Chapter 1 - THE MOMENT MY HUSBAND LET ME DIE
“Save Natalie first,” my husband told the emergency room doctor. “My wife can wait.”
I heard every word.
I was lying six feet away on a hospital stretcher, my pale champagne dress cut open at the side, an oxygen mask pressed over my face. Pain tore through my ribs whenever I tried to breathe. A nurse held pressure against my abdomen while another shouted that my blood pressure was dropping.
Natalie stood behind Dominic with one hand wrapped around his arm.
She had a shallow cut near her hairline and bruising across one shoulder. She was frightened, but she was standing.
I was fighting to stay conscious.
The doctor stared at Dominic. “Mr. Vance, your wife may have internal bleeding. Miss Cross is stable.”
“Natalie has a heart condition.”
“She has no symptoms of cardiac distress.”
Dominic stepped closer, using the firm, impatient voice he usually saved for employees. “I know her medical history. Examine her first.”
The nurse beside me stopped moving for half a second.
Even she couldn’t believe him.
Dominic and I had been married for seven years. I had stood beside him when his Beverly Hills development firm was only two rented offices and a stack of unpaid invoices. I had invested money from the trust my mother left me, introduced him to his first serious clients, and spent years listening while he promised that every sacrifice was building our future.
Then Natalie Cross appeared.
Dominic introduced her as a consultant eighteen months earlier. She was thirty-one, polished, soft-spoken, and always seemed to need him.
She called when her car wouldn’t start. She called when she couldn’t sleep. She called during our anniversary dinner because she felt dizzy.
Whenever I questioned their closeness, Dominic accused me of being insecure.
His mother, Evelyn, was less subtle.
“A Vance wife doesn’t compete with a woman who needs help,” she told me. “Natalie is family.”
I had thought she meant it figuratively.
On the afternoon of the crash, Dominic had insisted we take Natalie to lunch at a private club in Beverly Hills. She sat beside him while I sat in the back of our black SUV, like an extra passenger in my own marriage.
After lunch, Natalie complained of dizziness.
Dominic reached across the console and squeezed her hand.
That was when I finally said, “Pull over.”
He looked at me through the rearview mirror. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not spending another minute watching you pretend this is normal.”
Natalie turned in her seat. “Audrey, I’ve never wanted to come between you.”
“Then stop calling my husband every time you feel lonely.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“You’re humiliating yourself.”
“No,” I said. “You’ve been humiliating me. I’m just saying it out loud.”
The truck ahead of us slammed on its brakes before he could answer.
Tires screamed.
Glass exploded.
The last thing I remembered was Dominic shouting Natalie’s name.
Now, beneath the fluorescent lights of Beverly Hills Medical Center, I watched him choose her again.
The doctor ignored him.
“Take Mrs. Vance to surgery,” he ordered.
Dominic blocked the stretcher for one terrible second. “I said Natalie goes first.”
The nurse’s voice turned hard. “Move, sir.”
His eyes finally met mine.
There was no panic in them.
No fear that I might die.
Only irritation that I had once again become inconvenient.
Something inside me went quiet.
The nurse placed consent papers against a metal tray. My right hand wouldn’t close, so I took the pen with my left.
I signed my maiden name.
Audrey Brooks.
Then I pulled my wedding ring over my swollen knuckle.
The nurse watched me place it on the tray.
“Are you sure?” she asked softly.
Dominic heard her.
He looked down at the ring and frowned. “Audrey, don’t turn this into one of your performances.”
I stared at the man I had defended to friends, business partners, and myself.
“You already made your choice,” I whispered.
The surgical doors opened behind me.
As the team began moving the stretcher, Dominic’s phone rang.
Natalie tightened her grip on his sleeve.
He stayed with her.
I left my ring behind.
When I woke after surgery, the room was dark except for the green glow of the monitors.
No flowers waited on the table.
No husband sat in the chair.
Dr. Marcus Ellison explained that I had suffered a ruptured spleen, three cracked ribs, and a fractured wrist. Another hour without surgery could have killed me.
“Natalie?” I asked.
“Minor injuries. She was released.”
“And Dominic?”
The doctor hesitated.
“He left with her.”
I turned my face toward the window.
The city lights blurred through my tears, but I refused to make a sound.
My phone contained seventeen messages.
Not one was from Dominic asking whether I had survived.
Evelyn had sent twelve.
Do not create unnecessary drama.
Natalie is emotionally fragile.
Dominic is under tremendous pressure.
Remember what is expected of a wife in this family.
The last message came from Dominic.
Natalie can’t stop crying. Call her and tell her you don’t blame her.
I blocked his number.
Then I called Chloe Bennett, my late mother’s closest friend in Houston.
She answered on the first ring.
“Audrey?”
“I need to leave him.”
There was a pause, followed by the sound of a chair scraping across a floor.
“I’m getting on a plane.”
She didn’t ask what happened.
That should have surprised me.
It didn’t.
Before sunrise, Dominic’s assistant arrived to collect my wedding ring.
I dropped it into his palm.
“Tell Mr. Vance that Audrey Brooks is awake,” I said. “And she remembers everything.”
The assistant looked uncomfortable. “Mrs. Vance, he also asked me to bring some financial documents for your signature.”
He pulled a folder from his briefcase.
The papers transferred my voting shares in Vance Brooks Development to Dominic.
The date printed beside my signature line was the day before the crash.
May you like
I had never seen the documents.
But my signature was already there.
