My hand tightened around the thought of the twins inside me, conceived with so much trouble, and despite everything, my heart softened again.
By the time my taxi pulled up at the bar, only Howard and Ethan were left in the private room. Howard greeted me like nothing had happened. “Jillian, where have you been? Ethan’s been calling ‘wife’ in my ear so long I’ve got blisters!”
He said my name with oily smoothness, and I used to like hearing Ethan’s friends call me that. But now that tone felt like mockery.
While getting Ethan into the car, Howard didn’t miss a beat. “Jillian, make him a hangover soup when you get home. He worked so hard to land that client today!”
If I hadn’t seen and heard it myself, I might have been touched. But Ethan hadn’t been risking his life to earn money for me. Whether he’d been trying to close a big deal or to win some hard-to-get girl, I didn’t expose him.
Drunk, he kept smiling like an idiot, and I couldn’t tell whether he was happy for me or for her.
He then leaned against me, intimate in the way that used to comfort me, but now his breath stung of alcohol.
Through the blur in my eyes, I still saw the lipstick mark on the ridge of his ear. That tiny stain set my eyes burning and my chest aching.
By the time I got him home, I was exhausted and drenched in sweat from the effort.
He sprawled on the floor in a drunken starfish and, for the first time, I felt no pity. I didn’t bother carrying him to bed or making him the usual wake-up soup. I was not his maid. I had no obligation to do those things.
I took a hot shower, locked the door, and climbed into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. His phone kept buzzing in his pocket, and the sound gnawed at me until I fished the device out. It was the first time I’d ever checked his phone.
The screen kept lighting up and, as I stared, my fingers hesitated over the passcode. He had once told me not to worry, that his phone password was our anniversary, so I could always check it. But when I typed the date, the phone said the code was wrong. Obviously, he had changed it.
They said no woman ever walked out of her husband’s phone smiling. With my heart racing, I pressed his finger to the sensor and unlocked it with his print.
There, I saw that the top chat wasn’t mine. It was that sultry girl, Dulce.