I love my husband.

And our marriage? Better than good. Like, embarrassingly good.

The only real complaint I have — and I mean the only one — is that Nathan works too much. He loves me enough to race home every night, which means he ends up dragging his laptop into the study at midnight because he ran out of hours in the day. It's annoying. It's also kind of sweet. That's very Nathan.

So there I am. It's past midnight. I can see the light under the study door.

I think: okay. I know how to get his attention.

I pull on my good lingerie. The black lace one. The one that basically does all the talking for me. I check the mirror, give myself a nod, and walk down the hall.

I come up behind him. Wrap my arms around his neck.

"Bed time, baby."

I press my face into the side of his neck. And I stop.

He smells different.

Not wrong. Just... different. New. Something I don't recognize.

I pull back a little. Breathe again. It's definitely not his.

Nathan uses the same cologne he's used for three years. I know that smell the way I know my own name. This isn't it.

"You changed your cologne?" I keep my voice light.

He reaches up and squeezes my hand without turning around. "Hm? Oh. Yeah, trying something new."

"Since when do you try new things?"

He laughs. "Since now. Come on, I'll be done in twenty minutes."

I go back to bed.

I stare at the ceiling.

Twenty minutes turns into an hour. He slides in beside me, kisses my shoulder, and falls asleep in about thirty seconds.

I don't sleep at all.

* * *

My name is Mia Harlow.

I'm a Virgo. That's not an excuse — it's a warning label. I notice everything. Details, patterns, that one hair that's slightly out of place. I've been like this my whole life. In college, I always knew who was hooking up with who before they told anyone. Not because I was nosy. Because I just... saw it. I couldn't turn it off.

My BFF Zoe used to make me vet her celebrity ships. "Are they actually dating or is it PR?" She'd send me photos, interviews, red carpet footage. My accuracy rate was a hundred percent. She called it a gift. I called it exhausting.

So the next morning, I FaceTime Zoe.

She's eating cereal. She doesn't even blink when I tell her.

"He changed his cologne," she says. "Big deal."

"Zoe—"

"Maybe it was a gift. Maybe the dry cleaner uses a different fabric softener. Maybe—"

"He never changes his cologne," I say. "I'm sensitive to smells. He's been using the same one for three years specifically because it doesn't bother me. He would never just randomly switch."

She puts her spoon down and gives me a look. That look.

"Mia Bear. This is Nathan we're talking about. The man who comes straight home from work every single night. The man who has turned down after-work drinks with clients approximately a thousand times because he'd rather be with you. The man who once told Forbes magazine — on record — that his wife is his favorite hobby." She tilts her head. "Do you hear yourself?"

My phone buzzes. A voicemail from Nathan. It auto-plays.

"Hey babe. I booked your massage — the one with Maya, your favorite. Last night I maybe went a little too hard, so I figured you'd be sore today." He laughs softly. "There's an opening at four. Take a nap first. Love you."

Zoe stares at me through the screen. Her expression says everything.

"That man," she says slowly, "is either the most devoted husband on earth. Or the world's greatest actor."

I don't say anything.

Because here's the thing.

Those aren't mutually exclusive.

* * *

Let me give you some context.

Nathan Harlow is kind of a big deal. Like, a real one. He took over my mom's company three years ago, merged it with his own, and turned the whole thing into something that gets written up in the Journal. Cold, brilliant, untouchable — that's how the business world sees him.

But here's the thing they also all know: the man is absolutely gone over his wife.

We met in high school. He was seventeen, no parents, no money, no nothing. He'd just entered the foster system. I cried until my parents agreed to let him stay with us. He became family. Then he became more than that.

My dad liked to joke that Nathan had been quietly in love with me for years before he ever said a word. My mom would get this soft look on her face and say, "Some people just know."

We got married three years ago. He still looks at me the same way he did at seventeen.

So when I drive to Novarix — our company, his now — and walk into the lobby and let Jade take me upstairs, I'm already arguing with myself the whole ride up.

Jade's my college roommate. She's Head of HR now. I'm the one who talked my mom into hiring her, and she's been killing it ever since.

"Anything weird going on?" I ask, casual. Or I try to be casual.

She side-eyes me. "Revenue hit a new high last quarter. That kind of weird?"

We step off the elevator. The nineteenth floor. I look through the glass walls of the executive suite and my brain immediately starts doing math I don't want it to do.

"Did the secretary pool get any new people recently?"

Jade stops walking. Turns to look at me fully.

"Are you — Mia. You were literally Miss America at nineteen. You won a national beauty pageant. And you're standing here asking me if your husband hired a cute secretary?"

"I didn't say—"

"Do you know what Nathan said when Sienna Ross — the Sienna Ross, 'most beautiful woman in Hollywood two years running' — tried to ask him out at that gala last year? He said, and I quote, 'I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that so we can both move on with our evening.'" Jade shakes her head. "To him, there's you. And then there's everyone else. Those are the two categories."

I nod. I know. I know all of this.

I go to his office anyway.

There's a giant framed photo of me on the wall across from his desk. Campaign shoot from three years ago. He put it there himself.

I stand in front of it and feel like an absolute idiot.

Then a woman appears beside me with a cup of tea.

"Mrs. Harlow." She sets it down carefully. "Please."

I look at her.

Vanessa Cole.

Here. On the nineteenth floor. Twenty feet from Nathan's office.

My mouth goes dry.

* * *