After My Husband Slept with My Best Friend

I woke to unfamiliar weight. Longer limbs. A heavier frame pressing into silk sheets that felt wrong against my skin. My eyes fluttered open to the Manhattan skyline through floor-to-ceiling windows—our penthouse view, but everything else was... off.

The first thing I saw made my heart stop.

Beside me, naked and curled against what I now realized was *me*—was Aleyna. My best friend of fifteen years. Her bare shoulder rose and fell with each breath, her dark hair spilling across the pillow. And there, glinting on her wrist, was the diamond tennis bracelet I thought Emilio had bought for *our* anniversary last month.

I tried to speak, to move, but my body felt foreign. When I finally managed to sit up, a man's voice—*Emilio's* voice—came from my throat.

The betrayal hit before understanding did. Not just the affair—though that was a knife to the chest—but the casual intimacy of it. The way she slept so comfortably beside him. This wasn't a one-time mistake. This was a life I knew nothing about.

I slid out of bed, careful not to wake her, and stumbled to the bathroom. My legs were longer, heavier. I caught my reflection in the mirror and nearly screamed. Emilio's face stared back at me. His dark eyes. The slight scar above his left eyebrow from a childhood accident. His jawline, his hair, his body—all of it mine now.

I gripped the marble countertop, my knuckles white—*his* knuckles. This couldn't be real. I'd been drugged. Hallucinating. Having a breakdown from the stress of the company's expansion. But the sensory details were too vivid, too consistent. I could feel the cool tile under my feet, smell Aleyna's perfume on the sheets, taste the faint bitterness of last night's whiskey on my tongue—*his* tongue.

Then I saw it.

In the mirror's reflection, faint but unmistakable, glowing like digital clock numbers: 72:00:00. A countdown. Three days.

A sound from the bedroom sent ice through my veins. I heard my own voice—my real voice—calling out in panic. I found Emilio in my body, huddled in the walk-in closet, staring at his hands—*my* hands—in horror.

'We need to call someone,' he was saying, his voice high with fear. 'A doctor. A priest. Something.'

I stepped into the closet, closing the door behind me. 'No,' I said, using his voice with deliberate calm. 'We can't tell anyone.'

'Why not?' My own face contorted with panic. 'This isn't right. This isn't natural.'

I studied him—me—with new eyes. The fear in my face was almost satisfying. 'It's a curse,' I said, the lie forming perfectly. 'A spiritual punishment. I've heard of this happening to men who betray their vows.'

His eyes widened. I'd always known Emilio was superstitious—the small gold medallion he wore under his shirts, the way he'd cross himself before flights, his refusal to speak ill of the dead. Now, I wielded it like a weapon.

'The only way to reverse it,' I continued, 'is through ritual isolation. Prayer. Fasting. We stay here, alone,