Xander Peterson had clearly told me he was on a business trip in Korea, yet I saw someone who looked exactly like him in a local livestream, kissing another woman with his arm around her. The gray overcoat he was wearing was the one I had ironed for him myself.
The shot lasted only three seconds, but it felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. My chest tightened, and I called him on video at once.
No one answered the first call. The screen finally lit up just as the second was about to ring out.
Xander appeared on camera in a white shirt and dark tie, with what looked like a restaurant hallway behind him. His smile was perfectly natural. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Where are you?”
“In Korea, with a client. Miss me?”
“Are you sure?”
He frowned. “Chloe, didn’t I send you my flight and hotel details? Why are you suddenly asking?”
I said nothing.
He quickly smiled, then kissed the camera. “Don’t overthink it. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.”
After the video call ended, my fingertips rubbed unconsciously along the edge of my phone as I tried to convince myself that maybe I had been mistaken. Maybe it was just the same style of coat.
After all, we had survived our poorest days together. I mortgaged the house my parents left me, poured all my savings into Update Building Materials, helped him secure the first batch of clients and suppliers, and stood by him as he built himself up from nothing.
After I got pregnant and gave birth to Sunshine, he told me to focus on recovering, so I handed him the company keys, accounts, and decision-making power.
He had always been gentle, family-oriented, loving toward our daughter, and he always said he owed me a real wedding.
I didn’t want to believe that a man who once had nothing, a man I had lifted up with my own hands, would take my life and use it to love another woman after making a name for himself.
At least not now.
The next evening, Xander came home early.
Sunshine threw herself into his arms. “Daddy!”
He picked up our daughter, handed me the chestnut cake I used to buy all the time, and bent down to kiss me. “Honey, I’m home.”
He acted so naturally that I almost doubted whether those three seconds last night had really just been a nightmare.
Suddenly, I didn’t dare ask. I was afraid that the moment I opened my mouth, this family would truly fall apart.
At dinner, he wiped Sunshine’s mouth, poured me milk, and said with a smile, “My two babies both need to eat more.”
That night, after Sunshine fell asleep, Xander pulled me into his arms.
“Honey,” he murmured, his lips brushing my ear, his voice low and hoarse, “I missed you.”
His embrace was tight, his kisses urgent, filled with the heat of a long separation and a possessiveness that felt almost out of control.
But I caught a faint trace of unfamiliar perfume on his collar. It was very light, not mine, and not our laundry detergent either.
My stomach churned in that instant, and all my attempts to comfort myself were ripped open.
My body went stiff, but he only held me tighter and coaxed in a low voice, “Don’t overthink it, okay?”
Afterward, he went into the bathroom. His phone suddenly lit up on the nightstand.
A text from an unsaved number popped up. “Has she found out?”
My blood ran cold. So I hadn’t been paranoid. Every bit of my unease had been real.
I had just reached out when the bathroom door opened.
Xander walked out, his gaze landing on the phone first. The next second, he picked it up, turned off the screen, and slipped it into the pocket of his bathrobe.
He moved too quickly, far too quickly for an innocent man.
I looked up. “Who found out what?”
He smiled and bent down to kiss me. “Benita. She went behind my mom’s back to ask me for money again and was afraid she’d be found out.”
Benita, his money-burning younger sister. She was in her twenties, and Xander had spoiled her since they were little, giving her whatever she wanted. After our company started making money, she treated our home even more like an ATM.
But I stared at his pocket. “Why wasn’t there a name saved?”
He paused, then quickly smiled. “It’s her new number. You know she’s always losing phones.”
After saying that, he stroked my face. “Chloe, you’ve been too sensitive lately.”
I didn’t ask anything else.
In the past, I probably would have believed him.
But now, that text was like a tiny thorn lodged in my heart. I couldn’t pull it out, and I couldn’t swallow it down.
The next day, after dropping Sunshine off, I got a call from Clarissa.
“The usual place. Come now.”
Clarissa was my best friend and an agent at a film and media company. She was always busier than me, and always clearer-headed.
At the dessert shop, she sat in the corner with her laptop open, her fingers flying over the keyboard. My usual coffee was already on the table, with milk and less sugar.
I sat down and picked up the coffee. “Calling me out this early means something’s definitely up.”
She didn’t look up. “Chloe, you’ve gotten too comfortable lately.”
I frowned. “You called me here first thing in the morning to lecture me?”