Chapter 2

The worry and concern in his eyes looked real.

But I noticed his shirt was buttoned wrong. It was also different from the one he’d worn before.

Ethan had always taken pride in his appearance. What kind of business dinner required him to change clothes before coming to see me?

He took out a box. When I opened it, my heart sank.

A necklace.

“Honey, haven’t you wanted this for ages? You wouldn’t buy it, so I did. What’s the point of making all this money if we don’t spend it? If you want something, buy it.”

He assumed I was pale because I was still sick.

Suddenly, I remembered a comment from the night before.

“A sudden burst of affection is just a cheater’s guilt.”

After that exhausting night, I went home with a heavy heart.

It happened to be Saturday, and we were both tired. I was tired because I’d been sick. What was his excuse?

He went to take a shower and left his phone outside.

Almost without thinking, I picked it up and unlocked it.

I opened his Instagram messages.

There was the profile picture of the confessions account I knew so well.

It felt as though a fist had closed around my heart.

Still unwilling to believe it, I kept searching his phone.

The contact pinned to the top of his Snapchat was named Sweetheart.

So intimate.

Their messages laid out every detail of his affair.

I knew the girl. Her name was Lily Hayes, and she had a bright, lively energy.

All the things I’d overlooked came rushing back.

Lily had joined us as an intern during her senior year of college. Later, she’d been promoted to Ethan’s assistant, despite her lack of experience.

Once, Ethan had gotten drunk at a business dinner, and Lily brought him home.

She supported him as she walked straight into our living room.

“Sophie, don’t be mad at him. I’m terrible at drinking. Ethan only got this drunk because he was drinking for me.”

Before leaving, she reminded me to make him a cup of honey water to ease his hangover.

“Sophie, I remember your honey is in the upper kitchen cabinet. Don’t forget.”

She seemed very familiar with my home.

At the time, I’d assumed she was just a young woman fresh out of college who had read too many romance novels and developed unrealistic fantasies.

But I trusted Ethan completely.

We’d known each other for twenty-eight years, after all.

Now their messages felt like a hard slap across the face.

For Lily’s birthday, Ethan had filled an entire room with flowers to make her happy.

A thirty-year-old man, writing a little birthday message for every bouquet.

How romantic.

A trace of jealousy ran through her messages.

“Do you do this for your wife’s birthday, too?”

“No. She’s pretty much immune to romance.”

Ethan used to buy me a flower for every birthday and holiday, too.

But flowers were expensive. To me, they were something that would only wither. A single stem cost more than twenty dollars.

I’d told him I loved it, but he didn’t need to buy me flowers anymore. Cooking me a meal would be enough.

Everything I’d spared him out of love had been lavished on someone else.