Six years since Brian Delgado came back to the family.

I used his money to keep a male best friend on speed dial.

Every time Brian made some excuse about working late so he could sneak off to his mistress, I picked up the phone and called Mervyn Henson to come have a candlelit dinner with me.

When I found a receipt in Brian's pocket for a designer handbag he'd secretly bought for the other woman, I didn't cry. I didn't throw a fit. I just turned around, swiped his card, and bought my male best friend a watch worth ten times as much.

This went on until our anniversary.

That evening, the mistress called again, sniffling and whimpering through the phone.

"Brian, every time I think about you sleeping in the same bed as your wife, I can't close my eyes all night..."

Brian's heart ached for her instantly. "I'll come stay with you tonight."

He grabbed his jacket and was about to walk out the door.

But I stepped out of the bedroom with a smile, dressed in something skimpy and seductive, and draped myself over Mervyn.

"Finally, the buzzkill is leaving. Tonight belongs to us."

——

Brian's hand froze on the door handle.

He turned around slowly.

His gaze swept over what I was wearing, and shock flooded his eyes, raw and disbelieving.

He should have been shocked.

After all, ten years of marriage, and I had never once dressed up like this to please him.

Yet here I was, the moment he was about to leave, dolled up in next to nothing, ready for a date with another man.

"Eleanor Pruitt, have you no shame?"

After a few seconds of rigid silence, Brian snapped. He lunged forward and clamped his hand around my throat.

"It's bad enough that you parade this man around the house every day just to disgust me. But now you're putting on this little show right in front of my face?"

"What, the second I walk out that door, this place becomes your love nest?"

I studied his bloodshot eyes with mild amusement and let out a soft laugh.

"Aren't you on your way to see another woman right now?"

"Funny how that's fine, but when it's me, suddenly you're furious."

Something shifted in Brian's expression. The rage eased a fraction, and he released my neck abruptly.

"I thought you were actually planning to cheat on me."

"Turns out you're just jealous."

A sneer curled his lip as he looked down at me, condescending to his core.

"I already told you, ever since we got back together, Joan and I are done."

"Today's a special situation. I was just going to talk to her..."

I gave him a mocking smile.

"Do you honestly think I'd believe that?"

This exact scene had played out more times than I could count.

During those two years of his affair, I'd been hysterical. I'd screamed, sobbed, interrogated him like a woman losing her mind. I couldn't understand why Brian had to betray me. I smashed everything in the house to pieces. I clawed his face until it bled.

All it earned me was his contempt.

But now, there was nothing left to feel. Just numbness, still and flat as dead water.

Especially after Brian had crossed every line, lied to me without a shred of conscience, time after time. After he'd sworn up and down that he and Joan Henson were finished, then kept sneaking around, kept meeting her, kept betraying me.

I'd learned the hard way: not a single word that came out of a man's mouth was worth believing.

Brian's lips twisted into a cold smile. He backed me into the corner, one arm braced against the wall beside my head.

"Eleanor. Be a good girl."

"I know you only brought that friend of yours home to get under my skin."

"Nothing actually happened between you two, right?"

"Ten years of marriage. What couple doesn't fight?"

"But I know you too well. You'd never stoop to playing tit for tat."

I lifted my gaze, lazy and unhurried. "Is that so."

A look of smug certainty settled across Brian's face.

But the very next second, that certainty shattered.

Right in front of him, I tore open a packet of high-potency aphrodisiac, dumped it into my water glass, tilted my head back, and drank every last drop.

The color drained from Brian's face in an instant.

"Eleanor, have you lost your mind?!"

He stared at me in disbelief.

He knew exactly how potent that aphrodisiac was. It was the very reason he'd ended up in Joan's bed all those years ago. The woman had slipped it into his drink. He'd been wrecked the entire night before the effects finally wore off, his body so hollowed out that it took him the better part of a month to recover.

And he understood something else, too.

Ever since his affair, I had never let him lay a finger on me again.

"Eleanor, spit it out right now! Your body can't handle this!"

Brian's face was ashen. He pounded on my back, clawing at me, even trying to shove his fingers down my throat to force it out.

But I sidestepped him without hesitation.

My eyes narrowed, and a cold smile curved across my lips.

"Do you believe me now?"

"Brian Delgado, let me make something crystal clear." I looked him dead in the eye, enunciating every single word. "I didn't get myself a male best friend to get back at you."

A beat.

"I did it to have a good time."

Within moments, heat rushed to my face, staining my cheeks scarlet. My breathing grew ragged.

I turned to Mervyn. "What are you standing around for? Go wait for me in the room."

Mervyn hesitated for a second, then nodded and did as he was told.

I swung my gaze back to Brian, amusement dripping from every word.

"Why are you still here?"

"Wait much longer and your precious Joan will throw another tantrum."

Before the reconciliation. After the reconciliation. It never mattered.

Joan always had to make herself the center of attention. The moment Brian was anywhere near me, she'd fake an illness, threaten to jump off a building, or dissolve into hysterical sobs. One stunt after another, each one designed to drag him away.

And Brian, fully aware it was all a performance, fully aware every word out of her mouth was a lie, chose to believe her. Every. Single. Time.

He stood frozen in place, his face white as chalk, staring at me with an expression twisted in agony.

"Eleanor, have you actually gone insane?"

"Do you have any idea what the consequences of this will be?"

I let out a cold laugh. "Of course I do. Once you leave, I'm going to be blissfully happy."

"After all, the reason you and Joan keep crawling back to each other is thanks to this little drug, isn't it?"

Brian gaped at me, stumbled back a few steps, and let out a hollow, bitter laugh.

His phone rang again.

Even his ringtone was set to a cutesy girl's voice. Joan's voice, specifically.

"Hubby, hubby, pick up the phone..."

After we'd reconciled, I had asked him more than once to change that ringtone.

He refused every time.

"Joanie and I are done. It's over. We're clean."

"That ringtone is the last thing I have left of her. Why can't you even let me have that?"

Now I smiled, razor-sharp. "Aren't you going to answer? Your precious Joanie must be getting upset."

Brian yanked the phone out without a second thought, rejected the call, and powered it off.

Then he lifted his gaze and fixed me with a frigid stare. "You want me to leave? Not a chance, Eleanor. I won't let you have your way."

He didn't leave that night.

Instead, he snapped.

He grabbed the edge of the dining table and flipped the whole thing over.

That table had been set for our tenth wedding anniversary. Brian had spent the entire afternoon in the kitchen preparing every dish himself.

Not a single bite had been touched.

And now—

A sharp, cascading crash of porcelain and glass.

An entire spread of food became wreckage on the floor.

"Why?" His voice cracked. "Why did we end up like this?"

"Eleanor, I know I cheated. I know I made a mistake!"

"But isn't all of that in the past?"

"Why do you insist on tormenting me like this?"

I pressed a hand to my chest. My face was flushed a deep, burning red, and yet I found myself looking at Brian Delgado with something close to amusement.

I was tormenting him?

He was the one who'd put me through hell for six straight years.

The moment I found out about Brian's first affair, I asked for a divorce.

He panicked completely.

He dropped to his knees and swore to me that he would cut Joan Henson out of his life for good.

He scrubbed his social media clean. Every last trace of the other woman, gone.

He even changed his profile banner to our wedding photo.

With tears in his eyes, he gathered up every cheap little trinket Joan had ever given him, shoved them all into a box, and threw it away.

But our finances were tangled too deep.

Even if I divorced him, I'd walk away with nothing.

And why should I be the one who left empty-handed?

So after all the back and forth, we got back together.

On the surface, we looked like the same couple we'd always been.

But only the two of us knew the truth. Once a crack exists, it can never be repaired.

The marriage had been hollow for a long time.

I thought we could at least keep up appearances a while longer.

Then last month happened.

He and Joan, drunk again, rekindled everything in a hotel room.

"Eleanor, take a good look. What exactly do you think you have that can compete with me?"

Three in the morning.

Joan had video-called me specifically to gloat.

"Your husband swore up and down he was coming back to his family. Said you were the only one in his heart. And so what?"

"All I had to do was crook my finger, and he came running right back to my bed."

When I found out he'd cheated again, I didn't cry or scream the way I used to. There was no hysteria.

I simply picked up the phone, calm as anything.

"Hi. I heard you can arrange a selection of men. Is that right?"

The very next day, a "male best friend" appeared in our home.

Brian would make up excuses about working late and sneak off to see Joan.

The second he walked out the door, I'd call Mervyn to come over for a candlelit dinner.

Brian spent five thousand dollars buying Joan clothes and handbags.

I turned around and swiped his card for a luxury watch worth ten times that, a gift for Mervyn.

One night I found lipstick on Brian's collar.

The next morning, I personally knotted Mervyn's tie in front of him, all smiles and affection.

Brian's eyes went red with fury, and something inside me finally unclenched.

That evening, Brian didn't leave after all.

He couldn't stomach the thought of me, drugged with an aphrodisiac, alone in a room with a strange man.

So he decided to play the antidote himself.

He loosened his tie, undid a few buttons on his shirt, and backed me into the corner.

"Eleanor, seeing you suffer like this... as your husband, I just can't bear it."

"Isn't this all because you're jealous?"

"Tonight, I'll keep you company..."

But before he could get any closer, I raked my nails across his face.

"Don't touch me. You disgust me."

Brian clutched his cheek. He touched it once, then stared at the blood on his fingers in disbelief.

"You're vicious, Eleanor. You really are."

I shoved him away hard and staggered toward the bedroom. The drug was coursing through me now, turning my limbs to cotton, draining every ounce of strength.

"Mervyn. Come help me."

He stepped out obediently and draped my arm over his shoulder.

Brian's gaze locked onto him, eyes bloodshot, and he hurled a glass that shattered at Mervyn's feet.

"Get the hell out."

"This is my home. Mine and my wife's. What the hell are you?"

"Keep meddling in our marriage, and don't blame me when I call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing."