My husband’s mistress rang the doorbell, handed me her coat, and said: “Tell Stephen I’m here.” She thought I was the maid. In my own house. She didn’t know I had been his wife for 12 years, nor that I was the owner of the company where her father worked. Twenty minutes later, Richard walked in. By nightfall, he was packing his bags. And three weeks later, I made a call that would cost him everything…

I did not have a book club and I had changed my work schedule two months earlier, something Stephen clearly had not noticed.

“You seem to know a lot about his wife,” I said.

Amber laughed and replied, “I know enough, she is older and probably boring, Stephen says he stays with her only because divorce is expensive.”

She continued speaking with the same casual cruelty. “He says she cheated on him years ago and now he feels trapped with a woman who probably does not even know what Botox is.”

I unconsciously touched my face while listening, aware that at thirty seven I certainly had a few lines on my face but I hardly looked disheveled.

“Stephen deserves someone better,” she continued proudly, “someone young and attractive who understands his needs instead of a housewife who probably thinks missionary is a bird.”

“Maybe she works,” I suggested quietly.

Amber laughed again. “Please, Stephen told me she has a tiny little office job somewhere, probably answering phones or something insignificant.”

My little job happened to be running the company I founded eight years earlier, a business with two hundred employees that paid for the house we were standing in as well as Stephen’s car and the failing medical practice he had been running for three years.

“Stephen’s clinic must be very successful,” I said calmly.

Amber shrugged and replied, “Between us things are great, he just needs a woman who pushes him to be ambitious because his wife probably coddles him and pays the bills while he survives on a mediocre salary.”

I walked quietly into the kitchen and pulled out my phone.

Stephen was at his golf club as usual for Saturday mornings.

I sent him a message telling him to come home immediately because there was an emergency with the house.

He replied that he was in the middle of a game. I sent another message saying that the roof of his office had collapsed and that he needed to come home right away. He answered that he would be there in fifteen minutes.

I returned to the living room where Amber was checking her phone. “Stephen is on his way,” I said.

She smiled again and replied, “Perfect, I wanted to surprise him because we are going to Cabo next week, I booked a villa and everything.”

Cabo was beautiful and extremely expensive.

“Stephen pays of course,” she added proudly, “that is what real men do.”

“How long have you been together?” I asked.