His Vengeful Tradwife

2. Tallulah

CHAPTER 2

Tallulah

I t was a DM that started it all.

Girl to girl, I think you ought to know what your husband is doing

Actually, 'girl to girl,' I absolutely did not, but I clicked the attachment anyway.

It looked like it had been taken with a camera phone, and in it was a blurry image of my tall, gorgeous husband Maverick Laurent bending down to kiss his bitchy, sour-faced, pain-in-the-ass coworker Amanda Miller.

It felt like I had been stabbed with a knife, first only a pinch of pain, then the agony curling like tendrils around my heart and squeezing it in a vice grip.

There was more, too.

More pictures of them walking up to the office looking way closer than two platonic coworkers should. One picture from my helpful anonymous friend showing Maverick and Amanda just as the elevator closed, his big hand on her tight little ass, her arms around his neck.

My informant was obviously his legal firm's secretary, who had never liked Amanda.

So that's what 10 years together meant, did it?

I felt cold and frozen, numbly going through the motions with my pot roast dinner, greeting Maverick after work, giving the kids a bath and putting them to bed.

After he was asleep I got into his phone and checked it. Like a good little cheater, he had deleted all his text threads, but one little check into his Recently Deleted folder found a regular treasure trove of pictures of Amanda. She certainly had been busy, hadn't she? Naked pictures in almost every pose and configuration, with my husband presumably slobbering over all of them.

Then I checked his Snapchat account. The clever boy obviously was expecting them to be deleted, but it hadn't been quite long enough, and I saw plenty.

He didn't love me anymore.

He and Amanda had been secretly fucking for months .

And not just fucking.

He loved her. He wanted to be with her.

Amanda clearly thought of me as some air head bimbo, but Maverick? He didn't seem to think of me at all except as the mother of his children and a deadweight. According to him, we had nothing in common anymore.

I put the phone carefully back down on his bedside table as he slept beside me, one big arm spread over the pillow, locks of thick dark hair falling in his face. He even looked gorgeous despite the huge, rattling chainsaw snores. Soon they’d be some other woman’s problem.

I got up and went into the shower. Even though it was late at night, I ran the shower as loudly as I could and I sobbed until my skin was pink and wrinkled with the heat and water.

Then I got back in bed beside my sleeping husband.

The next morning, I prepared Eggs Benedict for us and strawberry waffles for the kids.

Some women believe that silly old wives' tale that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach Amanda had texted, adding as if there aren't a thousand places to get brunch within a two-block radius of the office, so who even needs cooking skills anymore, to which brilliant insight Maverick had given a thumbs-up.

I ate my Eggs Benedict as usual, even though it tasted like nothing and my stomach revolted against me.

After he left, I dropped my two oldest, 7-year-old Gabriel and 5-year-old Seraphina off at school, then 2-year-old Emmylou at my dad's where my stepmom watched him.

Then it was time to figure out what exactly was in my prenup.

My TikTok channel A Bit of Ginger had been starting to gain in popularity when we got married, and my lawyer and business manager had insisted on me getting a prenup. I had barely noticed what was in it, because it was impossible for me to imagine that I would ever split with the man who loved me with such intense, focused devotion.

Well, now the shit had hit the motherfucking fan. A Bit of Ginger was worth a cool $60 million and I wanted to be protected.

Who would have imagined that when I first started the channel, I had only been looking for an excuse to talk about one of my favorite things in the world, FOOD. But my cooking videos, where I prepared a variety of foods from all countries of the world in what I loved best to wear--1950s style clothes--were so popular I was soon inundated with sponsorship and paid creator offers.

It turned out that the prenup had been organized very strangely.

This seemed like the most sensible way to distribute the joint assets, my lawyer said defensively.

Joint assets, my ass! Maverick hadn't done shit to help me.

In the event of our split, he was entitled to all of my sponsorship money for 5 years, while I was entitled to all of my paid creator money for 5 years. After that period, he was no longer entitled to spousal support.

Well, fuck! I specialized in healthy and organic foods, and had lots of healthy and organic food boxes, grocery chains, and products sponsoring me, and they were very profitable.

I would have to think of a way around that. Because sponsorships were only profitable as long as the companies wanted to work with you. They wanted to work with me because my content was wholesome, bespoke, aspirational, and soothing.

I shelved that problem for the moment and went home to wait for Maverick to admit he wanted to divorce me.

When he got out of the car that night, I could tell immediately that he was planning on it. There was something about how his broad shoulders looked tight, how his jaw was set.

I watched him approach. My husband was eight years older than I was, 40 to my 32, and he was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen in my life--towering over most people, thick curly dark hair, a chiseled strong jawline, strong hands that were somehow effortlessly powerful but also deft.

Fingers that had been tangled in Amanda's hair, on Amanda's breasts, sunk deep in Amanda's wet pussy.

As I watched my husband approach, the man who had been my lover and my best friend for 10 years, I felt only a cold rage.

Maverick wanted a divorce?

Then I'd give him a fucking divorce.