But Emily didn’t want a scene.
She wanted the truth.
All of it.
And she wanted it somewhere he couldn’t twist or escape.
So she played her role perfectly.
She attended family dinners.
Ironed his shirts.
Sat beside him at school meetings.
She even helped him pick a tie for the company’s anniversary gala—the event he had been bragging about for weeks.
That party would be big.
Executives. Clients. Spouses.
And yes… her.
Because Emily eventually found out who the other woman was.
Not a stranger.
Not someone hidden well.
It was Lauren Mitchell, the company’s PR coordinator.
The same woman who had hugged Emily at the Christmas party and smiled sweetly:
“So good to finally meet you. Michael talks about you all the time.”
The humiliation wasn’t just the affair.
It was realizing they had both been looking her in the eye for months…
certain she was the only fool in the room.
But she wasn’t.
Not anymore.
A week before the gala, Michael came home unusually kind.
Flowers. Compliments. Unexpected affection.
It wasn’t guilt.
It was fear.
“You seem different lately,” he said one night.
“Calmer.”
He was right.
Because once a woman stops waiting for explanations…
she becomes dangerous.
The night of the gala arrived.