"Don't lie to me, Mercer."

Adrian's voice came through the speakers flat and cold.

"Tyler Reed was leaving my grandmother's street. He saw her get into your car. Black Escalade. New York plates." A pause. "So I'll ask once more. Give her back."

*Give her back.*

Like I was a watch he'd left on someone's nightstand.

I leaned toward the dashboard. "Adrian, it's not what Tyler thinks. My phone died and I twisted my..."

"She has someone with her, right?"

A woman's voice. Soft. Close to his phone, like she was standing right at his shoulder.

"Adrian, I'm so cold. Can we go back now?"

*We.*

My mouth stayed open. Nothing else came out.

I was his wife. I had the paper in a drawer at home with both our signatures on it. And I had no idea what that paper was supposed to mean if another woman got to say *we* into my husband's phone.

Jack's hands tightened on the wheel. He gave a short, ugly laugh.

"Sounds like you've got company, Blackwood. Busy keeping someone else warm tonight?"

Silence.

Five seconds. Six.

When Adrian spoke again, his voice was lower. Almost gentle.

"Emma. Go home first."

Jack jabbed the button. The call cut off.

We rolled up to a red light. The engine hummed. Jack turned in his seat and fixed his eyes on me, not the road.

"Listen to me. You can go back. Or you don't have to." He said each word slowly. "Nobody gets to decide that for you. Not him. Not me."

I stared at him.

My whole life, someone had decided for me. My mother picked my college. My father picked my husband, more or less. Adrian picked my slippers.

*You decide.*

It sounded like a language I'd never learned.

"I..." I picked at the zipper of his vest. "He sounded worried. Before she said anything. He was breathing hard."

Jack didn't answer.

"I just want to know if that was for me." My voice came out tiny. "Can you take me to the apartment?"

The light turned green. He nodded once and drove.

---

Adrian was waiting outside our building.

No coat buttoned. No phone in his hand. Just him, alone on the sidewalk, wind pulling at his hair.

My heart gave one stupid, hopeful kick.

Jack rolled down his window before Adrian reached us. "Your wife is wearing a coat thinner than a napkin. And she hurt her ankle. In case you were wondering."

Adrian didn't look at him.

He opened my door, bent over me, and unbuckled my seatbelt himself. His jaw was locked tight. He caught my wrist and pulled me out of the car, steady but firm.

"Emma." Jack leaned across the passenger seat and held out a card. "Mercer Charity Gala. November twenty-third. Come."

Adrian's grip on my wrist tightened.

I took the card anyway.

"Next time you need help," Jack said, his gaze sliding to Adrian and back, "call me."

The SUV pulled away.

---

The lobby was warm. Adrian walked me toward the elevator, his hand still around my wrist.

"Don't run off like that again," he said. "We were all worried."

*We.*

That word again.

"Who's 'we'?" I started. "Adrian, who exactly..."

His phone rang.

He glanced at it, then held it out to me. I thought it had to be Evelyn. She'd woken up and found me gone.

I pressed it to my ear. "Grandma, I'm fine, I'm sorry..."

"Adrian?" My mother's voice. Bright and nervous. "Oh, Adrian, we're so sorry about tonight. Emma's always been dramatic, you know how she..."

"Mom. It's me."

A rustle. Then my father took the phone.

"Emma." Richard Carter didn't yell often. When he did, it shook. "Do you know why your mother and I are calling your husband at eleven at night, groveling like servants? Do you think we enjoy it?"

"Dad, I hurt my..."

"Don't you dare ruin this partnership with your temper. Do you hear me?"

My mother came back on, softer, which was worse. "Sweetheart, just apologize to him. Whatever it was. Just say you're sorry."

The call ended.

Not one of them asked where it hurt.

I handed the phone back. As Adrian took it, the screen lit up.

**Chloe: Milo's not feeling well. He keeps whining. I don't know what to do.**

Milo. The Pomeranian. I'd seen him in old photos in a shoebox in the closet, a fluffy orange ball sitting between two teenagers.

Their dog.

So they'd already started texting again.

"Sorry," I said automatically. "I didn't mean to read it."

He wasn't listening. His thumb moved fast across the screen. His brows drew in, and his whole body tilted toward the door.

Something in me snapped loose.

I reached out and caught the cuff of his sleeve.

He looked down at my fingers. A small frown.

I opened my hand.

"She has an emergency over there," he said, already turning. "Whatever you want to say, we'll talk tomorrow."

He never looked at my ankle. It had swollen so badly my shoe barely fit.

The door swung shut behind him.

---

I sat on the couch with a hot-water bottle against my foot.

At midnight, it was warm.

At one, lukewarm.

By two, it was a cold rubber sack in my lap, and my phone hadn't buzzed once.

At three, I opened Instagram.

Chloe had posted a video four minutes ago. Milo trotted under a streetlight, tail high, bouncing on his tiny paws. Not sick at all.

The leash stretched up out of frame. At the top, a man's wrist.

A watch with a brown leather strap.

Yesterday morning, I had stood in our bedroom and fastened that strap for him, because the clasp was stiff and he was late.

The comments were flooding in.

*WHO IS THAT HAND??*

*Chloe are you dating someone?!*

Chloe had replied to the top one.

*Just friends. For now.*

I read *for now* until the letters blurred.

I thought about my fingers on his sleeve. How fast he'd frowned.

He hadn't seen a wife asking him to stay.

He'd seen something in his way.

---

The next afternoon, my phone exploded.

A gossip account had posted a voice recording. The voice was distorted, pitched low and robotic. The caption read: *Adrian Blackwood's close friend speaks out.*

I hit play.

"Look, he never got over her. Never. The marriage? He did it to... spite her. That's all." A pause. "And the wife's not exactly innocent. Last night she hopped into Jack Mercer's car. While still married. So."

That pause. Right before *spite.* Right before *so.*

Tyler Reed talked like that at every dinner party. Like he was waiting for applause.

I scrolled down.

*Adrian and Chloe were ALWAYS endgame 😭*

*Broken mirrors CAN be fixed. So happy for them.*

*The wife needs to get out of their love story.*

*Gold digger found a backup. Shocker.*

I called Adrian.

It rang. And rang. Voicemail.

I called again.

Voicemail.

When I went back to the app, Chloe had posted something new. Two plates on a white tablecloth. Grilled salmon, steamed greens. A second hand at the edge of the frame, holding a fork.

*Poor someone has to eat diet food with me tonight.*

The top comment had eleven thousand likes.

*Mrs. Blackwood looks happy 🥹*

I stared at the screen until it went dark on its own.

My name was gone. Not crossed out, just quietly replaced, like I'd never been there at all.

And the only man in the world with the right to say *she's my wife* still hadn't said a single word.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

Not Adrian.

An unknown number.

*Mrs. Carter, this is a reporter from Page Six. Is it true you're filing for divorce?*