"Oh, I was worried you'd come home hungry, so I rushed up to cook for you. Didn't bother parking properly—just pulled in sideways and ran upstairs."

Jacob's demeanor was completely natural.

Not a single word out of place.

After all, every day when I came home from work, a hot meal was waiting for me on the table.

Jacob was a surgeon. His daily workload was enormous. Yet no matter how busy he was, he always found time to come home and cook for me.

Sometimes I told him to take it easy, not to push himself so hard. But he always said the same thing:

"Your health isn't great. The moment you get hungry, your hands start shaking and your heart races. I can't let that slide."

"I have to make sure there's a fresh, hot meal waiting the second you walk through the door. Nothing in the world is more important than that."

With that, he went back to bustling around the kitchen.

Before long, dinner was ready.

A full home-cooked spread—four dishes and a soup, every single one my favorite.

Jacob served me a bowl of rice and was about to sit down to eat with me when his phone rang.

He picked up, and his brow furrowed immediately.

"Got it. I'm on my way."

He hung up, yanked off his apron, and turned to me with an anxious look.

"Babe, there's an emergency at the hospital. A patient needs surgery and I'm the only one who can do it. I have to go."

He grabbed his car keys, pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, and hurried out the door.

The moment it closed, the apartment went silent.

I sat at the dining table, staring at the spread of food in front of me. I had no appetite.

The contents of that post were lodged in my brain like a splinter I couldn't pull out.

Everything Jacob said, everything he did—none of it was wrong.

But something felt off. I couldn't explain it.

I set down my chopsticks and stood up. Almost as if something were pulling me, I walked into the bedroom.

Everything was tidy. The bed was made with military precision, corners tucked tight—Jacob's handiwork. At first glance, nothing was out of place.

But the more pristine it looked, the more uneasy I felt.

I started searching the room, inch by inch.

The bed. No strange smells. Nothing that shouldn't be there.

The closet. No sign that anyone had gone through it.

The nightstand. Nothing but our usual things.

Even the trash can was spotless. Not a single scrap.

Everything was exactly the way it always was.

Was I really overthinking this?

I shook my head and turned to leave the room. But as I reached back to close the door, something under the bed caught my eye.

My heart stopped. I walked over immediately, crouched down, and fished it out.

An earring.

I didn't have pierced ears.

It belonged to another woman.

The realization hit me like a freight train. My head buzzed, hollow and deafening.

I stood there, staring at the earring in my palm, frozen for what felt like an eternity.

Then I pulled out my phone and scrolled back to that post.

Sure enough—just one minute ago, the original poster had replied to the comment he'd liked:

"I parked sideways in my wife's spot like you suggested, but she came home and didn't call to ask me to move the car. She just walked right in."

"If I hadn't heard the door, if I hadn't told my side piece to hide in time, I would've been caught red-handed."

The commenter had replied instantly: "Sounds like your wife's got sharp instincts."

And the poster wrote back: "Yeah. I made up an excuse and slipped out. On my way to drop off my side piece right now."

Jacob was really cheating on me.

And he'd brought her here. Into our home.

My hands trembled as I put my phone away and walked out of the bedroom.

I looked at the dinner spread on the table. Four dishes and a soup.

A sharp ache tore through my chest.

Jacob remembered every single thing I liked. He remembered that I got shaky and lightheaded when I was hungry. He remembered that I loved his goodbye kiss on my forehead before he left.

But he'd forgotten one thing: I despised betrayal more than anything.

How ironic.

A person could pour out his love for me with one breath and bring another woman home with the next.

In that moment, I couldn't help but wonder. All that love I'd once been so proud of—how much of it had been real, and how much had been a lie?

And when had it started between him and that woman?

I sat at the dining table for a long time, trying to steady myself.

Then something occurred to me.

The instant the thought struck, I called my parents and asked them to come over.

They must have heard the urgency in my voice, because they arrived in record time.

"What's going on, Dora? You sounded so frantic on the phone. What happened?"

I didn't hold anything back. I told them everything about Jacob's affair in one breath.

When I finished, my father's face was pure disbelief.

"Dora, is there any chance this is a misunderstanding? Everyone can see how good Jacob is to you."

"And you know what his job is like. He's a surgeon. He's on call around the clock. Maybe he really did have an emergency operation to handle."

"That post—couldn't it just be a coincidence?"

My mother slammed her palm on the table.

"Absolutely not! There's no coincidence that perfect!"

"The post said parking sideways across two spots. He parked sideways across two spots."

"Dora walked in without calling first. The post described the exact same scenario."

"The post said the guy slipped out to drive his mistress home. Jacob found an excuse and slipped out."

"And on top of all that, there's a strange earring in the house. You're telling me that's a coincidence?"

My father frowned. "But Jacob has treated Dora like she's more important than his own life all these years!"

My mother scoffed. "So what?"

"Just because he's been good to her all this time, that proves he can't be cheating now?"

"Every man out there keeping a mistress on the side plays the perfect husband and perfect father at home."

"The better the act, the more convincing the performance."

My father had nothing to say to that.

My mother only grew angrier. "That Jacob Delgado!"

"Back when he was chasing Dora, he knelt outside our front door for three days and three nights. Knelt until his forehead was bleeding from bowing against the ground. Swore up and down he'd treat her right. That's the only reason I agreed to let my daughter marry him."

"And now?"

"Two years into the marriage, and he has the nerve to bring his mistress into their home? Has he lost his mind?"

My mother was furious.

But what I felt more than anger was confusion.

Because my father had a point.

All these years, Jacob had been incredibly good to me.

He was young, accomplished, and devastatingly handsome. There was never a shortage of beautiful young women throwing themselves at him.

Even the hospital director's daughter had gone out of her way to pursue him openly.

She'd even declared publicly that if Jacob would be with her, the entire hospital could bear his name.

But Jacob hadn't wavered. Not once.

He'd offended her because of it and nearly been blacklisted from the entire medical community.

Even so, he'd stayed unwavering and told me:

"I can lose the whole world. The one thing I can't lose is you."

It was precisely because I'd felt his devotion so deeply, so genuinely, that I couldn't make sense of this.

What kind of woman could make a man like Jacob Delgado—a man who treated loyalty like a religion—have a change of heart?

"Dora, what do you want to do?"

My father looked at me, his expression grave.

I paused for a moment, then said firmly, "I want to catch him in the act."

My mother's eyes lit up immediately. "How?"

I didn't answer right away. Instead, I lowered my head and opened my phone, scrolling to an app I had never once opened.

It was a location-sharing app.

Back when Jacob first insisted on installing a location-sharing app on his phone, he said it was so I could check where he was anytime I wanted.

I'd refused at first. I trusted him. I thought couples who truly loved each other had no need for something like that.

But he wouldn't take no for an answer. He said to think of it as insurance—if anything ever happened to him, I'd be able to find him right away.

All these years, I'd been quietly proud of the fact that I'd never once opened that app.

I never imagined I'd be using it now to catch him cheating.

I drew a deep breath and tapped the icon.

The screen loaded for a few seconds before a map popped up. A small green dot drifted slowly across it.

My dad stared at the screen, visibly surprised. "That's Jacob's real-time location?"

I nodded without a word.

My mom couldn't wait. "Let's go. Right now."

"I want to see for myself which little tramp has Jacob Delgado wrapped around her finger."

Dad said nothing. He grabbed his car keys and headed for the door.

Mom and I followed close behind and climbed into his car.

The whole ride, Mom wouldn't stop talking.

"And to think I believed Jacob truly loved you. Turns out he's been bringing women home while cooking you dinner."

"I've lived over fifty years, and I have never seen anything this disgusting."

"If he'd fallen out of love with you and asked for a divorce, I'd be furious, but at least I could respect him for being a man about it."

"But no. He played you for a fool. Strung you along like an idiot."

"If I catch him keeping some woman on the side today, I will tear them both apart with my bare hands."

Her eyes were red with rage.

When Jacob had first come courting, she'd been against it. She thought his family wasn't well-off enough—that he wasn't good enough for me. It was Jacob who knelt outside our front door for three days and three nights, forehead split open from bowing, before she finally relented.

Dad drove in silence. In the rearview mirror, I could see his brows drawn tight together. I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

About twenty minutes into the drive, the green dot suddenly stopped moving.

I told Dad to speed up, and he pulled over near Jacob's location.

The moment we arrived, I spotted Jacob's car parked in front of a villa.

I threw open my door and made straight for the building.

But I didn't notice what was happening behind me. In the car, both my parents had gone pale the instant they laid eyes on that villa.

When Dad saw me heading toward the entrance, he jumped out and planted himself in my path.

"Dora. Are you sure Jacob brought that woman here?"

Something in his expression was off. I frowned. "What is it, Dad? Do you know this place?"

His mouth opened, then closed again. No sound came out.

Mom caught up a moment later. She glanced at the villa, swallowed hard, and when she turned to me, her face was ashen.

"Dora, let's go home."

"Stop looking into this."

I stared at her in disbelief. "Why?"

"Mom, you're the one who said we should come and get to the bottom of it. You were the most fired up—you said we had to catch them in the act."

"They're inside that villa right now. Why are you suddenly telling me to drop it?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she grabbed my arm, her voice cracking, on the verge of tears.

"Dora, I'm begging you. Please. Let's just go home."

"Let this go. Please?"

Dad walked over too, his face grave.

"Dora, listen to your mother. Go home."

"We're doing this for your own good."

I was completely stunned.

I couldn't make sense of it. Just moments ago, my parents had been ready to tear down the world on my behalf. Now, after one look at this villa, they'd become entirely different people.

Was it the villa itself that was the problem?

Or was it someone inside?

Burning with curiosity, I ignored their protests and forced my way to the front door. I knocked.

The Other Dora door opened almost immediately.

And in that instant, I saw Jacob standing just inside the threshold, and the woman behind him.