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 come here every Tuesday and Thursday when his wife is working, and sometimes on Saturdays if she is at book club,” Amber said casually as if reciting a schedule.

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.”