The General’s Ex-Wife Is A Colonel He Can’t Have Chapter 02
I wasn’t surprised.
I should have seen it coming.
And I wasn’t about to lose control like I did the first time I found out about another woman, when I’d stood in front of him and screamed, “Beau Walker, what the hell are you doing? I’ve been with you since I was eighteen. We clawed our way up from nothing. And now you’re telling me you fell in love with someone else?”
Back then, I’d scratched his face until it bled.
He’d just looked at me with a cold smile.
“You have the nerve to say that? You were eighteen and sleeping with me. Didn’t you think that was shameful?”
“You were about to be thrown out of that trash foster home. I got you out. I gave you a place to live. You should be grateful.”
That one sentence erased all the years that came before.
Back then, we had nothing. We only had each other to hold on to.
My phone buzzed, pulling me back to the present.
“Major Wells, the service records of your biological parents, along with the transfer paperwork for their personal effects, have been approved. When can you come to Joint Base Virginia to complete the process?”
I tugged my sleeve down, covering the old scars on my wrist.
“Ten days. My transfer request should be approved by then, and the divorce papers have already been filed.”
The person on the other end was quiet for a moment.
“You and General Walker have been together a long time. That couldn’t have been easy.”
“And honestly, even though you’re inheriting their honors and effects, you don’t have to request a transfer.”
I looked out at the rows of lights glowing in the barracks.
“I don’t love him anymore.”
“I just want to leave.”
When I got back to our house, the first thing I saw was the wedding portrait on the wall.
In the photo, Beau was smiling, his nose pressed against my forehead.
That was when we were happiest.
Beau and I both grew up in the foster system near the base.
When I was eighteen, my foster family tried to sell me to a retired veteran with a history of violence.
It was Beau who grabbed my hand and ran with me into the night.
My foster father had shouted after us, “Beau Walker, if you think you’re man enough, then protect her for the rest of your life!”
Beau turned back.
“I will.”
By then, his parents had already been killed in action.
With their death benefits, he rented the cheapest trailer he could find off-base and enlisted.
“Once I’m in the military and on my feet, I’ll move you into base housing,” he’d promised.
“Then no one will ever touch you again.”
In those early years, he fought like hell for every promotion.
Before every dangerous mission, he would tuck my photo into the pocket over his heart.
I stayed on base, doing administrative work and saving every dollar I could.
At our lowest point, we couldn’t scrape together twenty dollars for Thanksgiving.
We split a single can of food between us.
Later, he made it into Delta Force, and I passed my own exams to become an intelligence analyst.
We moved from the trailer into a base apartment, then from the apartment into senior officer housing.
The stars on Beau’s shoulders kept multiplying, and so did the people orbiting him.
Until one day, I found a smear of lipstick on the collar of his combat uniform.
He tugged at his collar, impatient.
“A girl twisted her ankle backstage. It must have rubbed off when I helped her.”
“Celine, you’re in the service, too. Stop being so suspicious.”
I looked at him.
“People in uniform betray people, too.”
“Beau, you said we’d spend our lives together. I took that seriously.”
After that, we fought constantly.
I checked his mission logs. I checked his call history.
If he said he was on night training, I would drive out and wait by the training grounds just to be sure.
It was like Beau was baiting me, daring me to catch him.
After that, he really did start sleeping with other women.
Sometimes he would let me see the fresh scratch marks on his back.
“You wanted to know, didn’t you? Now you do.”
But I still couldn’t let go.
After more than a decade, Beau and I were too intertwined.
Leaving hurt. Staying hurt more.