The Cheater's Ruin

"She is your wife!" My husband got amnesia after a car crash. I dragged his kept woman right to his hospital bed. He narrowed his eyes at the wedding ring on my finger.

I yanked it off and shoved it onto the woman's hand. "I am the manipulative schemer. I am the homewrecker." The hospital room went dead silent. "Natalie.

Do you think I have brain damage, or am I just stupid?" I dropped my gaze and muttered, "Both, honestly." He laced his fingers through mine.

The harshness drained from his eyes. "Nat, quit joking. I lost my memory. I did not lose my mind." My throat tightened. He had not called me that in over a year. "Ashton.

How old are you right now?" "Twentyone." A laugh punched its way out of my throat. He and Maya stared at me like I was insane. Chapter 1 God was playing a sick joke on me.

My cheating husband of a year had just reverted to the exact age he loved me the most. Ashton and I fell in love in college. We got married right after graduation.

We came from the same social circle. It was a strategic merger between two prominent families. Seven years of marriage. Maybe he got sick of Michelinstar dining.

He developed a taste for cheap diner food instead. He hid it well. Call logs, texts, iMessage. Spotless. But I knew. I had known for a long time.

The sudden laughter during boring meetings. The cute little pastries he brought home after work. The random photos of the sky filling up his camera roll.

The endless pet videos on his TikTok. And the day he handed me an exact replica of a necklace I already owned. I smiled and asked why he bought another one.

He said my old one was looking worn out. He said I deserved a fresh reward. I lied to him. I never owned that necklace in the first place. My chest went hollow.

Nine months into their affair, Maya came looking for me. She asked to meet at the exact dessert shop where they had their first date. She shoved her phone across the table.

Photos of their trips. Every meal they shared. The puppy they adopted together. Her thumb swiped toward their NSFW content.

I clamped my hand over hers and flipped the phone face down on the table. "Ms. Hayes. What exactly do you want from me?" She gripped my fingers.

Her eyes pooled with desperate tears. She told me she and Ashton were truly in love. She begged me to step aside. She said he did not love me anymore.

Just in case I did not believe her, she hit play on an audio recording. Ashton's voice filtered through the speaker. Raspy. Low. Unmistakable pillow talk.

I did not listen to the rest. My upbringing demanded absolute composure. "Ms. Hayes. Mr. Kensington and I are not a normal married couple.

If he initiates a divorce, I will accept it." I picked up my boba tea and took a slow sip. I looked completely unbothered. Under the table, cold sweat coated my palms.

The Vance family and the Kensington family were tied too deeply. If one thrived, the other flourished. If one burned, both went down in flames.

That was why he only dared to screw around in the dark. And that was why I kept my mouth shut about his affair. Chapter 2 We were the model couple in high society.

He closed the business deals. I charmed the highsociety wives. Family scandals had to be swallowed whole and kept in the dark.

But right now, my dear husband was throwing a massive fit. If I did not wrap this up, I would never make it to the office on time.

The air in the hospital room turned thick and suffocating. Maya crouched by the bed. She sobbed quietly as she tried to piece together the shattered remains of her phone.

She had just showed Ashton their couple photos. Their weddingstyle portraits. Ashton had lost his mind and smashed her phone against the wall. He still refused to believe it.

I leaned against the window, letting the breeze hit my face. I turned around. His eyes were rimmed with red. He stared fixedly at me. "Ashton. Maya is not lying.

She really is the love of your life." "Impossible, Nat. We just got married. Yesterday, we said our vows in the church.

Just a second ago, you were in my arms, talking about our future baby." A sharp sting of absurdity hit me. "Ashton, look closely. I am twentynine now, not twentyone.

You lost your memory. You did not fall into a scifi timetravel novel." "You will figure it out when you recover.

Until we discuss the divorce, do not contact me." I grabbed my purse and walked out. Maya chased after me.

She dropped to her knees right in front of me, tears streaming down her face. She sobbed, claiming Ashton only crashed his car because he was rushing back to divorce me.

She begged me not to get in her way, not to stop her from helping him regain his memories. I agreed. I wanted this divorce even faster than she did.

But I had not even been home for a day. A phone call interrupted someone's good time. I had to coax him for a long time before he finally handed the phone back to me.

The moment the call connected, Ashton's muffled crying poured through the speaker. He swore he did not love Maya at all. He said he hated sweets and despised dogs.

I told him to open his own camera roll. I thought it might jog his memory. He claimed it was spotless. Toward the end, he even accused me of hiring an actress to test his loyalty.

My patience snapped. The man pressed up behind me lost his patience, too. He guided my hand to a burning hot place, his harsh breathing hot against my ear. My mind clouded over.

He snatched the phone from my grip, powered it off, and tossed it onto the rug. The next morning, I was late again. I pushed open my office door.

Ashton sat at my desk, his jaw covered in dark stubble. He demanded to know why I had not come home last night. He said he asked around. Everyone told him our marriage was perfect.

They said we were the perfect power couple, the envy of everyone. His parents even called to invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner.

I rubbed my temples and let out a long breath. "Ashton. That was all an act. How did you manage to fool yourself?" He still refused to believe me. Then, his gaze dropped to my neck.

His pupils shrank to pinpricks. "Natalie. You cheated on me, did not you! That is why you hired someone to lie to me.

You are trying to pin the blame on me!" My hand flew to my neck on instinct. "Did not you just say we got married yesterday?

Maybe you left these marks then." Ashton shot up from the chair. The heavy desk shuddered under his weight. The rims of his eyes burned red.

Chapter 3 "The doctor said I was in a coma for a week." Ashton's voice shook. "Your neck is covered in marks. Do you think I am an idiot?" I dropped my purse and sank into the sofa.

Relaxed. "Maybe it is an allergic reaction.

Those photos of you and Maya are the real insult to human intelligence." Maya burst through the office door before I even finished my sentence. Her hair was a tangled mess.

She clutched a stack of papers to her chest. "Ash, the photos are not fake. Look at this authentication report…" Ashton snatched the papers from her grip.

He ripped them into shreds. He pointed a finger right in her face and unleashed a string of curses.

The woman he loved more than anything, and he was calling her the filthiest names imaginable. He ground her into the dirt. Maya snapped.

She started screaming in the middle of my office. I had to keep the company's image clean. I called security to drag her out.

I told the staff she suffered a mental breakdown and placed her on an indefinite leave of absence. Ashton grabbed my wrist. He refused to let go.

As if suddenly remembering something, he dragged me out to his car. He parked in front of the historic chapel. Visitors milled around the grounds.

He pulled me all the way to the love lock bridge. He searched through the metal and finally found our old, rusted engraved padlock.

A huge, victorious grin stretched across his face. But I did not have amnesia. Why was he showing this to me? People always said God protects true love and curses affairs.

It actually made perfect sense. "Ashton," I said smoothly. "Maybe you should look a little higher up. You might find a surprise.

Like that padlock at the very top of the bridge." His smile froze. I gave him a careless, easy grin. I told him he did not even need to look that high.

If he just checked the metal links right next to ours, he would probably find his and Maya's padlock.

Just last month, he spent a massive fortune buying up spots on this bridge just to make his kept woman happy. He practically covered the entire thing. A gust of wind swept past us.

It blew my hair back and flipped over a brandnew, shiny padlock. The engraving caught the light. Ash and May. Together for a lifetime. Look at that.

A lifetime was not very long at all. The color drained from Ashton's face. He lost his mind.

He grabbed the padlocks and started tearing them off the bridge, ripping the metal with his bare hands. He still refused to accept reality.

I really wondered why he could not just admit our marriage was over. He kept saying he loved me too much. He claimed he could never cheat.

He even said he must have been bodysnatched, just like the plot of those scifi timetravel novels. I shook my head. "No.

You did not change overnight." When Maya first joined the company, she messed up the data constantly. Ashton was ruthless.

He kept strict professional boundaries and even threatened to fire her. I was the one who felt sorry for her.

She came from a poor background, fresh out of college with zero experience. I decided to give her a chance and transferred her to a different department.

She actually lived up to my expectations. She worked hard and climbed the ranks. Then came that one business dinner. A client gave Maya a hard time.

Ashton stepped in, defended her, and ended up offending the client. He came home that night and bragged to me about it.

He waited for my praise, strutting around like a peacock showing off its feathers. I thought protecting employees was just a basic requirement for a boss.

I gave him a generic compliment and brushed it off. After that, they started going on business trips together. Chapter 4 Every time he traveled, Ashton used to send me photos.

He reported his whereabouts. Whenever he saw something interesting, I was always the first to know. Once, on a phone call, I heard Maya in the background.

She praised him for being a wifeobsessed maniac. She claimed she wanted a boyfriend just like him. Ashton's tone dropped to ice instantly. He warned her to watch her boundaries.

That was what I admired about him in the beginning. He understood boundaries. He knew when to draw the line. He was a top student. His college professor adored him.

Whenever a freshman girl tried to flirt, he shut it down with brutal efficiency. My name was always on his lips. He mentioned me in his speeches.

He brought me up during onstage addresses. I asked him why once. He said he wanted the whole world to know he loved me.

During his craziest phase, he literally carved my name into his wrist. When did he stop sharing his life with me? It must have been the day Maya found a freezing puppy.

She stuffed the shivering dog into her bag and brought it into his car. The puppy let out a tiny, milky bark. Maya barked right back at it. Ashton did not reprimand her.

Instead, her ridiculous act cracked him up. He laughed so hard when he recounted the story to me that night. Or maybe it was the day his car broke down halfway through a trip.

Ashton was pacing, furious. She crouched by the road, telling him jokes, cheerfully insisting it was not a big deal. I drove out to pick them up.

I found them huddled under an awning. Ashton's suit jacket was draped over Maya's shoulders. He was shivering in a soaked white buttondown. We fought about it.

He called me unreasonable. The breakdown was not his fault, and Maya's blouse was wet. He claimed he was just protecting a girl. But I never cared about the jacket.

I cared about how close their shoulders were pressed together. I cared about the way the wind tangled the hems of their clothes into one.

Under that awning, the woman rambled about something nonsensical. The man stared down at her. A soft, indulgent smile touched his lips. I knew that exact smile.

He could not fool me. Like a masochist, I watched them. I analyzed their every single move. Until the night a business dinner went south.

I watched Maya drag a frustrated Ashton into a dessert shop. I walked in right after them. I sat in the booth directly behind theirs. I ordered the exact same dessert.

I took one bite and put my fork down. Ashton did the exact same thing. Relief loosened my chest.

But then, he walked up to the counter and returned carrying a tiny, wrapped cake box. He hummed under his breath. His steps were lighter than I had ever seen.

My lungs stopped working. My husband was falling in love. I never picked another fight with him. I sat down and audited every single asset under my name.

I waited for him to hand me the divorce papers. I refused to accept that the man I loved for ten years was a coward who dared to cheat but lacked the spine to admit it.

Back when we first got together, I told him the rules. If he ever wanted out, if he ever fell for someone else, he just had to say the word. We would part ways cleanly.

But I waited a full year. They carried on their affair for twelve months. He never confessed a thing. I felt like an absolute failure.

The loud jeers of a crowd ripped me back to the present. A ring of visitors had formed around the love lock bridge.

They held up their phones, recording Ashton acting like a lunatic. And recording me, standing right beside him.

Chapter 5 Even with all the evidence shoved right in his face, he still refused to believe it. I reached out to pull him up. His phone rang. A custom ringtone.

The special one he set exclusively for his little kept woman. He did not answer. He did not even look at the screen.

His thumb swiped across the glass, deleting and blocking her number in one fluid motion. He stood up and smiled at me. He begged me to come home with him for Thanksgiving dinner.

There was nothing to celebrate. But I went anyway, just to drive the final nail into the coffin. We had an uninvited guest at the dinner table. Gabriel Montgomery.

Ashton's best friend. Gabriel walked toward us with a lazy smirk. He loved to mock me, just like always. "Your taste in men is garbage." Ashton slapped his hand away.

He warned Gabriel not to disrespect me. The second I sat down, Charles shot me a cold, sharp glare. "Seven years of marriage, and still no kids.

Have you even been tested?" Barbara glanced at him awkwardly, signaling him to drop it. Ashton snapped right back. "If you love kids so much, go be a manny.

I hear they pay well." Before, he would have just snapped a picture of the food and buried his face in his phone, texting god knows who.

Actually, right after we got married, he used to defend me. He once flipped a whole dining table over it.

His dad finally backed down, and that was the only reason we ever came back for the holidays. After that stunt, they stopped pushing the baby issue for a long time.

Then, a year ago, it started again. They tested Ashton's reaction. When he did nothing, they doubled down. It made perfect sense that I was not pregnant.

Right after our wedding, my parents died in an accident. I was drowning in the Vance Group's messy aftermath, working myself to the bone.

By the time I finally dragged the company out of the mud and expanded it, Ashton was constantly away on business trips. And then I found out about his affair.

A baby was completely off the table. The tension at the dinner table was thick enough to choke on.

Gabriel broke the dead air with a laugh. "Charlie, getting pregnant takes timing, luck, and fully functional equipment.

Maybe someone here is just firing blanks." He lifted his wine glass. His dark eyes drifted lazily toward me. "Enough!

I do not even want a kid!" A chair screeched against the floorboards. Ashton shot up. He grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the door. Tears streamed down his face as we walked.

He cursed himself, calling himself a bastard for not protecting me. The sharp crash of shattering porcelain echoed from the dining room. My phone started ringing in my pocket.

Over and over. I did not answer. Finally, he sent a text. [Do not bother coming back if you do not come home right now.] It sounded fierce.

But I knew he was crying. [Are you going to forgive him?] [Are you throwing me away?] I was about to type a reply when Ashton snatched the phone right out of my hand.

He did not even look at the screen before hitting the power button. I looked up at him and smiled. "Done pretending?" He dropped to his knees. He begged for my forgiveness