I Saw Two Faces In My Husband’s Heart Chapter 09
Samantha called me the following afternoon, her voice buzzing with the latest corporate gossip from the firm.
“Christian told me Ethan called Amber into the main boardroom this morning,” she said, practically vibrating through the speaker. “The doors were wide open, right in front of the entire administrative floor.”
“And?” I asked, keeping my hands steady on my drafting table.
“He terminated her contract on the spot. Told her to have her desk cleared and her credentials revoked before noon.”
“I see.”
“Apparently, Amber completely lost it. Started screaming at him in front of the partners, asking what their weekend getaway meant, what the dinners meant. She even claimed he promised to introduce her to his family.”
“What did Ethan do?”
“He didn’t even look up from his files. Just told security to escort her from the premises if she wasn’t out in ten minutes. Christian said the entire floor was in absolute shock.”
“That is an internal HR matter for Vance Tech,” I replied calmly.
“Chris… you truly feel absolutely nothing about this?”
“His hiring decisions have nothing to do with me, Sam. She was his employee, not mine.”
The next day, he appeared at my studio entrance. He walked into my private office and placed a formal document on my desk. It was a severance agreement, bearing Amber’s signature and the firm’s official corporate seal.
He stood before me, his eyes wide and searching, like a child waiting for praise after completing a chore.
“I terminated her contract, Chris. She won’t ever be a part of our lives again.”
I laid my pencil down and looked up at him. “And?”
The words he had practiced seemed to vanish from his tongue. “I… I thought this would make you happy.”
“Ethan, the issue was never her.”
“I know the issue is me!” he said, his voice rising in desperation. “I know I ruined everything. But I can fix it. You can have full access to my phone, my accounts, my firm calendar — whatever you need.”
“Do you know exactly when I stopped seeing myself in your heart, Ethan?” I asked, my voice cutting through his panic. “It wasn’t the first time you lied about an emergency. It was the day you remembered exactly how much sugar she takes in her coffee, while completely forgetting that I don’t drink coffee at all. It was the night you took her to our anniversary spot and let her sit in the exact booth you reserved for me.”
His mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out.
“You think terminating her contract is a massive sacrifice,” I continued quietly. “You’re pinning all the blame on her actions, believing that removing her from the equation magically resets our history. But I never asked you to fire anyone, Ethan. I needed a husband whose heart had room for only one person. Can you honestly look at me and tell me you’re capable of that?”
He remained entirely silent.
“You aren’t,” I said. “You don’t even know the exact moment your affection shifted, but I watched it happen in real-time. I watched your heart go from being entirely mine, to a split vision, to completely filled with her reflection. Twenty-one years of history didn’t even last three months against a new face.”
I stood up and opened the heavy glass door of my office. “Please leave, Ethan. The statutory period ends this week, and the decree will finalize automatically. We are entirely done.”
He walked toward the exit, pausing at the threshold to look back, but I had already returned to my desk, picking up my drafting charcoal.
“You always said you wanted our marriage to feel less stifling, Ethan,” I murmured without looking up. “Go enjoy your freedom.”
The door clicked shut.
My phone buzzed with an updated text from Samantha: Christian just told me Amber smashed the glass awards in the lobby on her way out. She screamed that he was going to burn in hell before security hauled her to the curb.
I typed a brief reply: [Not my concern.]
I focused on my sketches for a few minutes, then hesitated before typing one more question: What happened after that?
Samantha sent a wry emoji: The security team cleared the pavement. Ethan didn’t move an inch. Just sat in his office staring at the broken glass on the floor for hours. Didn’t say a single word to anyone.
The next day, he posted a single image on his private feed — a stark photograph of shattered glass on a polished floor, captioned with nothing but a single period. One of his fraternity brothers commented, [You alright, man?] He never responded.
Samantha forwarded the screenshot with a note: Did you see this?
[Yes,] I replied.
[Any thoughts?]
[He broke the glass himself. He has no one else to blame for the mess.]