My Ex-Husband Wanted Me Back, I Was Already Engaged

"I came back for someone who has waited for me for many years."

The woman on the TV smiled into a crowd of cameras at JFK. Big sunglasses pushed into her dark hair. A camel coat. Red lips that looked soft even through a screen.

"Chloe! Chloe, over here! Is it a man?"

She laughed and tucked her chin. "Let's just say I owe him an answer."

I was curled on the couch in our Manhattan apartment, Adrian's gray wool cardigan bunched in my fists. I had pulled it out of the closet ten minutes ago, because his grandmother's house was always drafty, and he never remembered a sweater.

My name is Emma Carter. I have been Adrian Blackwood's wife for one year.

And I knew exactly who Chloe Bennett was.

The reporter's voice went bright and eager. "Fans have linked you to Adrian Blackwood in the past. Any comment?"

Chloe slid her sunglasses down. "No comment."

That meant yes.

I squeezed the cardigan until the buttons bit into my palm.

Six months ago, I had gone into Adrian's study looking for a pen. In the back of his desk drawer, I found an old phone. I thought it was work. I thought maybe it was a secret deal, something boring.

It wasn't.

*I miss you.*

*Please don't leave me again.*

*Say the word and I'll cancel the wedding.*

That last one was sent the night before he married me.

Chloe had answered once. *Congratulations. Be happy.*

After that, nothing.

I put the phone back exactly where I found it. I never asked him about it. What was I supposed to say? He had told me the truth before we signed anything.

"There's someone," he'd said, sitting across from me in a lawyer's office. "I won't lie to you about that."

"I know," I'd answered. "My parents' company has three months left. I won't lie to you about that either."

Two lawyers. Two copies of a prenup. Ten minutes at City Hall. No flowers, no first dance.

A temporary pass. That's what I was. And I'd just watched the expiration date walk out of an airport terminal.

The doorbell rang.

I jumped up, dropped the cardigan, and ran for the door. The hardwood was freezing under my bare feet.

Adrian stood in the hall in a black coat, phone in one hand, keys in the other. He opened his mouth to say something.

Then his eyes dropped to my feet.

His brows pulled together. "Emma."

"What?"

He didn't answer. He stepped inside, bent, and scooped me up like I weighed nothing at all.

"Adrian! Put me down!"

"No." He carried me straight back to the couch. "Where did your slippers run off to again?"

"They're... somewhere."

"Somewhere," he repeated flatly.

He set me down on the cushions. His arm stayed against mine for a second too long. He smelled like cedar and cold air, and under his coat his muscles were hard and warm.

My face went hot.

Stupid. I had just been sitting here thinking about how this was going to end. And one stupid gesture from him and I was blushing like a teenager.

He found the slippers under the coffee table and dropped them in front of me. "Wear them."

"Yes, sir."

The corner of his mouth moved. Almost.

Then he spotted my canvas tote by the door. It was bulging.

"What's in the bag?"

"Nothing."

"Emma."

"Gifts. For your grandmother."

He crouched and unzipped it before I could grab it. A family-size bag of salt-and-vinegar chips. A tin of butter cookies. Two bottles of strawberry milk tea.

He held up one bottle like it was evidence in a trial. "Her nutritionist said no added sugar."

"She likes it."

"She's eighty-one."

"That's exactly why she should get to like things!"

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he took both bottles of milk tea, set them on the counter, and put the chips and cookies back into the bag. He zipped it closed.

I let out a quiet breath.

"You saw that," he said.

"Saw what?"

"You were relieved." This time he actually smiled. Small, quick, gone. "Don't tell her I knew."

I picked the cardigan back up and held it out to him. "Then you take this. Her house is cold."

He took it without a word.

For one second, I let myself believe this could be enough.

---

Evelyn Blackwood's house sat at the end of a quiet street in Westchester, old brick and tall windows. Adrian was still on the phone in the car, so I went in first with the tote bag on my shoulder.

I hadn't even unbuttoned my coat when I heard a voice from the living room.

"Evelyn, Adrian told me once that you love lilies too."

I stopped in the doorway.

Chloe Bennett sat on the floral loveseat by the fire. My seat. The one Evelyn always patted and said, *Come sit by me, sweetheart.*

She wore a cream knit dress, her legs crossed at the ankle. A vase of fresh white lilies stood on the coffee table. Their sweet, heavy smell filled the room.

Evelyn sat in her armchair with her hands folded. She didn't look happy. She didn't look anything. She just looked at me.

"Emma," she said quietly.

Behind me, the front door opened. Footsteps. Then they stopped.

I turned.

Adrian stood frozen in the hallway, the cardigan over his arm. His fingers locked around his car keys so hard his knuckles turned white.

Chloe rose. She smiled at him the way she had smiled at the cameras, only softer. She held out her hand.

"You're back."

He didn't move.

Chloe's gaze slid to me. She tilted her head. Polite. Curious. "And this is?"

I waited.

*This is my wife.* Three words. He'd signed papers that said it. He'd said it at City Hall in front of a clerk who was eating a sandwich.

One second.

Two.

Three.

My heart sank lower with every one of them.

Then Adrian spoke, and his voice was ice.

"What are you doing here?"

Not *This is Emma.*

Not *This is my wife.*

Chloe didn't flinch. She lowered her hand and stepped closer to him, right past me, close enough that her perfume mixed with the lilies.

"I regret it," she said. "Everything. Leaving. Not answering." Her voice dropped. "What you said a year ago. Does it still count?"

*Say the word and I'll cancel the wedding.*

I knew what she meant. I had read it with my own eyes.

The tote bag slipped off my shoulder. The cookie tin hit the floor with a loud clatter. Nobody looked at it.

I was looking at Adrian.

His eyes were red at the edges.

His jaw worked like he was about to say something. I wanted him to. I begged him to, silently, the way I'd never begged him for anything.

*Tell her no.*

He didn't.

He just stood there, staring at her, and the silence stretched until it was its own answer.

Twenty minutes ago, he'd carried me across a cold floor because he didn't want my feet to freeze.

I could still feel the warmth of his arms.

And it had never felt more like a lie.

Behind me, Evelyn's voice cut through the room, sharp as a blade.

"Adrian. I asked you a question this morning. I think you'd better answer it now."