I Exposed My Husband’s Affair at Our Company Gala

I came home a day early.

The flight from Chicago landed at six-fifteen, and I didn't tell Reid. I thought about it — typed the text, deleted it. I told myself it was because I wanted to surprise him. That was a lie I was still willing to believe on the cab ride home.

The penthouse was quiet when I stepped off the elevator. The kind of quiet that has weight to it. I set my carry-on by the door and noticed Reid's jacket on the entryway chair, his keys on the console table. Home, then.

I walked toward the bedroom.

The door opened before I reached it.

Karsyn stepped out.

She was wearing Reid's robe — the charcoal one I'd given him for his birthday two years ago. Her hair was wet, dark strands pressed against her neck. And she smelled like me. My perfume. The bottle I kept on the left side of the vanity.

She stopped when she saw me. Something moved across her face — not guilt, exactly. More like recalculation.

"Lorelei." Her voice was soft. It was always soft. "You're back early."

I didn't answer. I looked at her standing in my doorway, in my husband's robe, wearing my scent, and I felt something in my chest go very still. Not cold. Still. The way a room goes still right before the power cuts out.

Reid appeared behind her.

He was in a t-shirt and slacks, barefoot, hair not quite right. He saw me and his face did the thing it always did when he needed a moment to construct something — a brief, almost imperceptible blankness, and then the performance began.

"Lorelei. Hey. I didn't know you were —"

"The bed," I said.

He stopped.

I looked past both of them into the master bedroom. The sheets were pulled back on both sides. Two pillows. The lamp on the right was still on.

I looked back at Reid.

"It was dark," he said. His voice was already in damage-control mode — measured, reasonable, the tone he used in board meetings when a number came in wrong. "I'd been drinking. I thought — Lorelei, I genuinely thought it was you. I know how that sounds, but —"

"How many times?"

The question came out quiet. Quieter than I expected.

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

That pause — three seconds, maybe four — told me everything the answer would have.

Karsyn said nothing. She stood there with her wet hair and my perfume and watched me the way you watch something you've been waiting to see.

I picked up my carry-on from the entryway. I walked to the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. I closed the door. I turned the lock.

---

The room was dark and I didn't turn on the light.

I sat on the edge of the guest bed and looked at the floor and breathed. In. Out. The city hummed forty floors below. Someone was playing music in