Foreclosing On My Cheating Husband

Chapter 1

The smell of beeswax and turpentine was the only luxury Sloane Kensington allowed herself these days.

In the dim light of their cramped apartment’s second bedroom—repurposed as her makeshift restoration studio—Sloane carefully rubbed a soft cloth over the intricate carvings of an 18th-century mahogany side table. She worked with the quiet, methodical patience of a woman who knew how to wait. For four years, she had played the role of the humble, penny-pinching wife, dutifully clipping coupons and scouring estate sales to fund Declan’s dream.

She checked the cheap plastic wall clock. Eight-thirty. Dinner was cold.

Sloane wiped her hands on her stained apron and stepped out of the studio. The living room was a disaster zone of Declan’s making. He treated their modest apartment as if he had a staff of invisible maids, leaving architectural models, fabric swatches, and drafting tubes scattered across every available surface.

Sloane knelt to gather a pile of scattered blueprints near the coffee table. As she reached for a sleek, black drafting tube that Declan had tossed carelessly onto the sofa, the plastic end-cap popped off.

A thick roll of glossy, high-bond paper slid out and hit the floor with a heavy thud.

Sloane frowned. Declan’s blueprints were always printed on standard wide-format matte. This paper was different. Heavy. Expensive.

She picked it up and unrolled it, her eyes scanning the bold, embossed letterhead at the top: *Crown Horizon Realty - Luxury Leasing Agreement.*

Sloane froze. Her breath hitched, just for a fraction of a second, before her innate stoicism locked her features into a mask of ice. She smoothed the document over the coffee table and read the fine print.

It was a residential lease for a penthouse suite in the Diamond District. The monthly rent was fifteen thousand dollars.

*Fifteen thousand dollars.*

Sloane’s eyes tracked down to the signatures at the bottom of the page. The primary tenant was listed as Vanessa Price. The financial guarantor—the man who had legally bound himself to cover the exorbitant deposit and the first year’s rent upfront—was Declan Cross.

Her husband.

Sloane did not cry. A lesser woman might have collapsed onto the cheap rug she had bought at a discount store, sobbing over the betrayal. Instead, Sloane felt a cold, calculated clarity settle over her mind.

Just yesterday, Declan had asked her to cancel her dental appointment because they needed to "tighten their belts" for the sake of his architectural firm, Cross Designs. For four years, she had worn thrifted sweaters and cooked bulk-bought rice so he could afford his bespoke suits and client dinners. All the while, he was funneling their life savings—*her* carefully curated, supposedly meager savings—into a penthouse for Vanessa Price, a flashy, status-obsessed interior designer he had recently hired.

The lock on the front door clicked.

Sloane swiftly rolled the lease back into a tight cylinder, shoved it into the black drafting tube, and snapped the cap back on. She tossed it onto the sofa exactly where she had