Chapter 1

Mark had been a ghost in our own home for months.

He'd glide in late, smelling of stale office air and a cologne I didn't recognize.

"Big project, Em," he'd murmur, already halfway to the shower. "East Coast expansion. Investors."

The excuses piled up, each one a thin blanket over a growing chill.

I used to be his sounding board, his chief architect in the early days of "NovaDrive," his AI car startup.

Now, I was just... there. A fixture in the minimalist Silicon Valley house he was so proud of.

He'd call me from "Boston" or "New York," his voice tinny and distant.

"Just checking in, babe. Everything okay?"

"Fine, Mark. Just... quiet."

A beat of silence. "Good. Get some rest. You deserve it."

He always said I deserved rest. Ever since the accident, the one that had sidelined my own engineering career, the one that subtly shifted the axis of our world.

I tried to believe him. Tried to see the driven CEO, not the increasingly absent husband.

I told myself this was the price of ambition, of building an empire.

Our tenth anniversary was approaching. Maybe things would settle then.

He'd be home more. We'd talk again, really talk.

I clung to that thought.

One Tuesday, he left his work tablet on the kitchen island. A rare oversight.

He was supposedly on a red-eye to meet a new venture capital firm.

The screen was dark. I shouldn't.

But the unease that had been a low hum in my chest for weeks cranked up to a siren.

My hand trembled as I picked it up. It wasn't password-protected. Another oversight? Or arrogance?

His message app was open.

A thread with "Sweetheart S."

My breath hitched.

*Sweetheart S: Last night was incredible. Can't wait for Paris.*

*Mark: Me neither. Just a few more hoops to jump through here. This funding round is crucial.*

*Sweetheart S: Don't worry your handsome head about it. Daddy's on board. Focus on us.*

Photos. Dozens of them. Mark, beaming, arm around a young woman with bright, eager eyes.

They were at galas I hadn't been invited to, clinking champagne flutes, laughing.

One photo showed her hand, possessively on his chest, a large diamond winking on her finger. Not from him, surely.

The dates spanned months. Months he was supposedly "expanding East Coast operations."

Paris.

He'd told me he needed to fly to Europe for an emergency board meeting for NovaDrive.

The dates matched.

The floor tilted. My carefully constructed reality shattered.

The man in those pictures, so vibrant, so attentive to "Sweetheart S," was a stranger.

The Mark I knew, or thought I knew, was a meticulous lie.