Chapter 3 - The Coward’s Defense
Landon reached for Sloane's elbow, but she violently jerked away from his touch, her eyes flashing with humiliation.
"Don't you dare touch me!" Sloane hissed, tears of mortification spilling over her mascara.
"Sloane, wait, let me explain," Landon begged, caught between the young mistress he had seduced and the wife he had betrayed.
"You lied to me," Sloane choked out, backing away toward the lobby doors. "You told me she was living in another state with her family!"
She spun on her designer heels and fled into the resort's grand rotunda, leaving Landon standing alone in the center of the terrace.
Landon turned back toward me, the desperation in his eyes curdling into a desperate, cornered fury.
"Are you happy now, Harper?" he snarled beneath his breath, taking a menacing step toward me.
"You flew all the way to Arizona just to orchestrate a public scene? To humiliate me in front of my colleagues?"
"You humiliated yourself the second you used our joint checking account to pay the deposit on that room, Landon," I replied.
"I didn't make you take off your wedding ring. I didn't make you hold her hand by candlelight."
"It was just dinner! Nothing happened between us!" he shouted, throwing his hands into the warm night air.
"Do not lie to me anymore," I said, stepping right up to his chest, refusing to yield an inch of ground.
"I saw the way you looked at her. You gave her the tenderness, the smiles, and the respect that you starved me of for two solid years."
"You were always so needy, Harper!" Landon shot back, the mask finally slipping completely off his ugly soul.
"You wanted constant attention, you complained about my hours, you made me feel suffocated every time I walked into the house!"
Brit moved to intervene, but I held up a hand to stop her.
Hearing his cruelty didn't break me; it liberated me from the toxic guilt he had planted in my mind for months.
"I wasn't needy, Landon," I whispered, the words dropping like heavy stones into the silence. "I was lonely."
"And you made me feel crazy for noticing that you had abandoned our marriage long before you booked this trip."
Landon sneered, crossing his arms over his chest in a desperate attempt to reclaim control.
"Fine. You made your point. We’ll fly home tomorrow morning and talk about this like adults."
"There is no home for you to fly back to, Landon," I stated, pulling a clean white envelope from my own purse.
I pressed it firmly against his chest until his fingers instinctively closed around the paper.
"What is this?" he asked, his voice cracking with sudden dread.
"Emergency petition for legal separation and exclusive occupancy of the marital residence," I said smoothly.
"Signed by a family court judge in Denver yesterday afternoon at four o'clock."
May you like
"You can't do this!" Landon stammered, holding the legal documents like they were burning his skin.
"I already did," I replied, turning my back on him and taking Keeley's arm. "Enjoy your weekend in Scottsdale."
