Hearts Remember What Minds Try To Forget by Rex Wilder 11

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The likes beneath her statement had already soared to 100,000. 

The comments section was ablaze with support for ‘Mrs. Thorne’s‘ decision: 

“You go, girl! It’s about time you dumped that scumbag!” 

“Divorce him already! A cheating scumbag like that, no matter how handsome or rich, is nothing but trouble. Just look at how wild those bedroom photos of him and his mistress were–he’s practically obsessed with her.” 

“Run from that scumbag! Let him wander alone forever!” 

Rage flared in Lucas’s eyes. 

The comments were a punch to the gut, making him realize she knew. Anna knew all about his dirty secrets with Chloe. 

That’s why she’d posted that. 

Lucas let out a mirthless laugh. “Anna Reed,” he muttered, “you really know how to pour gasoline on the fire, don’t you? 

At a critical moment like this, you’re actually siding with strangers to take me down? 

Never had Lucas felt such incandescent rage. He gripped his phone, his vision blurring with her words: ‘nothing to regret,‘ ‘take care of yourselves.‘ 

Cherish what? He detested the sight of those words. 

Lucas’s face darkened, storm clouds gathering. He was about to call her, to demand an explanation, to make her explain. 

But before he could dial, Chloe was already clinging to him. 

“Lucas…” Her small hand drifted, feather–light, over his chest. She pouted, her voice a syrupy coax. “I’m so cold, honey. Won’t you hold 

me close and warm me up?” 

Lucas stared at her soft lips, couldn’t help but remember the feel of their fierce battles in bed. 

His Adam’s apple bobbed. He glanced up at the driver. 

The driver, knowing exactly what to do, lowered the privacy screen in the car. 

Lucas tossed his phone aside, roughly pinning Chloe against the plush leather of the car seat. His voice was a low rasp. “The whole world already knows about us anyway. What’s the difference between doing it once or a hundred times? I’m going to make you sizzle 

from head to toe.” 

Chloe giggled, parting her thighs. She bit her lip, her eyes openly inviting Lucas. “Come on, darling,” she purred, “get in here…” 

Lucas’s eyes turned to flint. With deliberate slowness, he tore his tie from his neck, letting it fall to the plush carpet. The soft click of his belt buckle broke the silence, and then he leaned over her, his shadow enveloping her. 

The days that followed blurred into a haze of bodies and sheets. Lucas and Chloe barely left the confines of the villa’s bed, their world shrinking to the plush four walls of the bedroom. 

They moved through every conceivable position and intimate variation, completely consumed by a long–starved desire they were powerless to resist. 

Lucas had craved Chloe, his mind filled with fantasies of her since boyhood. Yet, with his deepest desire finally fulfilled, he felt no joy, 

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only a startling emptiness. 

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Instead, an unidentifiable frustration simmered beneath his skin. 

By the seventh day, he’d started leaving Chloe alone at the villa, even spending entire nights away, citing a packed schedule of 

press 

conferences. 

Lucas was indeed consumed with damage control. He relentlessly took to the podium at press conferences, professing his undying devotion to Anna Reed, vowing he would only ever love his wife. 

“So, Mr. Thorne, if that’s true, why has Mrs. Thorne gone silent?” 

The reporter’s words landed like a blow. 

Twelve days. I’d been gone for twelve whole days. 

I’d never stayed away from him this long. 

At first, Lucas had probably assumed I was just throwing a tantrum. I always found my way back, after all. 

Yet, for all this time, I hadn’t so much as acknowledged a single one of his messages. 

Confronted by reporters, Lucas bit back his fury, managing only a hurried, strained reply: “She’s misunderstood my relationship with Ms. Vance, but this is a private matter between my wife and me. I’ll handle it.” 

He better actually handle it,” a sarcastic voice called from the floor, “or he’ll end up driving his wife away for good.” 

Lucas’s gaze, sharp and lethal enough to curdle blood, snapped to the speaker. The reporters, stunned into immediate silence, collectively clamped their mouths shut. 

Later that night, Lucas was back at the villa, having arrived uncharacteristically early. 

He pushed open the door to our bedroom and found the walk-in closet door wide open. 

Lucas froze, his eyes lighting up at the thought that I had returned. 

“Wife…” He walked to the closet, his brow furrowing instantly. 

Chloe was standing in front of the mirror, trying on my clothes. When she saw him, she beamed and threw herself at him. 

But Lucas immediately dodged her. “Stay out of here,” he commanded, his voice low and firm. 

Chloe pouted. “But I was just so bored all by myself…” 

His face was grim, a rigid mask. “I told you no, and that’s final. Don’t you dare provoke me. Do you understand?” 

Chloe’s lower lip trembled, a protest forming on her tongue, but Lucas had already turned his back and walked away. 

He strode straight to his study, locking the door behind him, but the quiet offered no solace to his churning mind. 

I’ve truly been gone too long. I don’t answer his calls, I don’t reply to his texts. Where the hell am I? 

Lucas sank into the chair, a throbbing ache behind his eyes, and let out a long, frustrated sigh. 

He distractedly slid open the drawer, and the document lying within instantly deepened his confusion. 

What was this? 

Lucas snatched the file. He ripped it open, and a frigid dread instantly seized him, pricking along his spine. 

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A divorce agreement.