My Husband Wrote Her Into His Memoir: A Celebrity Author Grovel Romance

The whole country heard my husband read a chapter about another woman. I'm in the acknowledgements. One line. Second-to-last.

For eighteen years I was the first person to read every word Everett Lyle wrote. I cut his second novel by a third. I rebuilt the ending of the book that won him the prize. Nobody knows that, because nobody was supposed to need to.

Then he wrote a memoir. Chapter nine is called Sabine. It is about the woman he loved at twenty-two and the editor who finally understood him at forty-six. They are the same person. I found out when the host of a national book club read it aloud to a live audience and then turned to me - in the front row, holding his coat - and asked how it felt.

I didn't answer. I went home to Larkspur Falls, to the house my mother left me, and I started writing the version of those eighteen years that has me in it.

Everett says it was never physical. I believe him. That is not the point, and the day he understands why, he can start earning his way back - in public, in print, with his name on it, the way he took it from me.

Marriage in crisis - emotional betrayal - public humiliation - the wife walks away - relentless earned grovel - later-in-life second chance - found voice.

There is no cheating. Guaranteed happily ever after.