The Soccer Star's Forgotten Wife novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Housekeeper
On their fifth anniversary Meg finds her husband at dinner with his first love, hears him call her the woman who keeps his place, and drops her ring in his wine, then finds the promotion letter he hid five years ago.
The sauce had boiled over and baked onto the white marble.
I was scraping it off with my thumbnail when my phone showed me my husband at dinner with another woman.
It was a post from Courtney Mallon.
Two glasses of red wine. A candle. A man's hand on the tablecloth, wearing the watch I gave him at Christmas.
"Some fires never go out," she'd written.
Two hundred people had already liked it.
I knelt on the cold kitchen floor in Dex's old gray T-shirt and looked at that hand for a long time.
Behind me the oven timer went off.
The lasagna was done.
It was his favorite, the one his mother taught me, three kinds of cheese and noodles I rolled myself.
It was our fifth anniversary.
He'd texted at six. "Team dinner, babe. Don't wait up."
I zoomed in on the photo.
There was no team.
There was a steakhouse I knew on Larimer Street, and a blonde blowout.
And there was Dex Lovell, captain of Front Range FC, smiling at her.
Nobody knew I was his wife.
That was the deal.
We married at the courthouse when he was a reserve nobody, and a month later he was on billboards.
His agent said single sells shirts.
So for five years I wore my ring on a chain under my shirt.
In public I was the woman who kept his place.
I turned the oven off.
I didn't change my shirt.
I didn't even take my hair down.
I picked up my keys and drove.
The steakhouse was dark wood and soft music and men in good suits.
The hostess looked at my sweatpants and opened her mouth.
I walked past her.
They had the corner booth.
Dex. Courtney. And his agent, cutting a steak, already watching me over his glasses.
Dex saw me last.
His face did something fast and ugly, and then it was his camera face again.
"Meg," he said. "Hey. Is something wrong at the condo?"
The people at the next table looked up.
"It's our anniversary," I said.
Courtney laughed into her wine.
Dex didn't look at me. He looked at the next table.
"Everybody, this is Meg," he said. "She keeps my place. She keeps everything running, honestly. I'd starve without her."
The agent smiled at his steak.
"Your housekeeper makes house calls?" Courtney said. "That's devotion."
Somebody at the next table snorted.
I felt my face go hot.
Then I felt it go cold.
Five years of his meals, his ice baths, his match video at two in the morning.
Five years of eating alone on our anniversaries because the team had a dinner.
I reached into the collar of the gray T-shirt and pulled out the chain.
Dex saw what was on it.
"Meg," he said, very low. "Not here."
I broke the clasp with one pull.
The gold band slid off into my palm.
I held it over his wine glass and let it go.
It hit the bottom with a little clink and sat there in the red.
The whole corner of the restaurant went quiet.
"Then I quit," I said.
Courtney's mouth fell open.
The agent put his fork down.
Dex stared at the glass.
I turned around and walked out past the hostess, who held the door for me without a word.
My hands didn't shake until I was in the car.
Then they shook so hard I couldn't get the key in.
I drove home anyway.
The condo smelled like lasagna.
I left it on the stove and went into the closet and pulled down the black duffel from the top shelf.
My old referee bag.
It still had a whistle in the side pocket and a red card with my handwriting on the back.
I hadn't touched it since I was twenty-three.
That summer I was the best young referee in the second division.
Then the league assessed me for the top flight, and Dex said the assessor called him, because he was my emergency contact.
He held me on the couch and told me I didn't make it.
I was so ashamed I quit the same night.
I never even called the chief back.
I threw jeans in the bag. My running shoes. My passport.
My passport lived in Dex's desk with his.
I pulled open his drawer.
His passport was on top.
Under it was a long white envelope with the league's logo in the corner.
It was addressed to me.
It had been opened.
The date on the postmark was five years old.
I sat down on his desk chair and unfolded the letter.
It was one paragraph.
I read it through.
Dear Ms. Raynor, following your assessment, we are pleased to confirm your appointment to the top-flight referee panel.
At the bottom, in the box marked Result, someone had typed in capital letters:
PASS.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend