Chapter 1
"Oh my God, Mrs. Shaw!" someone crowed. "Sounds like Ryan wasn't at any client dinner last night. Sounds like he was having a very different kind of night!"
"The Amber Crystal Hotel! A king bed suite! Who knew you two still had it in you!"
The whole private room erupted.
I sat there gripping my phone, the screen hot against my fingers, my knuckles drained of color.
Then Ava, seated right beside me, lurched suddenly to her feet. Her arm clipped a glass, and it tipped over.
"Ava, what are you so worked up about?" someone teased.
Ava snatched up a handful of napkins and fumbled at the spill.
"I'm... I'm not ... I just slipped."
Her head stayed down. Her voice came out in stutters.
I watched her hands scrubbing at the table. They were trembling, shaking completely beyond her control.
My phone lit up. Two texts from Ryan.
Ryan: Babe, way too much to drink at the dinner last night.
Ryan: Just woke up. Head is killing me. I'll be home soon.
Below the message was a selfie: Ryan slouched on the hotel sofa, hair in disarray, throwing a tired peace sign at the camera.
The laughter in the room hadn't let up.
I tapped the photo and pinched to zoom, my gaze locking onto the upper right corner.
Draped over the arm of the sofa was a single black stocking. Lace trim along the edge.
Slowly, I moved my eyes from the screen to the legs of the woman sitting right beside me.
Ava was wearing the exact same pair.
"Zoe! Did Ryan text you?"
Ava leaned in close, slipping her arm through mine with easy familiarity, her face arranged into an expression of perfect concern.
"Ryan must've had a rough night. You should make him some soup when you get home."
A wave of perfume hit me: Bvlgari's Darjeeling Tea, layered over something rosy.
The woody base was what Ryan had been wearing when he walked out the door last night. The rose was all Ava.
My stomach lurched. I pulled my arm free.
"Zoe?" Ava froze, her hand suspended in midair.
"I'm not feeling well."
I grabbed my bag from the sofa without so much as a glance at Ava.
"You all have fun. I'm heading out."
The moment I pushed through the door of the private room, I caught Ava in my peripheral vision, exhaling a long, slow breath as she sank limply back into her chair.
At the back seat of a cab, a talk radio program droned through the speakers.
The host's voice was soft and saccharine and grating, "The cornerstone of a lasting marriage is absolute trust..."
I pressed both hands hard over the slight swell of my belly. My nails dug into my palms, leaving pale crescent marks.
I had sold my parents' house, everything they'd left me, to back Ryan's startup from the ground up. I had pushed myself past the breaking point and miscarried on the floor of the office storeroom.
Ryan had knelt at my hospital bed and struck himself across the face, again and again, weeping, swearing on everything he had that he would never betray me.
Ava moved in around that time. She was a scholarship student I'd supported for four years. After graduation, she said she wanted to take care of me for Ryan's sake.
I had treated her like a little sister.
What had Ryan been treating her as?
A hollow laugh escaped me. Tears dropped onto the back of my hand anyway.
I pulled out my phone, saved the screenshot of the selfie, and packaged it together with the hotel's call log.
"Marcus," I said when the line picked up. "Find every asset in Ryan's name. We're filing for divorce."
