DISCARDED WIFE, MY HUSBAND'S WORST NIGHTMARE

Chapter 1

LARA'S POV

I had been awake since six that morning.

I vacuumed the living room twice, changed the flowers in the hallway vase three times, and spent forty minutes deciding between two identical white candles. By five in the afternoon the dining table looked exactly the way I had pictured it. White linen, our good plates, the wine Andre had been saving for something worth celebrating. I stood at the end of the table and looked at it for a moment. Ten years. That felt worth it.

I went upstairs and changed into the blue dress he once told me was his favourite. I checked my reflection in the bathroom mirror, smoothed my hair, and decided I looked fine. Not nervous. I had no reason to be nervous. This was my home and tonight was our anniversary and I had cooked his favourite meal and everything was ready.

I heard the front door open at six forty-five.

I came down the stairs smiling. Andre was standing in the entrance hall with his jacket open and his tie loosened, the way he always looked when he came home from a long day. I started to say something and then stopped.

There was a woman standing behind him.

The woman was carrying a baby.

I stood on the bottom stair and looked at them. The woman was tall, with dark hair pulled back and a coat that probably cost more than most people's monthly salary. The baby was wrapped in a blue blanket and she was holding him against her shoulder with the easy confidence of someone who had been doing it for months. Andre stepped to the side, not in front of the woman, but beside her. Like they had arrived together. Like this was planned.

"Happy anniversary," Andre said.

I looked at him. I looked at the woman. I looked at the baby. "What is this?" I asked.

"This is Tasha," Andre said. He walked past me toward the kitchen, picked up the wine bottle from the counter, and examined the label. "And that's Dylan. My son."

Tasha smiled at me from the doorway. It was a patient smile, the kind someone uses when they already know how a conversation is going to end.

"Your son," I said.

"I've been meaning to tell you," Andre said. He found the corkscrew in the drawer. "There never seemed to be a good moment."

I came down the last stair and walked toward him. My hands were shaking and I pushed them into the fabric of my dress so he wouldn't see. "Ten years," I said. "There wasn't one good moment in ten years to tell me you had a child with someone else."

"He's four months old," Andre said.

Tasha walked into the dining room without being invited. She set the baby carefully in the crook of one arm and reached up to touch the flowers on the table with her free hand. "This is lovely," she said. She was