The window that looked out over the front yard was our bedroom, and the light was on, and it was only then that my heartbeat slowed enough that I could hear Barry Manilow playing. Loud enough that the words were audible.

That was Roger’s lovemaking album. The music he’d told me put him in the mood only for my kisses, and never for anyone else.

Something in me snapped. Roger was never going to hold me again. And I didn’t want him to. He was a dirty donkey’s butthole.

I opened the front door and headed straight for the stairs. Taking them two at a time, I passed the second level and kept moving on to the third. The bedroom was actually the entire third floor, and while it was smaller than the second floor, it was still a thousand square feet.

One feature I’d never minded before, though, was now a real problem. The top level was an open floor plan, and there was no door on the bedroom. I stood on the steps a few feet below the landing, the music a low, mindless tune I’d always hated. Always. Why hadn’t I told Roger I’d hated it?

Because he’d told me how much he’d loved it and I’d wanted him to be happy. I’d always been trying to make him happy. To prove I was worth his love, to prove I was worth being his wife.

I squared my shoulders and took a step. A female giggle rippled through the air, and I made myself keep moving. Kept walking up the final few steps. The view didn’t make sense at first, as there was just a humping, bumping black blanket on the bed.

“Roger, you are frisky tonight. Naughty Chihuahua,” she—I assumed Barbie—yipped out at him. As if she were the Chihuahua.

He growled and snapped his teeth. I rolled my eyes, put my hands on my hips, and broke up their party. “I hardly would call him naughty. More like dumb. Or useless. Maybe lazy, that’s another good word for Roger.”

They spun, the two of them sitting up in bed like pop-up dolls.

“Roger, who is that?” Barbie said. I had to give her credit. Her hair was perfect, and from the shape of her chest under the sheet, her boobs weren’t half bad either. Power, though, Zeus said I had power.

A siren, was I? Well, let’s just see what that got me.

I flipped my hair back over my shoulders and took a step closer. “Roger. Who. Am. I?”

He stared at me, looked me up and down, and in slow increments his mouth dropped. “Alena?”

I smiled, feeling a strange sense of confidence roll through me. Roger swallowed hard and slid to the edge of the bed as if he would come to me. I held a hand up. “You stay there.”

“That’s your wife? Her pictures don’t look like that. And isn’t she supposed to be dead? How are we going to have the money if she isn’t dead?”

“Excellent question, Barbie.” I paced in front of the bed. “I mean, really, he’s not all that good in bed, so the money is very important, isn’t it? How much did he promise you for your business venture exactly?”

“I am an excellent lover,” Roger spluttered. “Caring, considerate—”

“You couldn’t find the G-spot in an alphabet.” I snapped my fingers, waving a hand in the air. “Seriously, how often do you fake it, Babs? Ten out of ten? I know I did.”

Her lips tightened, and I wasn’t sure if it was laughter or anger holding them shut. Roger spluttered and spit but couldn’t manage a single word.

“Here’s the thing.” I paused and pointed at Roger, feeling the strength of my words grow with each syllable. “He’s not going to have any money when I’m done with him. This is my house. The inheritance is mine. The bakery is mine, and that fat-nosed Colleen isn’t going to have a single sugar cube from it. Got that? He’s going to have his stinking little brown Fiesta hatchback, a bag of clothes, and if he’s lucky”—I approached them—“his little girlfriend.” I snapped my fingers at her and she flinched. Roger, though, hadn’t taken his eyes from me.

“Alena, I’ve never seen you like this. If I’d known you’d be like this, I never would have looked for someone else. I didn’t know you were going to survive.” He crawled across the bed to me and I stepped back.

“Are you for real?” I said at the same time Barbie slapped his butt hard enough to make him jump and his drooping man bits wobble and deflate.

“Ouch!”

“I’ll do more than ‘ouch’ you, you asshole. You said you loved me, that you never loved her but married her because she was a good girl and would do what she was told. That you always wanted me more.” She pouted at him while not so subtly pushing her chest out.

But his eyes swept back to me, a bright, hot lust raging in them. “Alena, we can work this out. I know we can. Every couple has a bump in the road, and this is ours. Give me a second chance. Please, baby.”

My heart leapt, and for just a second I thought about it. A second. No more than that, because what happened next hit me like a blow to the belly.

My eyes locked with hers, and the smug curl of her lips told me the truth of her and Roger, even though I still had to ask.

“You were with him before I was sick, weren’t you?”

She smirked and ran a hand over her chest. “You don’t actually think you were satisfying him, do you? Miss Missionary.”

I drew in a slow breath, anger kindling along my synapses as I swung my gaze to my husband.

“Roger, not for anything in the world would I go back to you. Not for money, fame, fortune. Nothing. I will never come back to you.” I turned, paused, and looked over my shoulder. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer. And Barbie?”