He canceled every meeting for the day, drove me to an exclusive private club outside New York, and spent hours reminding me how much he loved me.
For a moment, I almost believed him.
Then three o’clock arrived.
His phone buzzed.
“There’s an emergency at the company. I’ll be back before dinner.”
Thirty minutes later, Vanessa uploaded another photo.
A handbag sat on a restaurant table.
Same model as mine.
Different color.
Her caption read:
“Someone knows how to spoil me.”
I stared at the handbag Ethan had given me that morning.
Then I carried it upstairs and shoved it into the back of my closet.
That was the moment I understood someone was trying to take away the marriage I had sacrificed so much to preserve.
What neither Ethan nor Vanessa realized was that I had already decided I wasn’t going to fight for it.
And they had no idea what I planned to do instead.
Over the next few weeks, Ethan started coming home later.
First ten.
Then midnight.
Then nearly two in the morning.
More than once, his clothes carried the unmistakable scent of rose perfume.
One night, I found lipstick on his collar.
“An employee probably brushed against me.”
I looked at him.
“How close would someone have to get to leave lipstick on your collar?”
His expression hardened.
“Claire, lately you find something wrong with everything. You weren’t like this before.”
Before.
The word almost made me laugh.
Before, Ethan moved away when another woman stood too close.
Before, we told each other everything.
Before, he had been willing to stand against his entire family to marry me.
Now I was simply the paranoid wife.
Meanwhile, Vanessa documented almost every stage of their growing closeness online.
When she was hospitalized with gastritis, she posted a picture from her room.
In one corner, Ethan’s arm was visible while he slept beside the bed.
Then came a visit to a chapel where people tied ribbons and made wishes about love.
