My Surgeon Husband's Ultimate Betrayal

My husband, a renowned cardiac surgeon, was supposed to perform my mother's life-saving heart surgery. He bailed for a "major emergency." But I found out he was lying from his mistress's Instagram story.

He was holding another woman's mother's hand, being called a "hero" for her minor "health scare."

The betrayal escalated. He moved his mistress and her mother into our home-into the nursery we had been saving for our future child.

Then, in a crowded hospital hallway, he publicly disowned my mother, the woman who helped pay for his medical school, claiming he'd never seen her before in his life.

He called me cruel and dramatic, a man so addicted to applause he'd destroy his own family for it.

After he shattered the last piece of my heart, I walked up to him with the divorce papers I had just printed.

"Sign it," I said, my voice cold and final.

Chapter 1

Chloe Burns POV:

The text message that shattered my world arrived at 8:02 a.m., just as they were prepping my mother for the high-risk heart surgery my own husband was supposed to perform.

My phone buzzed against the cold vinyl of the waiting room chair. I expected it to be him, Jermey, a quick "Heading in now" or "See you in post-op."

Instead, the screen lit up with his name, but the message was cold, clinical.

Jermey: Major OR emergency. A multi-car pileup on the interstate. Unavoidable. Dr. Peterson will take over. Will update when I can.

I stared at the words, the hum of the hospital's ventilation system filling the sudden silence in my head. A multi-car pileup. It sounded catastrophic, official. It was the kind of emergency that made a hero out of a surgeon like my husband, Dr. Jermey Ferguson. The kind of event he lived for.

Of course. It was unavoidable.

I typed back a shaky "Okay. Be safe," my fingers feeling like clumsy sausages. My mother, Ann, was being wheeled into the operating room down the hall. Her life was on the line, and the man who had promised her, promised me, that he would be the one holding her heart in his hands, was gone.

But he was saving other lives. That' s what I had to tell myself. That' s the bargain I' d made when I married a brilliant, sought-after cardiac surgeon.

I tried to breathe, scrolling absently through my phone to distract from the knot of ice forming in my stomach. That's when I saw it. An Instagram story, posted just three minutes ago.

It was from Karina Farmer, a socialite whose mother, Fronia Harrington, had become Jermey' s pet project over the past year.

The picture was a close-up of Jermey' s hand, his familiar long fingers gently clasping an older, wrinkled one. His Rolex gleamed under what was clearly not the harsh glare of an ER. The background was plush, a silk pillow, not a sterile hospital gurney.

Karina's caption was written in a flowing, cursive