Three Nights To Ruin My Husband

"Mrs. Carter, the Hendrickson meeting wrapped early … you're free for the rest of the day."

I almost told Priya she was wrong. Nothing wrapped early in that boardroom. But there she was, holding my office door open, smiling like she'd handed me a gift instead of an empty afternoon.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Go home. Put your feet up."

I couldn't remember the last time I'd put my feet up before six. But I gathered my things anyway, because a free afternoon felt like the first good thing to happen to me in weeks.

On the drive home, I thought about surprising Ash. Order from the Italian place on Bleecker, light the candles we never used, pretend for one evening we were still that kind of couple.

I actually smiled thinking about it.

The lobby was quiet. Marcus at the front desk nodded without looking up. I rode the elevator up, checking my reflection in the doors, tucking a strand of hair back, telling myself I looked like a woman about to surprise her husband.

The doors opened onto our floor, and I heard it before I had my key out.

Music. Low, unfamiliar. Not the jazz Ash played when he worked from home. Something that didn't belong to either of us.

Then I heard the laugh.

It wasn't mine.

My hands were steady when I turned the key, which frightened me more than shaking would have. Some quiet, cold part of me had already decided what I was about to find.

The door opened without a sound … Ash always kept the hinges oiled, one of those habits I used to find endearing. I set my bag on the console table, careful, like part of me hoped the house wouldn't notice I'd come home.

The music was coming from upstairs. So was the laugh.

I climbed the stairs one at a time, my shoes hanging from my fingers, though I don't remember taking them off. I just remember wanting to be quiet.

Light bled out from beneath our bedroom door. Our bedroom. The one where I'd cried after my father's funeral and Ash had held me until I fell asleep. The one that was supposed to be the safest room in this apartment.

The music cut off.

A woman's voice, breathless, said something I couldn't make out. Then Ash's voice answered … low, warm, easy in a way I hadn't heard directed at me in longer than I wanted to admit.

"You're going to be the death of me," he said. I heard the smile in it.

She laughed again. Bright. Unguarded. The laugh of a woman who has no idea … or doesn't care … that a wife exists thirty feet away.

I stood outside my own bedroom door with my shoes in one hand and my heart doing something hollow in my chest. For one long moment, I thought about turning around. Getting in my car and driving until the gas ran out, never having to know for certain what I already knew.

But some part of me … the part that had spent six years explaining away his late nights, his sudden trips, the way he'd started flinching when I touched him … needed to see it. Needed proof, so the next time I doubted myself, I would have this. This exact door.

My hand found the handle before I told it to.

The door swung open, and for half a second everything in the room seemed to freeze … the sheets, the lamp knocked sideways on the nightstand, blond hair spilling across the pillow that used to be mine.

Ash's head turned first.

I watched his face go from something soft and unguarded to something else entirely. Not shame. Just calculation. Like he was already working out what to say.

The woman pulled the sheet up, too late for it to mean anything, and looked at me with an expression I couldn't read. Not fear. Not quite guilt.

Curiosity, maybe. Like she was waiting to see what I'd do.

I opened my mouth to say something … anything … and no words came out at all.

Ash sat up slowly and reached for his shirt on the floor without a trace of urgency, like a man interrupted during something far less catastrophic than this.

"You're home early," he said, and his voice was so calm it made my stomach turn.

As if that was the problem. As if I was the one who'd done something wrong by walking through my own front door.

I looked past him, at her face, and something about the way she watched me … steady, almost amused … told me this wasn't the first time. And it told me something worse.

It told me she already knew my name.