My Husband’s Mistress’s Husband

Isabella Vaughn entered the restaurant with the kind of effortless elegance that seemed to come naturally to her. She carried a small handbag between her fingers, a white blazer draped over her shoulders, and a serene expression that betrayed neither haste nor concern, much less any particular curiosity about why a man she had never met had invited her to lunch.

She surveyed the restaurant before approaching the hostess.

“Good afternoon. Do you have a reservation?” the young woman asked.

“Yes. It's under Harvey Sterling.”

The hostess searched for the name on her tablet and, once she found it, looked up.

“Mr. Sterling is already expecting you. Right this way, please.”

Isabella followed her through the restaurant to a small private dining room, tucked away from the tall windows and the murmur of the other diners. The choice caught her attention. Whoever Harvey Sterling was, he clearly didn't want any witnesses to their conversation.

“Mr. Sterling, your guest has arrived,” the hostess announced as she opened the door.

Harvey rose to his feet.

Isabella studied him with the same composure she had displayed while walking through the restaurant, and his nearly six-foot-three frame didn't seem to intimidate her in the slightest. She wasn't exactly a petite woman herself. In heels, she stood around five-foot-nine, and although her figure was slender, there was something about the confidence with which she carried herself that made her presence seem larger than her physical stature.

“Mrs. Vaughn,” Harvey greeted her, extending his hand.

“Mr. Sterling.”

Her handshake was firm and confident, something he hadn't expected for reasons he couldn't quite explain. Perhaps the photograph he'd found of her had led him to imagine a more delicate woman. Or perhaps, ever since discovering who she was, he'd formed too many assumptions about Isabella Vaughn without ever exchanging a single word with her.

And that was the first assumption she promptly shattered.

“A waiter will be with you shortly,” the hostess said before leaving.

“Thank you,” they replied in unison.

Isabella took her seat, and Harvey settled into the chair across from her.

For a few seconds, she simply observed him, showing no signs of nervousness, impatience, or even the slightest concern.

Harvey, on the other hand, felt irritation creeping beneath his skin again as soon as he remembered why he'd invited her. For days, he'd been living with a simmering rage that surfaced at the most inconvenient moments, and he still hadn't quite figured out where to direct it. At Theresa, obviously. At the man she was sleeping with. At himself for not having realized sooner.

Perhaps even at the woman sitting across from him, although rationally, he knew Isabella wasn't to blame for any of it.

The waiter appeared before he could say anything.

“Would you care for something to drink, ma'am?”

Isabella tilted her head slightly as she considered the question.

“I'm not entirely sure how social this lunch is going to be, but I'm certainly not turning down a St-Germain Spritz.”

The waiter smiled.

“Of course. And for you, sir?”

Harvey was still watching her.

“I'll have the same.”

Isabella raised an eyebrow slightly but made no comment.

She settled more comfortably into her chair, leaned against the backrest, and rested one hand on the table. Her perfectly manicured nails began tapping softly against the surface as she waited.

Her composure was beginning to irritate him, not because she was doing anything wrong, but because it contrasted so sharply with the chaos he'd been struggling to contain for days.

When the waiter returned with their drinks and left them alone again, Harvey clenched his jaw.

He'd rehearsed this conversation several times, thinking about how to break the news without being unnecessarily cruel, how to show her the little evidence he had, and how to answer the questions that would inevitably follow.

He'd even considered the possibility that Isabella wouldn't believe him.

What he hadn't anticipated was that, once she was finally sitting in front of him, all he would want was to get it over with.

“Do you have any idea why I've asked you here, Mrs. Vaughn?”

“I must admit, your call came as quite a surprise. I haven't the faintest idea why you wanted to see me.”

Harvey scrutinized her face, searching for some indication that she was lying, but found nothing. Isabella held his gaze without the slightest discomfort.

“In that case, I'll be practical and get straight to the point.”

“Please do. There's no need to sugarcoat whatever it is you have to tell me.”

There it was again. That confidence.

Harvey felt something tighten inside him.

He had to remind himself that Isabella wasn't responsible for this situation. She wasn't the one who had broken any agreement with him, nor was she the one who had decided that years of trust were suddenly disposable.

Theresa was.

And that was precisely what bothered him most.

He wasn't even sure whether he could still call what he felt for his wife love. Perhaps it had been love once. Perhaps there were still remnants of it buried beneath the familiarity, the years they'd shared, and the life they'd built together. But Harvey didn't need to be madly in love with Theresa to expect her loyalty.

As far as he was concerned, that had never been negotiable.

If she'd stopped loving him, she could have told him. If she'd wanted another man, she could have ended their marriage. If she no longer wanted to share her life with him, there was a door she could have walked through.

What she couldn't do was keep him bound to an agreement she'd secretly decided to break.

Isabella picked up her glass and brought it to her lips.

Harvey finally stopped postponing the inevitable.

“Your husband is sleeping with my wife.”

Isabella's blue eyes lifted to meet his.

That was the extent of her reaction. She didn't drop her glass, turn pale, part her lips in disbelief, or ask whether he was certain. She simply held his gaze for a moment before bringing the drink the rest of the way to her mouth and taking a slow sip.

Harvey frowned, utterly bewildered by her reaction.

Isabella set her glass on the table and released a deep sigh, although even that sounded more like exhausted patience than genuine pain.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Loud and clear, Mr. Sterling. Loud and clear.”

She gently swirled the glass between her fingers and remained thoughtful for a few seconds before finally nodding, as though she'd just found the answer to a question that had been lingering in her mind for some time.

“So it's your wife.”

It took Harvey a second to understand.

“You knew?”

“That she was your wife? No.” Isabella shook her head calmly. “I don't even know who your wife is. Although, judging by appearances, I can safely assume she's not a secretary, which I must admit makes the whole situation slightly less embarrassing for me.”

“But you're not surprised by the news,” Harvey replied, staring at her intently.

“Not in the slightest.” Isabella picked up her glass again. “Shall we order? I'm hungry.”

Harvey stared at her in astonishment.

Of all the reactions he'd imagined, this one hadn't even made the list.

“How can you be so calm?”

“I'm starving, which is an entirely different matter. Now, if you don't mind…”

She leaned across the table to press the call button, and Harvey followed her movements with his eyes, unable to decide whether the woman was in shock or genuinely didn't give a damn that her husband was sleeping with Theresa.

The waiter appeared shortly afterward.

“Excuse me, could we please have the menus?” Isabella asked with impeccable politeness.

“Of course.”

Harvey waited until the man returned with the menus. Isabella needed barely a minute to make her selection.

“I'll have the Caprese salad and the lemon linguine, please.”

“Certainly, ma'am. And for you, sir?”

Harvey was still trying to figure out the woman sitting across from him.

Eventually, he lowered his gaze to the menu.

“The same salad and the salmon.”

“I'll have your orders out shortly.”

Once they were alone again, Isabella closed her menu and set it aside.

“I don't know where all those thoughts running through your head are taking you, Mr. Sterling…”

“Harvey,” he interrupted. “At this point, I'd rather dispense with the formalities.”

A smile appeared on Isabella's lips.

“Excellent, Harvey. As I was saying, I don't know exactly what you're thinking, but I've clearly disappointed you with my reaction.”

She regarded him calmly, her smile widening until a soft laugh escaped her lips.

“I found out months ago. I must admit, I spent quite some time in denial and cried myself to sleep far too many nights waiting for him to come home, so I've already been through that stage of grieving. I'm sorry you missed my initial reaction.”

She said it lightly, but not because it had never hurt.

It had hurt more than she cared to remember.

For weeks, Isabella had waited for her husband to come home in time for dinner. She'd set two plates on the table, opened a bottle of wine, and glanced at the clock far too many times while the food grew cold in front of her. His business trips had multiplied almost overnight, his meetings had started running later and later, and his excuses had become suspiciously similar. Eventually, the cold sheets beside her had become the only company she could reliably expect when she climbed into bed.

At first, she'd searched for explanations, but when she finally found the answers, she'd cried.

She'd cried for him, for herself, for the marriage she'd believed they had, and above all, for the humiliation of discovering that while she was waiting for him to come home, he was spending those very hours sleeping with another woman.

But that had been months ago, and Harvey had arrived far too late to meet that version of Isabella.

The woman sitting across from him had already stopped wondering why she hadn't been enough. These days, the only question on her mind was when it would be most convenient for her to leave.

“That's not why I'm here,” Harvey said.

Isabella let his words sink in.

“If you weren't expecting tears or endless denial on my part, then tell me, what am I doing here?”

“I need evidence.”

Isabella released a weary sigh, and the exaggerated disappointment that spread across her face was so unexpected that Harvey narrowed his eyes.

“And here I was, thinking for a second that you were going to suggest fucking me senseless to give them a taste of their own medicine…”

Harvey went completely still.

Isabella calmly picked up her glass before adding, “Now that's a disappointment.”