. He laughed and sank deeper into the couch. "You didn't like last night's? Trade him in.

Your husband has never been short on money." I smiled too. "I'm serious. Once we're divorced, that girl of yours finally gets my seat.

Isn't that what you want?" Chapter 1 He stopped smiling. Not slowly.

All at once. "You went looking for her?" In all our married years, the tabloids had linked Roman to more actresses and models than I could count.

Every one of those women was a decoy. I was the only person alive who knew it. All of it to keep the cameras off the girl he was actually protecting. Pretty name, too. Marissa Cole.

Still a semester short of her degree. He kept her tucked away, guarded so well the paparazzi had never landed a single photo of her. I'd seen her once.

I stopped by his office looking for him. Round doll face. Dark eyes, wet and shiny as grapes. When she smiled, they folded into little crescents.

For a second I saw myself at eighteen, standing at a debate podium. An angel's face on a girl who ran everyone around her.

People said the girl Roman was spoiling these days had someone kneel to change her shoes when she went out.

Said there was always a hand cupped and waiting when she was done with her gum. The house manager drove her to class and back to the estate.

One phone call and she got a shopping trip. Roman would stop a meeting to go with her.

If he truly couldn't leave, he kept a video call open on his desk, sappier than a couple of college kids. Whatever she wanted to eat, she told the private chef.

She had a private doctor and her own security. When Roman decided to marry me, he knelt all night in the chapel at the family estate.

The old man threatened to cut him out of the family trust. He didn't bend.

Then, with his own family working against him, he clawed his way up on nerve and talent, built his own network, planted his feet. He made a lot of enemies doing it. They took me.

It was bad. There wasn't much of me left unbruised. It hurt. It hurt so much. We lost our first baby that week.

But when I saw his eyes, redrimmed and raw, I was the one doing the comforting. "Hey.

Maybe somebody upstairs just wants us to have a few more years alone." After that he got careful. Funny thing. He learned it on my body and spent it on somebody else.

He couldn't stand for that girl to suffer a single thing. Only the best, all of it. Everything I'd had in those years, and everything I hadn't, Marissa got.

My silence pulled his brows tighter. "She scares easy. Don't put her through that." I didn't answer.

I nodded at the divorce papers on the table, already signed on my line. "The waiting period's up. Come to the courthouse and sign.

Then I'll tell you where she is." Over the years we'd signed a stack of those papers thick enough to prop a door. Every time, it died somewhere. A meeting came up.

Or Marissa needed him. I was done waiting him out. Gran's next infusion was in fourteen days. The private clinic billed to one signature, and it wasn't mine. Fourteen days.

Enough time to finish the last thing on my list. This marriage, I'd lost. I could admit that. I just couldn't do what he did. He was already dialing, jaw tight.

I dug my nails into my palm. Nobody picked up. Good. I opened my mouth to push him. Then there was no air. His hand closed around my throat and the floor came up to meet my back.

Chapter 2 "Wren. She's never come near you. Why can't you leave her alone?" We were too far into it to hear the keypad beep at the front door. "Are you deaf?

I already said I'd get out of her way." That set him off for reasons I would never understand. "Get out of her way? Who do you think you are?" The man was out of his mind.

My hand found a chair leg somewhere in the mess of it. I got it up and brought it down on his head. Blood ran through his dark hair and dripped onto my neck.

He staggered twice before he caught himself. I had nothing left. I slid down onto the floor, dragging air. "Go ahead. Try that again." That was the scene the girl walked in on.

She screamed, then went to him like he was made of glass. "Baby, does it hurt? Does it hurt?" Marissa's eyes filled. He wiped them for her before a single tear could fall.

He cleared his throat. "It's nothing." That made her braver.

She came at me with her nails out. "You crazy b—" "Come here and I'll swing it at you too." I had the bloody chair up again before she finished the word. "You do know what you are, right?

The other woman. And you walked into my house." She did the math and decided I meant it.

She backed into his chest instead, voice going small and wet. "Baby, she called me the other woman." "Why won't you just divorce her?" "Everybody says she's disgusting.

All those men she's been with." He stroked her hair and aimed the rest at me. "You wanted a divorce." "Let's go, Mrs. Vance." The driver didn't say a word the whole way.

I rode up front. For some reason I thought about our wedding night.

I'd pulled the pearl hairpin out of my hair and set the point against his chest. "Let's be clear." "I always settle the score.

If you ever go cold on me, if you ever cheat, I'll go find myself a whole line of pretty young men." "And you'd better hide her well.

Because if I find her, I won't let her off either." He laughed low against my mouth and kissed me. "I'm never going to give my wife the chance." Now he sat in the back with her, the two of them wrapped up in each other.

I watched the city slide past the window. I didn't catch what they were saying. I didn't look back at him once. The courthouse wasn't busy. One couple ahead of us.

The wife held out her arm and pointed at the bruises. "He does this to me and I still have to sit here for six months?" The clerk kept his voice level. "Ma'am, without a documented medical exam or a police report, I can't waive the waiting period—" Then they saw Roman, and everyone behind that counter stood up.

Money really does solve things. Look at that. Even divorce has a VIP lane. Nobody said a word about it.

We were through in minutes. "Happy now?" He tossed the stamped decree into my lap. He knocked my shoulder on his way past, put an arm around her, and drove off. "That's her.

She's been sleeping around all over town. I've hated her since the first headline.

Finally over." "Married that kind of money and still couldn't behave." "I think she's crying." "She should be.

A life like that, and she torched it herself." Everyone said I had no shame. One man after another. And still clinging to the title of Mrs. Vance like my life depended on it.

The truth is, I'd wanted out for a long time.

The first time I reached into his suit pocket after a business dinner and pulled out an unopened condom, I broke everything in the house.

He didn't even read the papers I put in front of him. He burned them. Then he cleaned the cuts on my hands and wrapped them, taking his time.

When he finally spoke, he sounded amused. Chapter 3 "I didn't bring her in front of you.

What are you so angry about?" "Your grandmother isn't doing so well these days." After a while he stopped bothering to smooth things over. He just went out and found men for me.

I stared at him. My face only made him laugh harder. He clapped one of them on the shoulder like he was handing off a package. "Relax. They're clean." "Take good care of Mrs. Vance.

If she isn't satisfied, that's on you." We'd been divorced for one minute and it was already the top of the trending list. [Finally.

Honestly, some people just aren't built for the good life.

Lakefront mansion, threehundreddollar glasses of wine, and she still can't stop causing scenes.] [First woman I've ever seen whose husband takes a mistress so she goes out and collects her own.

That's a scary level of payback.] [Who knows what she's carrying around by now lol] The comment section was one long celebration. Read enough of it and it stops landing. Almost.

I was about to swipe away when my thumb caught a video Marissa had sent me two days earlier. Roman was stretched out on the couch at the head of the room, a girl in his lap.

His temple was still unbroken. Filmed before today, then.

She was working him. "Why won't you divorce her?" "I don't want to spend my whole life as the woman nobody's allowed to see." He pulled her back down, smiling. "Okay. Okay.

I'll explain it to you. Would that help?" "Wren grew up an orphan. The only person she cares about is her grandmother. She isn't unreasonable.

Stay out of her way and she'll never come at you." "Worst case, she hits me. She won't touch you." "Wren's oldfashioned. She'd never go for an open marriage." "And I know her.

She's very clear about who she hates.

It won't be you." Then he held up his phone like a man presenting evidence. "Look." Screenshots of every conversation I'd had with every one of them.

Number one through number thirtysix. All of it. Every line. So he had known. The whole time. He knew I couldn't actually do what he did. I wasn't that person.

I had never been that person. Why did marriage turn me into her? Why did the sight of a man sent to my bed send me straight to the bathroom to throw up?

Why couldn't I do what Roman did, and just accept that a marriage goes bad the way milk does? It took me years to work it out. Because I love one person at a time.

Because I have never been able to pull sex loose from love. I crouched down right there on the floor. Tear after tear hit the decree, the stamp still fresh on it.

The Wren who said yes to that boy seven years ago never once pictured this. Never mind. It was done. I put a hand on the wall and pushed myself up. At least I had enough saved.

Enough to take Gran and go before the next infusion came due. My phone lit up. [Wren, I almost forgot.

Let me give you one more divorce present.] She must have known I wouldn't answer, because she started a video call instead.

Roman's crew, midconversation. "Boss, so you and Wren—" Roman lifted his eyes, slow. Somebody elbowed the guy, and he coursecorrected fast. "You and Mrs.

Vance really went through with it?" Roman didn't answer for a long moment. Then one corner of his mouth moved. "It won't stick." The rest of them jumped on it. "Of course not.

Boss has all of it handled." "Besides, where would she even go without him?" The color drained out of Marissa's face.

She kept smiling anyway. "What does that mean?" Chapter 4 "Miss Cole, you don't know? That drug's habitforming. Once she's on it, she's on it for life." "It comes in from overseas.

Not FDAapproved, not even close. The only reason she gets it at all is the boss's private channel.

Without him, the old lady doesn't last long." Marissa blinked. "Does Wren know?" "Of course she doesn't." The whole room laughed.

The cold came up through me all at once, and my ears started to ring. Every one of them knew where my soft spot was. All of them knew it was Gran.

I grew up an orphan, but nobody ever handed me less love than the other kids got. The pretty backpacks, the pretty dresses. Gran stitched every one of them by hand.

Everything I swallowed from Roman over the years, I swallowed because he could buy Gran the best care money could reach.

I wiped my face and turned the car around toward the Summit, the private club under his name.

I needed a straight answer. "Ma'am, we can't let you in without a reservation." "Move." Something in my face made them step back. "Is that Mrs. Vance?" "I think so.

Didn't she just get divorced?" "This morning. It's everywhere. You didn't see?" "Probably regretting it already. Pushed her luck too far." "Wren?

I'm over here." "What did that video mean?" She leaned close to my ear, smiling. "Guess." I was strung so tight it hurt. I kept my voice flat anyway. "Fine. I won't ask you.

Where's Roman?" "You already hit Ro. Are you going to hit me too?" I didn't understand the question. I understood it about two seconds later.

She grabbed my hand and swung it into her own face. And there he was. The man I'd come for. While I was still staring, fingers closed around my wrist.

He threw my arm off without holding back an ounce. "Mrs. Vance. There's a limit to this." I stumbled.

The corner of a table caught me in the lower back, and the pain went through me like a nail. So that was the truth. Every time we'd fought, he'd been holding back.

He made a small sound, almost a laugh. "Oh. Not anymore, though." "What is it? Regretting it already?" His crew came out at the noise, all of them talking at once. "Mrs.

Vance, why make it ugly?" Before I could get my question out, the hospital called. "Is this Ms. Ashby?" I sniffed hard and got my voice under control. "Yes.

What is it?" "Your grandmother has a spontaneous pneumothorax. We're taking her in now.

You need to come." "She was fine yesterday—" My chest pulled tight. "I'm on my way." A hand locked around my wrist. "Something happened to my grandmother!" He looked down at me, and there was nothing in his face at all. "That excuse doesn't work on me." "Apologize." I had no time to fight him.

I just needed out of that room