Part 1He Rotted Waiting For You

A phone call from my old neighbor in the States was the first thing to pierce the sun-drenched silence of my life abroad.

The voice on the other end was frantic, hushed, as if relaying state secrets. She told me there was a woman at my front door—very pregnant, very loud—claiming to be the "one true love" of my late husband.

I told the neighbor to hand her the phone.

I didn't raise my voice. I simply told her that I was Xavier’s ex-wife, and that before he passed, he’d made me promise that if his "soulmate" ever came looking for him, I should step aside and let them be together. I even told her where he kept the spare key: tucked inside the oversized ceramic planter by the porch.

On the phone, she played the part of the fragile, wronged heroine. She whimpered about how she never wanted to break up a family, but the baby changed everything. She bragged that "Xavy" told her she could come to him anytime. She even had the audacity to suggest I just wasn't young or vibrant enough to hold a man like him.

I felt a cold, sharp smile tugging at my lips. Of course, I would help them fulfill their "destiny."

After all, there was nothing left in that house except for Xavier’s corpse, which had been liquefying into the floorboards for three years.

On his deathbed, he’d begged me. He told me that if the woman he’d been keeping in the shadows ever came for him, I should give her the company, the house, and his ashes. He wanted to be hers in the end.

I’d cried beautiful, crocodile tears and promised him everything.

But the second he stopped breathing, I took the keys to the kingdom. I consolidated the company, packed my daughter’s bags, and moved to the Mediterranean to live the life he’d tried to deny me.

I didn't even bother calling the morgue. I wasn't about to waste a cent on a man who’d spent our marriage dreaming of someone else. I just locked the door and left him there.

Now, his "true love" had finally arrived. I figured it was only fair to let her have exactly what she asked for.

...

* * *

Back then, I couldn’t bring myself to pay the funeral costs or the transport fees for Xavier’s remains. So, I let him stay in that secluded suburban "love nest" he’d built for his mistress.

To the outside world, I played the grieving, noble widow. I told anyone who asked that I wasn't burying him yet because I was waiting—holding out hope that his "true heart’s desire" would show up to say one last goodbye.

I waited three years.

And for three years, Xavier rotted.

He sat in that house, the one he’d designed as a sanctuary for his infidelity, slowly turning into a biological hazard while I lived my best life.

I was currently in a villa overlooking the Amalfi Coast, my fingers tangled in the hair of a gorgeous Italian twenty-something named Luca, thinking Xavier would never actually get his reunion. Then the phone rang.

"My god, Katherine! Your husband’s little plaything is here. She’s at least six months along. What do I do?"

It was simple. She’d waited three years to come looking for him, which meant she was either out of money or out of options. She wanted the man? She could have him. I’m not a petty woman.

The neighbor handed over the phone. I listened to the girl’s pathetic attempts at intimidation, calmly gave her the location of the key, and hung up.

I pushed Luca’s perfect abs away with a newfound surge of adrenaline and opened the Nest security app on my laptop. I wasn't going to miss the season finale of this drama.

"Cara, what is it?" Luca pouted, trying to pull me back into the silk sheets.

"Not now, baby," I said, my eyes glued to the screen. "I have a front-row seat to a haunting."

The camera resolution was crystal clear. I could see Hailey’s smug expression, the way she patted her protruding stomach as if it were a trophy. She was wearing four-inch heels and swinging the house key around her finger like she’d just won the lottery.

She stood at the front door, her hand on the knob. Then, her face shifted.

Her hand flew to her mouth. She scrambled back toward the bushes, and I watched in high-definition as she retched.

The "trophy wife" facade crumbled instantly. At first, she probably thought it was just severe morning sickness. But every time she tried to step back onto the porch, her body revolted. The stench of three years of stagnant, unventilated decay is not something a human nose can rationalize.

She vomited five times before she finally stood there, pale and trembling.

"Xavier said he’d wait for me forever," she whispered to herself, loud enough for the porch mic to catch. "Why does it smell like something died in there?"

Then, she started gasping for air, clutching her stomach, brainwashing herself. "It’s just the pregnancy. It’s just me."

She was determined. Xavier had gone silent three years ago—no texts, no wire transfers, nothing. She assumed he’d been locked away by his "bitter old wife."

She’d spent those three years going through grueling rounds of IVF with the samples he’d frozen, desperate to produce an heir. Now, she was back to claim her throne. She believed that once Xavier saw his son, he’d hand over the Ronald empire on a silver platter.

Hailey gritted her teeth, the veins in her neck bulging as she fought the urge to vomit again. She turned the key.

The door swung open. She stepped into the foyer and called out in a sing-song, sugary voice:

"Xavy! Come see your girl and your little prince!"

The moment she opened her mouth to speak, the concentrated, pressurized wall of death from inside the house rushed into her lungs.