Chapter 3, OF THE PERFUME ON HIS COLLAR: The breaking Point

The nights had become too long for sleep.

Clara lay awake, counting the tiny green flicker of the alarm clock, feeling each second drag its nails across the dark. She told herself she would stop looking at Mark’s phone, stop smelling his clothes, stop watching the shape of him disappear down the drive every morning. But the stillness made her thoughts loud enough to bruise her from the inside.

At three a.m., the phone buzzed on the nightstand.

A message.

Unknown number: He’s not alone.

She sat up, heart thrumming. The room glowed with the ghost-light of the screen. A second message arrived.

You deserve the truth. Riverstone Hotel. 10 p.m.

The same hotel as before. Her pulse went wild. She typed Who is this?

No reply.

When dawn came, she moved through the motions of breakfast like a puppet. Ethan chattered about school, but the words blurred. Mark kissed her cheek and left, humming. The scent he carried lingered — faint jasmine, or maybe she only imagined it now. It didn’t matter; the smell had become memory itself.

By mid-afternoon the sky was an iron sheet pressing down on the town. Clara sat in her car outside the bakery, gripping the steering wheel until her fingers hurt. She told herself she wasn’t going to go. She was done humiliating herself with suspicion.

Then she saw a familiar figure leaving the school gates: Ms. Rowen, umbrella poised like a weapon against the drizzle. Their eyes met through the rain-spattered windshield. The teacher’s smile was small, knowing, as though she had been waiting for Clara to break.

Clara started the engine.

She parked outside the Riverstone at 9:47 p.m., watching through the glass doors as strangers crossed the lobby, laughing, glittering with hotel light. Each woman she saw could have been the one. She felt like a ghost herself, barely breathing.

At 10:06, Mark walked in.

He wore his charcoal coat, his easy smile. He went to the bar and greeted a woman already there — slim, dark hair, the back of her head glimmering beneath the chandeliers. They leaned close to speak. He touched her arm. Clara’s chest filled with static.

Her hand moved for the phone before she knew what she meant to do — to take a picture, to confront him later, to prove she wasn’t mad. But the air outside the car was thick with rain and panic, and something inside her screamed now or never.

By the time she reached the lobby, they were gone.

She stood there, drenched, trembling, the scent of jasmine from the woman’s passing trailing behind her like mockery.

When Mark came home near midnight, the house was dark except for the kitchen light.

He looked startled to see her sitting at the table.

“Clara? Why are you up?”

“Who was she?” Her voice was quiet, brittle.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie.” She slid the wet hotel receipt across the table like an accusation. “I saw you tonight. At the Riverstone. With her.”

His expression changed — confusion first, then anger edged with fear. “You followed me?”

“I had to. You wouldn’t tell me the truth.”

“The woman at the hotel was your sister,” he said, voice rising. “Sophie. We were planning something for your anniversary.”

The words struck her like a foreign language. She shook her head, refusing them. “Sophie’s in Chicago.”

“She came back early. She wanted it to be a surprise.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Clara, listen to yourself. You’ve been—”

“Stop it!” she cried. The sound broke in her throat. “Don’t make me the crazy one. Don’t—”

But he was still coming toward her, hands raised in a calming gesture that looked, in her mind’s panic, like deceit itself. Every sound seemed distant — the hum of the refrigerator, the storm’s low growl outside, the pounding of her own heart.

She remembered Ms. Rowen’s words: You already know the answer, don’t you?

The kitchen swam around her. The world narrowed to the terror that she had been made a fool.

Then — a shattering sound: a plate falling, his startled exclamation, her scream.

Silence followed, vast and echoing.

When clarity returned, she was on the floor, Mark beside her, motionless, his hand reaching toward her like a question never finished. Her own breath came in shallow bursts. Somewhere far away, a clock struck midnight.

She didn’t understand what had happened — only that the air smelled of metal and rain, and the world had changed shape.

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Outside, the storm eased. She sat there for what felt like hours, waiting for time to start again. Eventually, she stood, trembling, and looked at the family photograph on the wall — the three of them, smiling beneath summer sun. The image seemed to mock her.

Her phone buzzed once more on the counter. A message.

Now you know.

No name. Only the familiar scent rising from the device, faint and floral — jasmine.

End of Chapter 3 — The Breaking Point