Chapter 1

I am Ethan's wife. He stole me from his best friend Ryan.

A man who took another man's woman watches every male around her.

When I started feeding a stray on our block, he confirmed the dog was female and that its owner was also female before he relaxed.

Then a new intern started at the office. Some kid who brought me coffee for a few days.

Ethan said he didn't care. That night he scrolled through my phone until three in the morning and broke out in hives.

On the way to the ER, face flushed and burning, he pulled up the intern's Instagram and shoved it in my face.

"Those pecs are obviously photoshopped."

"And this height? He's five-eight in lifts, max. No way he's six feet."

The doctors around us were biting back laughter. I squeezed his mouth shut and pushed him into the exam room.

On the way to pick up his prescription, the doctor mentioned it casually.

"For contraception, we recommend the pill or condoms. This male contraceptive just hit the market and the side effects are severe. The rash is the least of it."

"He's taken it three times in one week. I understand not wanting to put the burden on his partner, but this is reckless."

I stopped walking.

I was three months pregnant.

...

He was asleep when I picked up his phone.

The passcode was my birthday.

His photo gallery was all me.

His search history was all me too.

"How to get your wife's attention back"

"Wife thinks I'm too clingy. Does she have someone else?"

"How to help wife who misses her dead mother"

His notes app. All me.

"March 20. She had a nightmare about her mom again."

"March 21. She can't keep anything down. Morning sickness getting worse."

"April 1. Tracked down her old nanny. Learned her mother's pot roast recipe. She cleaned her plate."

My eyes burned.

I told myself it was the hormones.

Then a notification popped up from the navigation app.

"Based on your frequent routes, we've planned your trip home. Estimated arrival: 30 minutes."

The destination was Unit 7B, 280 Park Avenue.

We lived in Unit 3A.

My fingers opened the route history before my brain caught up.

For the past three months, every day at noon, he drove to that address and stayed for roughly two hours.

The morning sickness had hollowed me out. Fifteen pounds gone in three months. The only food I could keep down was whatever Ethan cooked. The office was far. Between taking care of me and dealing with the sharks at the company, working until two in the morning was normal for him.

I felt bad. I told him to eat lunch at the office and rest.

He took it as me not needing him anymore. We had a huge fight. No matter what I said, he refused to stop making me lunch.

I had to pretend the morning sickness was getting better and swear I'd take care of myself before he finally agreed to stay at work.

Except he hadn't stayed at work.

Every day, for three months, he'd been one door down in another unit with someone else.

My hands shook around the phone.

A message came in.

"Babe, I left a pair of panties at your place yesterday. She didn't find them, did she? I left them on purpose. Unwashed."

"They're my favorites. Bring them for my birthday?"

I stared at the profile picture.

My hands were trembling when I tapped it open.

Bianca.

My father's bastard daughter. The girl whose mother drove my mother to her grave and moved into our house before the funeral flowers had wilted.

She spent her whole life grabbing everything I had. My clothes, my jewelry, my father's love.

Even my ex-husband. I caught them in our bed. That's how that marriage ended.

The day the divorce went through, I wanted to die.

Ethan held me and said it word by word.

"Babe, I will only ever love you. I don't care what she does. I won't give her a second look. Believe me."

And he'd proven it.

When Bianca sent him nudes, he went straight to the police. She got seven days in a holding cell. He made sure her university found out. They expelled her. Her future, gone.

I thought leaving that swamp and finding Ethan was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.

So why her.

Why was it always her.

I opened their messages.

Ethan calling her babe.

Bianca threatening to tell me everything and Ethan shutting her down cold, blocking her, punishing her, taking the punishment to bed.

Me in the hospital, crying over a bad prenatal result, and the two of them in the room I'd decorated with my own hands, Bianca wearing my pajamas...

My whole body shook. Nausea hit the back of my throat.

Behind me, the bed shifted.

"Babe?"