The Affair Revenge My Bestfriend's Husband Offered Me

My fifth wedding anniversary was the day I learned my husband had never stopped loving her. But I should have known much earlier.

The first time I heard him whisper her name was during the first month of our marriage. I was standing in the kitchen with a glass of water while he was in our bedroom, packing for our honeymoon. I could hear the tremor in his voice. The soft, desperate way he said "Jovi" that made my stomach drop because I'd heard that exact tone before. When we were seventeen. When she was still his.

I stood there for a long time, telling myself I'd misheard, that I was simply being paranoid. I convinced myself that now we were married, he would slowly move on and learn to look only at me. He never mentioned her name in front of me again, and I took that silence as proof that he was finally healing.

He didn't. Even after we married, I could still see the sadness whenever he thought I wasn't looking, the quiet grief of a man who had lost the person he once believed was his whole universe.

I thought my love and presence would eventually help him become whole again, so I worked hard at being the good wife—the person he could come home to while he mourned the woman he'd lost. I was never good at cooking, but I kept learning Jovi's favorite recipes because they were his favorites too. Without realizing it, my wardrobe slowly filled with the same pale colors she used to wear. Even after she was gone, I was still trying to become someone he could love.

Jovi and Zane had been in a relationship since high school. They were high school sweethearts, while I was the best friend who silently loved him from the shadows, watching them be happy together. But their happiness didn't last forever.

Seven years ago, she married the billionaire heir to the Blackwood family. That was also when I met her husband for the first time—the man she had left Zane for. Vance Blackwood. The heir to the Blackwood Empire.

The champagne was still cold in my hand. I'd bought it weeks ago, hidden it in the back of the fridge, imagined the look on his face when I brought it out.

Five years, Zane. Can you believe it?

Instead, I walked through my own front door and called out. "Zane? I'm home early."

Silence. Then a muffled sound. A gasp, maybe. Or a suppressed laugh.

The champagne bottle slipped from my hand. I caught it before it could shatter, but my heart was already crashing. I knew that silence. I knew that muffled sound. I'd heard it before, in high school, when I'd walk into the garage and find them tangled together in the back of his car.

I walked to the bedroom door, my knee trembled. It was open, just a crack. But it was enough to see everything.

I saw his back first. The familiar curve of his shoulders. The freckle on his left shoulder blade, the one I used to kiss when he was half-asleep, the one I traced with my finger in the dark. Now it was moving. A rhythm I recognized because it belonged to me. Or I'd thought it did.

Then I saw her legs wrapped around him, red-polished toes curling into the sheets we'd chosen together. Blonde hair fanned across my pillow. The pillowcase still smelled faintly of the lavender detergent I'd bought because Zane said it helped him sleep.

My brain refused to understand what my eyes were seeing. This was my bedroom, my husband, the sheets I'd chosen because he liked soft cotton, and the woman lying beneath him was the person I'd spent years trying not to compare myself to. There was no misunderstanding this time. There was nothing left to explain away.

Then, almost without realizing what I was doing, I reached for my phone. I don't remember unlocking it. I don't remember opening the camera. My hands were shaking so badly that the first picture came out blurred, but I took another. 

The faint click of the camera made Jovi's eyes snap open. And in her eyes, I saw it. The moment she realized she'd been caught. And underneath that, fear and panic. My hand twitched on my side. My fingers brushed the wedding band on my hand.

"Shit!" She scrambled for the sheet, her hands fumbling, her voice high and sharp. "Nerissa—"

He twisted. His face was sweaty, his hair plastered to his forehead. The flush on his cheeks was still warm from the heat of her. He looked at me, and I watched the color drain from his skin.

It was the same look he'd had seven years ago, when she told him she was marrying Vance Blackwood and I held him while he fell apart, crying for the woman who had walked away from his life. That was the moment I should have screamed. I wanted to claw at their faces. I wanted to make them feel one fraction of what I felt. But I didn't. I couldn't.

My body refused to move, and my fingers dug so hard into the champagne bottle that my knuckles burned. I knew if I stayed another second, I would either collapse or do something I couldn't take back, so somehow I forced my legs to move and walked out before the anger and humiliation inside me could turn into something worse.

"Nerissa, wait!"

"It's not what you think!"

"Please, let me explain!"

But I knew what would happen if I stayed. They would explain, they would apologize, and before long I would be listening for some reason to believe that what I had seen wasn't as terrible as it looked. I had spent five years finding excuses for Zane, and the most frightening part was knowing that, even now, some part of me might still want to believe him. I couldn't let him have that chance, so I walked away.

In the kitchen, I saw the other champagne bottle. The one he'd opened that morning, before her text arrived.

She's in trouble. She's our best friend. You understand.

I understood perfectly.

I unscrewed the cap on my bottle and poured our anniversary down the sink. Watched it swirl and disappear, like the five years of hope I held in my heart, gone in seconds. I dropped the bottle in the sink. It clanged but didn't break.

I grabbed my keys from the hook, nearly dropping them because my hands were still shaking, and made it to the front door without looking back. The moment it closed behind me, my tears finally came. I leaned against the door, gasping for air, but when I heard footsteps approaching from inside, I pushed myself away and hurried toward my car. I needed somewhere to breathe, somewhere far from the ruins of my life.

I drove for an hour, maybe two, while the streetlights blurred past and memories I had spent five years protecting came back one after another: our wedding vows, his laughter when I tripped on the beach during our honeymoon, the first anniversary when he burned the chicken and laughed before ordering takeout. I remembered lying beside him afterward, his breath warm against my neck as he whispered, “Thank you for waiting for me. I promise I will make you happy.”

Now those words felt like a lie. Every single one. Had I ever been anything more than the woman who stayed after she'd left?

I turned on the radio, hoping for anything that might drown out my thoughts, but the first song was about forever. I changed the station, only to find another love song waiting for me. A broken laugh escaped me before the tears came again.

Then another memory surfaced: earlier that day, Vance Blackwood, my new boss, had asked me if I knew where his wife was. At the time, I'd smiled politely. Told him I hadn't seen her. I'd even felt sorry for him. A husband looking for his wife.

Now I laughed, although the sound came out broken. He'd been searching for her while she'd been in my bed with my husband.

I pulled over. My hands shook, but my voice was steady when I called my company's main line. I got his secretary, Lydia.

"Lydia, it's Nerissa Sullivan from R&D. I have the final numbers for the Harrington project for Mr. Blackwood's board call. It's a secure file. I need his direct line to send it."

"The protocol is to send it to the shared drive, Ms. Sullivan," she said, hesitant.

"The protocol will cause a delay he specifically said he couldn't afford. Do you want to own that delay?" I kept my tone polite, firm. The tone of someone who knew the system.

A pause. Then I heard a soft click. She gave me the number.

I stared at the number on my screen. For the first time that night, I realized I didn't have to be the only one hurt by what they'd done.

My finger hovered over the "call" button. But talking, hearing his voice, that felt too big, too real. I couldn't do it.

So I typed a text instead and attached a photo I took before.

"Mr. Blackwood. Your wife is at my home with my husband. I thought you should know. - Sullivan."