Chapter 1

Under the entryway light, I noticed a rosy mark on Brodie Bonner’s white shirt collar. It was egregious and tacky.

His breath was warm against my neck. I caught a whiff of alcohol and an unfamiliar perfume.

“Honey, happy tenth anniversary!”

He reached behind him and pulled out a Hermes bag.

It was the latest release that dropped a few days ago. I had even mentioned back then that it looked nice.

“Do you like it? To surprise you, I had to run to a bunch of different stores to track this one down for you.”

I watched myself in the mirror, smiling softly and gratefully. Tears welled up right on cue.

“I love it! Thank you, dear.”

He kissed my forehead and walked toward the bathroom.

“You go ahead and sleep. I’m going to hop in the shower. I’m exhausted from all the networking today.”

The moment the door closed, the smile on my face froze.

I glanced at the Hermes bag in my hand that cost at least a few hundred thousand dollars.

That was his compensation for his guilt. This one was generous.

I placed the bag on the shelf, together with the other bags.

This was the 99th Hermes bag he had given me, which meant he had cheated on me 99 times.

I went back to the bedroom and pulled up the app on my phone, which was connected to the hidden camera I had set up in Brodie’s car.

I scrubbed back to ten minutes before he got home.

In the dimly lit car, he and his little mistress, Winnie Oakley, kissed passionately, unable to keep their hands off each other.

Her lipstick was exactly the rose shade I had seen on his collar.

“Brodie Bear, are you really going home? Stay with me tonight.”

“I’ve got a meeting tomorrow. Besides, it’s my tenth wedding anniversary. I at least have to go home and play the part.”

“So, when are you going to divorce her and marry me?”

“Soon, soon… We’ve been married for so many years. Divorce isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Once the time is right, I’ll bring it up to her.”

In the video, he brushed her off while impatiently pushing open the car door.

I turned off the video with an indifferent face and backed up the footage to an encrypted cloud drive.

The bathroom door opened. Brodie came out wrapped in a bath towel. His hair was still dripping wet.

“Elowen, Mom and Dad need to be repositioned to prevent bedsores. Go handle it. My back’s killing me.”

He ordered me around as if it were only natural, then plopped himself onto the couch and started scrolling through his phone.

I nodded and tiptoed into the bedroom of my in-laws, Rosalind and Jeremy Bonne.

Ten years had passed since Rosalind and Jeremy were left paralyzed and bedridden. I was the only one caring for them.

During the day, I was a high school homeroom teacher working from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. After work, I came home to be their unpaid caregiver.

Every day, he put on a suit and played the part of a successful executive, the kind of boss who understood his employees.

He also went out chasing thrills and had himself a college girl on the side.

The whole time, he wanted to keep me in the dark and live like this for the rest of his life.

Just as I was thinking about that, my phone buzzed.

A random number sent me a picture.

I opened it and saw a positive pregnancy test.

Right after that, a text popped up.

[Mrs. Bonne, word has it you’re a real bookworm. All you know how to do is ace exams. But here’s the thing, I don’t have to lift a finger to give Mr. Bonne a son.]

I was unfazed when I saw the text.

I simply screenshotted the text and the pregnancy test. This was the clearest evidence of Brodie’s affair.

That fool Winnie actually thought she could turn herself from a nobody into somebody.

They had no idea that with all my years of experience, I had long seen through their little schemes.

Brodie thought he had found himself a little mistress for a cheap thrill.

Little did he know, I was the mastermind behind it all.