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My fifth wedding anniversary was the day I learned my husband had never stopped loving her.

The realization didn't come all at once. It came in pieces—a wrong number that wasn't wrong, a late night at the office that wasn't work, a name that slipped out when he thought I was asleep.

Jovi.

I'd spent five years pretending that name didn't live between us. Five years being the good wife. The understanding one. The one who waited while he mourned her, married me, and never quite arrived.

It was seven years ago the first time I met her husband too. The one she left Zane for. Vance Blackwood. I stood beside her at their wedding, watched her marry a man who looked at her like she was a transaction, not a person. I thought she was lucky—rich, secure, settled.

I didn't know then that lucky could feel like drowning.

This morning, I'd passed him in the lobby of Astera Spire. New transfer to my department. New boss. He nodded once. I nodded back. Professional. Distant. Two people connected only by the woman we'd both married.

I didn't know then that by nightfall, everything would change.

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 heard our bedframe—that familiar, rhythmic creak I knew in my bones—but mixed with it, something else. A soft moan. A woman's voice.

Then his voice. Low. Desperate. Worshipful.

The sound he used to make in Jovi's car. In high school. When I was the one waiting outside.

I didn't scream. Didn't throw the champagne. Didn't do any of the things wives do in movies.

I walked to the bedroom door. It was open—just a crack. Enough.

His bare back. The freckle on his left shoulder blade moving in a rhythm that belonged to her. Her legs wrapped around him, red-polished toes curling into the sheets we'd chosen together. Blonde hair fanned across my pillow.

Then her eyes opened. Found mine.

"Shit—Nerissa!"

She scrambled for the sheet. He twisted. His face—sweaty, flushed, then pale with pure panic.

It was the same look he'd had seven years ago. When she told him she was marrying Vance Blackwood. When I held him while he fell apart.

That was the moment I should have screamed. Should have clawed. Should have made them feel one fraction of what I felt.

I didn't.

I turned around and walked away.

Their voices followed me down the hall. "Nerissa, wait—" "It's not what you think—" "Please, let me explain—"

Explain what? The last twenty years?

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. Dropped the bottle in the sink. It clanged but didn't break.

My keys were on the hook. I took them.

Closed the front door softly behind me.

The click was the loudest sound I'd ever heard.

I drove for an hour. Maybe two. The streetlights blurred past. A cold, sharp part of my mind—the part that solved complex problems for a living—clicked on.

Vance Blackwood had asked me, just hours ago, if I knew where his wife was. His grey eyes had been flat, just seeking information.

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. A soft click. She gave me the number.

I stared at it on my screen. The nuclear option.

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.

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