My Turn With Your Husband, Bestie!

The candles had burned down to short, crooked stumps by the time my husband came home.I sat at the end of our long dining table, looking at two plates of food that had gone cold. Salmon. Roasted potatoes. The wine he liked, opened an hour ago so it could breathe. It had finished breathing a long time ago.The front door opened at 10pm. I heard his shoes on the marble, slow and unbothered, like a man walking into a hotel and not his own home."You're still up," Christian said from the doorway."I made dinner."He glanced at the table, then at his watch. He did not say sorry. He never did anymore."The meeting ran late," he said, loosening his tie. "You should have eaten without me."He walked past me to set his keys down, and a sweet smell followed him. Jasmine and amber. I had never worn either."Your jacket smells like perfume.""A client's wife," he said, not even blinking. "The elevator was crowded."I let it go. I always let it go."It was our anniversary, Christian."For a momen

They gave me a room at the far end of the east wing, very far from my husband's room.Juliette's room was right beside his. Mine was across the whole house.A staff error, I told myself. It had to be.Inside, the room was beautiful and cold. A black dress lay across the bed with an envelope on top. In the envelope was a slim white card with a single word in silver ink. ASH. Under it, in neat handwriting, were five more words. Tell no one your word.I turned the card over, then tilted it toward the lamp. In the bottom corner, in print so small I almost missed it, was a number. 0417.I checked it twice. A game of secret words had no reason to number the cards, unless someone wanted to know who held which.My phone was already gone. A man in a black jacket had collected everyone's at the door and sealed them in a velvet bag, smiling as if it were a party favor.I put on the dress anyway. I did my hair twice. I was a woman getting ready for her husband, and I hated how much that still mat

Raphael moved first. He pulled me into the room, shut the door without a sound, and turned the lock.Outside, the footsteps stopped. Under the door, I saw the thin shadow of a man's shoes.The handle turned. It did not open."Not here either," a man muttered, low and annoyed. "Mr. Whitmore said Room Eleven. She never came."A pause, as if he were listening to a phone."No, sir. I will keep watching."The shadow slid away. The footsteps faded down the corridor.I realized I was shaking only when Raphael's hand closed gently around my elbow."You heard that," he said quietly."I heard my husband's name come through a locked door." I pulled my arm free. "Who is that man? What does he want with me?""He works for your husband.""That is not an answer.""It is the only one you are getting tonight."I stared at him. The candles burned low. The sea spread behind the glass like black silk. A huge bed stood in the middle of the room, and Raphael had not looked at it once."Christian needs proo