Cheating on Vacation? See You in Court

I hung up the phone and walked back into the office. Everyone was laughing and placing bets on how my husband, the company's CEO, would punish me this time.

Would he make me buy his assistant another boba? Or would he dock half a year's bonus again and hand it over as "emotional damages" for the precious assistant?

They shut up the second they saw me, but the amusement in their eyes didn't go anywhere. I was used to it.

Everyone in the company knew the situation between me, Andrew Hartwell, and his assistant, Chloe Miller. The messy little triangle wasn't exactly a secret.

Andrew was my husband. But when it came to Chloe, he had a massive blind spot.

He'd pulled strings to hire her in the first place, giving her resources and opportunities most people had to earn. She botched every single one of them.

Andrew kept believing in her anyway, finding ways to spin her failures into learning experiences, coaching her through the wreckage, cheering her on.

Once, he handed her a project I'd spent six months courting, a deal worth over a million in profit. By the time Chloe was done with it, that number had shrunk to a hundred thousand.

Andrew praised her. He said turning any profit at all was a great start, and he believed she'd only get better from here.

Meanwhile, I forgot to adjust the font size on a contract. It didn't affect a single thing, and he still docked my entire year's bonus.

His excuse was that he had to be harder on me to avoid the appearance of favoritism. That same night, Chloe posted on social media. Andrew had taken my bonus and given it straight to her.

I confronted him.

He shrugged it off. "Chloe's only been with the company six months. Obviously, she needs a little encouragement. Besides, you've made plenty of money over the years. Do you really need this one bonus that badly?"

"It's not about the money," I said.

He nodded like he agreed, then waved his hand, already done with the conversation. "We're married. What's mine is yours. So, as my wife, the least you could do is support me on this."

When he saw I was still upset, he offered to take me on a trip to make up for it. But ever since Chloe started working here, every plan Andrew made with me got derailed by her.

We'd have movie tickets for the evening, and suddenly Chloe needed him to stay late. Andrew would promise to celebrate my birthday, and Chloe would call crying about a difficult client giving her a hard time.