Chapter 3

From that day on, Sean and I began working together in secret.

We agreed to keep every conversation confined to a newly registered, encrypted messaging account, and to only reach each other during my one-hour lunch break.

Sean's job was to keep Melanie steady, to keep playing the devoted, oblivious husband. Mine was to carry on with Melanie exactly as before: planning the wedding, picking out suits, booking the venue, drawing up the guest list.

Melanie noticed nothing. She kept moving between the two of us without a hitch.

Monday through Friday, she was my perfect fiancée, tasting menus with me, touring venues, choosing favors for guests, posting our sweet couple photos for everyone to see. On weekends, she was Sean's model wife, taking their daughter to the park, cleaning the house top to bottom, and wiring the household money to his account like clockwork.

She even took a call once while we were out to dinner. I heard her say, in the gentlest voice imaginable, "Yes, I sent you an extra two thousand this month. Buy yourself some clothes. Stop being so frugal all the time."

She hung up and smiled at me. "Just accounting, reporting on some work."

I smiled back at her. Inside, I was laughing coldly. Did she have any idea how sickening it was to watch her perform like that?

Sean and I began deliberately chipping away at her nerves. We'd time our messages to hit at the exact same moment. Melanie always answered mine first and left Sean waiting. But the instant she finished replying to me, Sean would call her.

"Hey, are you busy?"

"No… no." There was always a flicker of panic in Melanie's voice, followed by her dropping it low. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. I just missed you." Sean's voice stayed low and warm. "When are you coming back from your trip?"

I'd sit there listening, watching a fine sheen of sweat break out across her forehead, and something like sweet revenge would rise in my chest.

Every so often, I needed to visit Melanie's "branch office" to collect evidence. Sean would tell me her schedule ahead of time, then call her home right when she was supposed to be at the office. Melanie never dared refuse him. She knew he had no one else to lean on.

Meanwhile, my own people would use the gap to slip into her "branch office," really the apartment she'd rented to keep up the act with me, and gather proof of her bigamy.

The evidence turned out to be more damning than I'd expected. Melanie had probably never imagined that someone would investigate both of her identities at once. She used two different social media accounts and two different phone numbers to keep us apart. But she'd overlooked plenty of details.

For one, half the money in the account she used to pay Sean came from the "startup fund" my father had given her. For another, the resort hotel she'd taken Sean to was the exact same one she'd taken me to, just a week apart. And in front of Sean, she played the exhausted wife constantly traveling for work, while in front of me, she played the single, wealthy, accomplished young woman on the rise.

I organized every piece of evidence and stored it in an encrypted folder.

Sean was her fallback, her guarantee of a stable life. I was her stepping stone, her ladder up into a different class, the spice and thrill in an otherwise ordinary life. She drifted between the two of us, soaking up double the love, double the adoration, double the devotion.

She thought she was clever enough to play everyone like a fool.

She forgot that a fire like that never stays hidden for long.