CHAPTER 4- THE EMPTY CHAIR

I stared at the receipt until the numbers blurred.

Two entrées. Two desserts. A bottle of wine. The total sat at the bottom like something written in a language I understood far better than I wanted to.

There had to be an explanation. Dominic was a CEO, he ate dinners like this with clients all the time. That was normal. Probably exactly what this was.

So why did my hands feel cold holding it?

Luca stirred in his bassinet and pulled me back. I folded the receipt and slid it back into the jacket pocket, smoothing the fabric down exactly as I'd found it.

Then I hated myself for it. Because part of me wanted to keep it. “See, I didn't imagine this.” And the fact that some version of me was already thinking like that scared me more than the receipt itself.

What kind of wife secretly collects evidence against her own husband?

“The kind whose husband has started to feel like a stranger.” The thought flooded my mind.

Dominic got home just after seven. I was on the floor with Luca when the door opened, and his whole body went rigid with excitement before it even finished swinging. He always knew.

"You heard that, didn't you?" I said, and he squealed, fists pumping.

Dominic stepped in — briefcase, loosened tie, that worn-down look he wore most evenings now. For one stupid second, something in my chest lifted. ‘Maybe tonight.’

"Dada's home," I told Luca, and his face nearly split with joy.

Dominic glanced over and smiled. A small, polite smile — the kind you give a stranger holding a door.

Then his phone buzzed.

The smile vanished. He was already typing, already walking toward the kitchen, already somewhere else.

Luca stretched both arms toward him.

Nothing.

Something twisted in my chest — not for me. For him. For a four-month-old reaching for his father and getting a screen instead.

One day he would stop reaching. I didn't think Dominic understood what that would cost him.

Dinner was pasta, garlic bread. Dominic's phone sat face down beside his plate — somehow that made it worse.

We ate in silence. Not the comfortable kind. The kind where neither person knows what to say anymore.

"How was work?" I asked.

"Busy."

"Busy good, or busy bad?"

"Just busy."

I nodded, and that was it. Conversation closed.

Luca waved his spoon around like he was issuing decrees, and it nearly pulled a laugh out of me.

"He's getting stronger," I said. "He rolled over twice today."

"Mm."

"He looked for you this morning. Heard the study door close and stared down the hallway for ten minutes."

Something flickered across his face. Guilt, maybe. Gone before I could be sure.

"I've been busy."

The same two words. Worn smooth from overuse.

I looked at him properly — the shadows under his eyes, darker now, the permanent tension in his shoulders. The phone, always within reach, even now.

And I realized something that frightened me more than any receipt could.

I couldn't remember the last meal we actually shared. Laughed during. The last time he'd reached for my hand without me reaching first.

I searched for it.

It wasn't there.

That night Luca refused to sleep. Fed, changed, burped, rocked — none of it worked. By nine-thirty he was wide awake and personally offended by bedtime.

"You are doing this on purpose."

He blinked at me. Completely innocent. Completely guilty.

The door opened behind me.

Dominic stood there.

He almost never came in here anymore — not because he didn't love Luca, I told myself, just because it had become easier to let me handle it. One feeding became ten. One night became four months.

"Need help?" he asked.

I almost laughed. Not because it was unwelcome — because it was four months late.

I nodded. "Hold him for a minute."

I passed Luca over, and his whole face brightened. Tiny fingers grabbed Dominic's tie and held on.

For one moment, something beautiful happened. A father holding his son. A baby looking up at him like he had arranged the moon.

My throat tightened. ‘This. This is what I keep waiting for.’ I thought.

Dominic smiled — a real one, the first I had seen all day.

Then his phone buzzed.

Everything changed in a second. The smile dropped. Luca was still in his arms, but Dominic wasn't there anymore. Reading. Typing. Then gone.

Present and absent in the same body.

I looked away first.

The next evening, I knew something was wrong the second he walked in.

He had a look, his corporate expression. The one that meant a decision had already been made somewhere else, by someone else, and he was just here to deliver it.

I was on the sofa, Luca asleep against my chest. Dominic loosened his tie and cleared his throat.

"There's something I need to tell you."

A cold thread moved through me. "What is it?"

He sat down opposite me. Not beside me.

"It's work-related."

Of course it was. Everything was, now.

"Okay." I said.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "It'll only be temporary."

"What will?"

For the first time all evening, something shifted in his face. Discomfort, hesitation. And that — more than anything he said, made my stomach pull tight.

"There's a business associate working closely with the company. We're handling a major project together."

"And?"

He exhaled, like a man bracing for cold water.

"She's going to be staying with us for a while."

The room went very quiet. My own heartbeat was suddenly the loudest thing in it.

"She's what?"

His expression didn't change. Calm. Matter-of-fact.

"One of our associates needs temporary accommodation. It's easier this way."

I looked down at Luca, asleep against me. Then back at my husband, the way you look at someone when you're trying to find the person you married underneath the person sitting in front of you.

And for the first time in days, what moved through me wasn't sadness, or doubt, or that low hum of unease I had been carrying around.

It was disbelief. Sharp and cold.

"Dominic," I said slowly. "Who exactly is staying in our home?"

He opened his mouth to answer. And somehow, before a single sound left him, I already knew.

I just hadn't decided to say it yet.