“Let’s go outside. You can suck on a cancer stick and bring me up to speed about what crawled up your ass.” He stood up and snatched my cigarette pack from my desk.

“No, thank you.” I forgot to throw away the cigarettes when I got back home tonight, but they were definitely not on the menu for me in the foreseeable future.

“Nothing you want to say to me?” He scanned my face again, his jaw tense, his eyes dark and feral.

“No.” I reopened the book, this time in the right direction.

“Do you want me to come with you to the OB-GYN?”

My pulse jumped, hammering against my throat.

“Nice of you to offer months later, but the answer is still no. Can I be left alone, please? I think I outdid my duty as a trophy wife and a warm hole at night this week.”

He narrowed his eyes, taking a step back. My words hurt him—the man who was steel and metal. He turned around and dashed away before we exploded on one another.

I fell to my pillow and cried as soon as the door shut behind him, making up my mind.

Tomorrow, I was going to open the box and retrieve the very last note.

The one that would determine if Wolfe really was the love of my life.

I HELD THE NOTE CLOSE to my chest as I made my way out of the cafeteria, blazing right onto the lush, wet grass at the entrance. The first rain of autumn knocked softly on my face, making me blink as the world shifted in and out of focus.

The first rain of the season. A sign.

Most cities were the most romantic during springtime, but Chicago thrived in the fall. When the leaves were orange and yellow and the sky as gray as my husband’s eyes. The note was wet between my fingers. It was probably ruined, but I still clutched it with a death grip. I stood in the middle of the turf overlooking the road, under the open sky, and let the drops pound over my face and body.

Come rescue me, Wolfe.

I prayed, even despite my bitter knowledge and everything Kristen had told me, that he would fulfill the last note and be my knight in shining armor.

The love of your life will shelter you from the storm.

I inwardly begged, and pleaded, and sobbed.

Please, please, please shelter me.

I wanted a promise that he would not discard me after he was done with my father.

That despite hating my family—and for good reason—he loved me.

This morning, after I read the last note, I tucked it in my bra, just like I did the night of the masquerade. Smithy drove me to school. On our way there, rain started dancing across the windshield.

“Goddammit,” Smithy mumbled, flicking the wipers on.

“Don’t pick me up today.” It was the first and last order I gave Smithy.

“Huh?” He popped his gum, distracted. My EPAs shifted in their seats, exchanging looks.

“Wolfe is going to pick me up.”

“He’ll be in Springfield.”

“Change of plan. He’s staying in town.”

I was only half-lying. If Wolfe was the love of my life, he would be here.

But now I was standing in the rain with no one to turn to.

“Francesca! What the hell!” I heard a voice behind me. I turned around. Angelo was standing on the stairs of the front entrance, shielded by an umbrella, squinting at me. I wanted to shake my head, but I didn’t want to interfere with fate anymore.

Please, Angelo. No. Don’t come here.

“It’s raining!” he yelled.

“I know.” I stared at the cars whizzing by, waiting for my husband to somehow show up, out of the blue, and tell me that he wanted to give me a ride. Waiting for him to come and whisk me away. Praying he would shield me, not only from the storm outside, but the one inside me, too.

“Goddess, come here.”

Dropping my head, I tried to swallow the ball of tears in my throat.

“Francesca, it’s pouring. What the fuck?”

I heard Angelo’s feet slapping the concrete stairs as he made his way across the lawn, wanting to stop him, but knowing that I’d already messed with my destiny too much. Opening the notes when I shouldn’t have. Feeling things I shouldn’t feel for someone who was only after my family’s misery.

I felt Angelo’s embrace from behind me. It was all wrong and right. Comforting and distressing. Beautiful and ugly. And my brain kept screaming, no, no, no. He twisted me around. I was shivering in his arms, and he jerked me close, hugging me before bringing me to shelter within his chest. He somehow knew that my need for human warmth was stronger than the need for a roof over my head.

He cupped my cheeks, and I relented to his touch, knowing, without a shadow of a doubt now, that Wolfe had read the second note, about the chocolate, shortly after I moved into his house. And that he was also privy to the first note, as I’d told him, and ruined it for me, too.

Those notes didn’t count.

They never counted.

This was true. This was real. Angelo and me, under the open sky that was crying for all the time I’d spent trying to make my husband fall in love with me.

Angelo.

Maybe it was always Angelo.

“I’m pregnant,” I yelped into his chest. “And I want a divorce,” I added, not entirely sure that it was really what I wanted.

He shook his head, bringing his lips to my forehead. “I’ll be there for you. No matter what.”

“Your father hates me,” I moaned, the pain inside me cutting deep.

He saved me.

Angelo saved me.

Sheltered me from the storm.

“Who cares about my father? I love you.” He nuzzled his nose against mine. “I’ve loved you since the day you smiled at me—all braces—and I still wanted to kiss you.”

“Angelo…”

“You’re not a toy, Francesca. You’re not my leverage, or my pawn, or my arm candy. You’re the girl from the river. The kid who smiled at me with colorful braces. Just because your story had a few chapters where I wasn’t the main lead doesn’t make me any less the love of your life. And you’re mine. This is it. This is us.”

His lips crushed on mine, soft and firm. So determined I wanted to cry with both relief and heartbreak. Angelo was kissing me in front of the entire school. With Wolfe’s rings on my finger. Both engagement and wedding band. I knew, without even looking, that people took out their phones and recorded the entire thing. I knew, without a doubt, that my life had taken the sharpest turn of all. Yet I gave in to Angelo, knowing somehow that it needed to happen.

I was cheating on my husband.

Who wanted to ruin my family.

Who didn’t want our baby.

Who kept secrets from me.

I was cheating on my husband.

Who offered me everything he owned but his heart.

Who kissed me soft.

And fought me hard.

I was cheating on my husband.

After my father killed his family.

And there was no going back.

Our lips disconnected, and Angelo took my hand in his, tugging me back toward the school.

“Whatever it is, we’ll make it. You know that, right?”

“I know that.”

I turned my head around one last time to see if there was something I’d missed, and sure enough, there was.

While Wolfe wasn’t there, Kristen sure was, tucked inside a parked car, recording the whole thing.

I cheated on my husband, Wolfe Keaton.

The end.

She’s been fucking him the whole time.

They’re in a hotel in Buffalo Grove now, FYI. Might wanna make sure she takes a shower before you dip into it tonight.

I hope you know what it looks like to the media, Senator Keaton. You’re officially the joke of the state.

I’d read Kristen’s text messages until my eyes nearly bled. They were accompanied by pictures. Or rather, evidence. Evidence I couldn’t overlook since Twitter and Instagram burst with the same images from a hundred different angles of my wife, Mrs. Francesca Keaton, kissing her former flame and fellow student, Angelo Bandini, in the rain. It was like a fucked-up scene from The Notebook. The way he held her. The way she submitted to him. Kissed him back. Fiercely.

I couldn’t unglue my eyes even if I wanted to. And, quite frankly, I didn’t want to.

This is what you get for putting your trust in another human being, idiot.

In a fucking Rossi, no less.

I ignored Kristen’s message, knowing damn well that she was not at the school by chance. She wanted me to see those pictures. Wanted me to know that Francesca had an affair with Angelo. Throughout our entire marriage, he’d been a third wheel. A thorn in my side. Now, finally, Francesca made a proactive choice.

She kissed him in front of the world.

She. Chose. Him.

I had to hand it to my young, spitfire wife. She almost managed to crack me completely. It was that sweet pussy and smart mouth. A lethal combination if I ever met one. But this was the wake-up call that I’d needed.

I left the store I was standing in, making my way out of it and toward my car, on my way home. I’d given up my driver for my wife. I’d given up a lot for my wife.

Which reminded me—where on earth was fucking Smithy?

“Hey. Hi. Hey,” Smithy greeted when I called him as I got into my car. My EPAs were at my side. Protocol dictated they couldn’t drive for me. Shame. I was about to hurl all of us off the Michigan Avenue Bridge.

“Where the fuck were you this afternoon?” I demanded. By his way of answering, I knew he’d already seen the pictures on Twitter. Jesus Christ, who the hell hadn’t at this point?

“She said you were going to pick her up. That you didn’t fly out to Springfield today. And I didn’t see your car in the garage in the morning, so I figured it was true.”

It was. I had two meetings downtown today. And, strangely, I was going to surprise Francesca at her school. I ran late because my second appointment—the one in which I purchased a Yamaha C-7 Grand Piano for my unhappy wife—ran late. It was supposed to be a surprise. Of course, my lovely wife beat me to it this round.

My phone buzzed in my hand. For a second, I thought it’d be Francesca, calling to tell me that it wasn’t what it looked like. I glanced at the caller ID. No. It was just Preston Bishop, eager for some blood sport.