Chapter 3

The penthouse was quiet. Ethan was at a tech conference in San Francisco.

Sarah sat at his minimalist desk, the city lights painting streaks across the polished wood.

Her heart hammered against her ribs.

She' d found it. A hidden folder on his cloud server, innocuously labeled "Nexus_Q4_Projections_Backup."

It wasn't projections.

It was photos. Messages.

Explicit, undeniable.

Ethan and Chloe. Chloe Vance, his ambitious, smiling Head of Communications.

In hotel rooms. On his private jet. In their Hamptons beach house, on the very sofa Sarah had chosen.

The dates matched his "business trips," his "late nights at the office."

Her hands shook as she scrolled, a wave of nausea washing over her.

The messages were worse than the photos.

Chloe' s fawning admiration, Ethan' s casual cruelty about "S," his "dutiful, boring wife."

He called Sarah "The Anchor," something heavy holding him down.

The sheer volume of it, the casualness of the betrayal, stole her breath.

This wasn't a momentary lapse. This was a parallel life.

When Ethan returned, tanned and triumphant from his conference, Sarah confronted him.

She didn't scream. Her voice was low, dangerously calm.

She laid out a single printed photo on the kitchen counter. Ethan and Chloe, laughing, champagne glasses in hand, on what was clearly their bed.

He looked at it, then at her, his expression shifting from surprise to annoyance.

"What is this, Sarah? Snooping through my private files?"

Denial first. Always denial.

"It' s an old photo. A work event. You' re being ridiculous."

She put down another. More explicit.

His face hardened. "Chloe is a colleague. Sometimes lines get blurred at company retreats. It meant nothing."

Then came the gaslighting.

"You' re clearly stressed, Sarah. Your career isn' t going anywhere, and you' re taking it out on me. This paranoia is unhealthy."

He sighed, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair.

"Honestly, I expected better from you. After everything I' ve done."

He brought up her father' s illness, his voice dripping with false sympathy.

"I held you together. I built this life for us. I chose you, Sarah, when I could have had anyone."

He painted himself as the victim, her as the ungrateful, suspicious wife.

His unwavering support, his sacrifices-the familiar litany.

She felt the old guilt rise, the ingrained obligation.

But this time, the images on the counter, the words in those messages, were too stark, too real.

The foundation of their life, already cracked, was crumbling.