Chapter 6

You could say that I had two wake up calls that day, but the true depth of their meaning would become clear later, when I got home to check my email. 

There were two new messages at the top of my inbox. The first was from Dr. Ryland Winchester and the HR department of Haven Medical Group. 

The second one was from the camera I had installed in the car. 

My heart skipped. Good news, bad news–which one do I open first?

Exhaling, I chose to look at the offer letter. 

It was a generous offer–far more generous than I was expecting. If I took the position, not only would I get an opportunity to work on a fully-funded research team among some of the country’s physicians, including my old mentor Professor Winchester, I would be paid handsomely for my services–three times what I’d make here in NYC for any of the local hospitals.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A reset button on the last three years. 

It would be like I never gave up my future to support Misha with his.

Even as I stared at the offer, I couldn’t bring myself to feel the excitement I knew I should.

Part of me wanted to believe I was still capable of this—of stepping back into a world I had walked away from years ago. But another part whispered all the reasons I shouldn’t. I had been out of academia for too long. I was rusty. Behind. Out of place.

Saying yes felt reckless.

And then there was reality. Misha would never give up his career to follow me, and his life was firmly rooted in New York, tied to Carter Tech. California felt impossibly far away—less like a destination and more like a fantasy.

I didn’t know if I could truly separate from Misha. My mind was in complete chaos…

“I’ll write him back tomorrow,” I promised myself as I filed the message away to deal with later.  “Tell him I can’t do it. That would be the professional thing to do.” 

Sighing, I looked back at my email. The other unopened message was waiting. With a nervous click, I opened it to find hours of footage along with summaries and GPS data of locations and times. 

As I scrolled, I noticed a pattern. 

Misha visited the same residential complex over and over again on multiple days, always at the same time in the morning, and then later at night. My chest tightened as I compared the night drop off dates to the last week of “late nights” at the office. 

They were a perfect match. 

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” I said more for myself than for his sake. “It doesn’t mean anything. He could be meeting a client.” 

But even as I said this, my heart knew I was fooling myself. 

I slept poorly that night, not just because Misha didn’t return until after midnight, but also because my mind couldn’t let go of the events of the day. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could see the pretty blonde smiling up at my husband like he was her everything, and my stomach clenched with anxiety and disgust. 

And yet, the next morning, I woke up an hour earlier than normal, left a note saying I was “going for a run” and took my car to the other side of the town–not to the gym, but to the address displayed in the tracking app. 

Parking across the street in a narrow alley, I looked down at my watch and waited.

And at 7:45 exactly a very familiar car pulled into the parking garage. A moment later, it drove out again, and following at a discrete distance, I tailed him all the way back to Carter Tech. 

Parking just a few cars away, I watched Misha, clean-shaven and smiling, open the passenger side door. Extending his hand, he offered a dainty young woman help as she climbed out of the car in very high heels. 

It was the same girl from the coffee shop. 

As my husband leaned down to pick up a lunchbag, my heart stopped. I recognized that bag–it was the same one he used to pack for me when we were dating and I was working late nights during my residency. 

He made her lunch in my lunchbag. A lunch he used to make for me.

The girl took it graciously, and standing on tip-toe, placed a small, grateful kiss on his cheek. 

My blood ran cold as my heart froze to ice. 

Watching them walk side by side towards the elevator, I couldn’t stop my feet from following. Taking the next lift up, I pretended to check my phone as I walked out into the reception area, my eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses. 

“Well look at that,” one of the receptionists gossiped under her breath as the two women watched my husband enter the main office, his hand on the small of the blonde woman’s back. “That new secretary, Mavis, sure moves fast, doesn’t she?”

Ah, so that’s Mavis.

“Mr. Carter does seem to dote on her,” the other receptionist replied. “She’s only been here a couple of months, but they’re practically inseparable. I wonder what she did to earn that extra attention.” 

The two women giggle under their breath. 

I don’t need to hear any more to know what they were implying–even the receptionists think he’s sleeping with her.

My stomach feeling sour, I turned away and headed back to my car. 

Three years. I have given this man three years of my life. 

Now, I need to fight back. I won’t let the sacrifices I made for this family go to waste. 

As I thought about it, a plan began to form in my mind.