I pulled out my phone.

My hands were still shaking, but the lens held steady.

I aimed it at the garden.

Six photos. Then a video.

David smeared frosting from the cake onto the boy's nose. The boy giggled. The woman leaned in and wiped his face clean.

A family of three.

I hit stop.

My phone buzzed.

A message from David.

"Ellie, don't wait up for me. Might have to pull an all-nighter tonight. Make sure you eat something. Get some rest."

An all-nighter.

Right. A beautiful evening, the whole family together. Of course it would be an all-nighter.

My hands and feet went ice-cold. My stomach turned inside out. I dropped to my knees on the side of the road and threw up until the world went dark around the edges.

When I turned to walk back, I didn't cry.

But my legs were so weak I could barely stand.

I made it out of the side road and called a car.

In the backseat, I buried my face in my palms. My eyes were bone-dry and burning.

One deep breath. Then I dialed my best friend's number.

"Lucinda."

"Are you free right now?"

"Just got back from the courthouse. What's going on?"

"David's cheating on me."

Lucinda Simmons went silent on the other end for a full ten seconds.

For a top-tier attorney, that was practically falling apart.

"You're sure it's David?"

"Five eights on the license plate. He called the boy Pete to his face. The boy called him Daddy."

"Send me the photos."

I sent everything. Photos and video.

Another ten seconds of silence.

"Ellie, go home. Don't say a word. Don't do a thing."

"Don't touch his phone. Don't confront him. Don't let your face change."

"Back up the photos and video three times. Once to the cloud, once to me, and hide the third copy somewhere safe."

I murmured an acknowledgment.

"I'll look into the woman," Lucinda said.

I pushed open the front door. David was busy in the kitchen.

"You're back?"

He came out carrying a bowl of soup, smiling at me.

"You look awful. I made pork rib soup. You barely ate anything this morning."

His shirtsleeves were rolled to his forearms, apron tied neatly at his waist.

A completely different man from the one holding another child in that villa's garden four hours ago.

"Meeting's over?" I took the bowl.

"Yeah, dragged on all morning."

He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Drink the soup. You don't look well."

The meat fell right off the bone, tender the way I liked it.

Just like the soup from that little restaurant outside the university gates, all those years ago.

Back then, his monthly allowance was a few hundred dollars. Taking me out for a bowl of pork rib soup meant saving up for three days.

When the check came, he'd always sneak the last piece of rib into my bowl when he thought I wasn't looking.

I teased him for being cheap. He tapped my nose and said, "Once I'm making real money, I'll cook this for you every single day."

He kept that promise.

On our wedding day, he stood at the altar and said, "Ellie Pruitt, it took me eight years to get from matching hoodies to matching rings. The next eight years, I'm giving you a home."

The room erupted in applause.

I cried so hard my makeup ran.

When I got pregnant, he was more nervous than I was.

He stared at those two lines on the test for three solid seconds, then swept me off my feet and spun me around twice.

"I'm going to be a dad!"

He shouted it loud enough for the entire building to hear.

Through the whole pregnancy, he woke up early every morning to take my temperature and make breakfast. Never missed a single checkup.

He even bought a parenting book and read it so many times the pages curled at the corners.

On the inside cover, he'd written: For our little Beanie... Mommy and Daddy are waiting for you to come home.

Beanie.

That was the nickname we'd picked for our baby.

Beanie never came home.

I lost so much blood that I was unconscious for three days.

When I came to, David was sitting at the edge of my hospital bed. His eyes were rimmed red.

"Where's the baby?"

He didn't answer.

"David, where's the baby?!"

He pulled me into his arms, his voice trembling.

"Ellie, please don't be upset..."

I lost it. I tried to get out of bed, tried to get to the delivery room.

He held me down by the shoulders, saying sorry over and over.

Then the nurses came. The doctors came. Every single one of them told me the same thing: the baby was gone.

Too small. They couldn't save him.

I didn't believe them.

I begged them to let me see him, just once.

No one would let me.

David said he'd already taken care of everything.

"Don't think about it anymore. It's not good for your recovery."

I spent the next year trapped in postpartum depression.

He stayed by my side every single day. He even handed the company over to a professional manager just to take care of me.

Everyone said he was a wonderful husband.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Shen Yi.

That woman's name is Corinne Henson. Don't do anything yet. Give me three days to dig up the full picture.

I deleted the message and looked up.

David was sitting across from me, watching.

"What's wrong? Doesn't taste good?"

"It's fine."

That evening, a friend request popped up on my phone.

The note read: Mr. Delgado's assistant... Corinne Henson.

The verification message said: Ms. Pruitt, I'm Mr. Delgado's new assistant. I may need to coordinate some work-related matters with you.

I stared at the name for a long time.

I accepted the request, then opened her social media feed.

March 27th. The day I'd had my prenatal checkup. David said he had an important meeting and showed up two hours late.

A photo of a coffee cup, captioned: The boss was in a great mood today. Bought coffee for the whole office.

In the corner of the photo, a pair of cufflinks glinted on a man's wrist. The same cufflinks I'd given David for his birthday three years ago.

February 21st. My birthday. David said he had a client dinner. I reheated his food three times before finally scraping it into the trash.

A photo of a bouquet of flowers, captioned: Someone said work is too exhausting. You have to be kind to yourself.

Corinne reached out, saying she wanted to learn about Mr. Delgado's personal preferences so she could better manage his daily schedule. She suggested we meet at a coffee shop.

When I pushed open the door, a woman in a white knit sweater smiled at me.

The smile was soft. The eyes were razor-sharp.

It was her.

The white dress had been swapped for a white sweater, but I recognized that face.

"Ellie! Over here, sit down."

Her smile was sweet. Her voice was sweeter.

"Thank you for coming." She lowered her gaze and stirred her coffee. "I just started at the company, so there's a lot I don't know yet. I was hoping you could help me understand Mr. Delgado's dietary preferences."

"He doesn't eat cilantro or scallions," I said, lifting my cup.

"Right, right, I knew that." She covered her mouth with a little laugh. "He also won't touch carrots. Apparently he was forced to eat them as a kid, and now he makes a face whenever he sees one."

She knew. She knew everything.

I set my cup down.

"Assistant Henson, you didn't invite me here just to ask about that."

Her smile faltered for a second, then stretched wider.

"You really are sharp, Ellie."

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. The mask came off.

"I'll just say it, then."

"Ellie, don't you think whatever you and Mr. Delgado have... has run its course?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounds like." She tilted her head. "There's no love left between you two. Instead of dragging it out, why not let go while you still have some dignity?"

"You're telling me to get a divorce?"

"I'm offering you a way out." She corrected me with a smile. "No job, no children, nothing to contribute to his life. What's the point of holding on?"

I clenched my fists.

"Who do you think you are? You're an administrative assistant. You don't get to tell me to step aside."

"Administrative assistant?" She laughed out loud. "You really think that's what I am?"

"It doesn't matter what you are." I stared her down. "As long as I don't sign the divorce papers, you'll always be the dirty little secret. You and that child. Always."

Her smile froze for a split second.

Then something flickered behind her eyes, and she let out a derisive scoff.

"You're that confident? You went to the villa neighborhood the other day, didn't you?"

My heart skipped a beat.

"Relax." She waved her hand. "David doesn't know. I didn't tell him."

"I kept your secret for you." Her smile turned knowing. "After all, you're the big sister in this arrangement."

She set her coffee cup down and traced a finger along the rim.

"Speaking of which..."

She looked at me, and her gaze held a kind of cruel pity.

"It's such a shame, really. David told me your baby and Pete's birthdays were only six hours apart."

"Your child didn't make it. Mine is alive and thriving."

The corners of her mouth curled upward. Her tone was light, breezy, like she was commenting on the weather.

"Pete is smart, adorable, healthy. Even when he's being a little troublemaker, I can't bring myself to discipline him too hard. What can I say? I'm just lucky. God's been good to me."

She stood, picked up her purse, and walked over to where I sat. She leaned down, her lips close to my ear, and whispered a single sentence.

"You're a woman with no blessings."

She straightened up, and that gentle mask slid right back into place.

"But don't lose heart." She patted my shoulder. "Your blessings are still coming."

The click of her heels faded into the distance.

I sat there, motionless.

Six hours.

Only six hours apart.

The same day.

The same hospital...

General Memorial Hospital?

On the fourth night, Lucinda called. Her voice was shaking with anger.

"Ellie, your... your marriage certificate with David... it's fake."

I thought I'd heard her wrong.

"What... do you mean?"

"There's no marriage registration on file in the civil records system. But there is a divorce record. Two years ago, David forged your signature and filed for an uncontested divorce."

"Ellie, you two aren't husband and wife anymore."

The phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor. A crack split across the screen.

Corinne's face flashed behind my eyes. The way she'd frozen when I threatened her with refusing to sign, and then that scoff. That knowing, contemptuous scoff.

She'd known all along.

She knew David had forged the divorce papers for her. She knew he'd been willing to dissolve our marriage just to be with her.

She'd been laughing at my audacity. Laughing at me, a housewife who thought a marriage certificate was enough to hold David, with no real power to fight back.

I was a clown, dancing around in someone else's marriage.

Convinced I could win, while everyone else watched and laughed.

The next morning, David got up at seven as usual, knotted his tie, and ate the breakfast I'd made.

"I might have a business dinner tonight. Don't wait up for me."

"Okay."

He walked to the door, pulled me into his arms, and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.

"Ellie, I know these past few days have been hard on you. I'll make it up to you. I promise."

I smiled and said nothing.

After he left, I found a receipt in the walk-in closet. A crumpled slip from the store.

Imported toys. Children's vitamins. Dinosaur crackers.

In the bottom drawer of his study desk, I found the statements for his second bank account.

A fixed monthly transfer of forty-five hundred dollars. Three years. Thirty-six months. A hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars.

Recipient: Corinne Henson.