Sweet Temptation by Cora Reilly

The red roses one of the maids had bought for Gaia as a gift for our eighth
anniversary lay crumpled beside the limp body. Red roses to match the bloodstained
sheets and her white dress. A desperate attempt to mend a marriage that
couldn’t be mended. Proof of my own failure.
Seconds ticked by as I regarded my wife. Even lifeless, she was still
beautiful. She’d chosen to wear her wedding dress when she killed herself. It still
fit her perfectly. The crystals on her bodice glittered in the glow of the lamp. A
few of them were sprinkled with blood, making them appear like rubies. They
matched the gemstones in her necklace. She’d even curled her hair the same way
she’d worn it on the day we made our vows. How long had she planned this?
Picking up my phone, I called Father. I rarely called him after dinnertime. He
and Mother spent their evenings watching classics or playing backgammon. Now
that he’d retired, they had time for it. Their love had been something I strived for
as a young man, before marriage, before Gaia.
“Cassio, don’t you have a dinner reservation with Gaia?”
A dinner to flaunt our failed marriage in public. “Gaia is dead.”
Silence. “Can you repeat that?”
“Gaia is dead.”
“Cassio—”
“Someone needs to clean this up before the kids see it. Send a clean-up crew
and inform Luca.”
I hung up. A sheet of paper on the bed beside Gaia’s body caught my eye. I
crept toward the bed. Death didn’t bother me, not when I was the harbinger of it
so often, but every fiber of my being revolted against going anywhere near the
corpse of my wife. The opposite arm that wasn’t hanging off the side of the bed
was draped over her chest. The blood from the slit wrist had soaked the fabric of
her wedding dress. Her lifeless brown eyes fixed on the ceiling, even in death
they were full of accusation. I closed her eyelids then picked up her last letter
with shaking fingertips.
Her elegant handwriting and the expensive stationery promised a love letter,
but of course it was nothing like that.