Chapter 2

Adrian took my wrist. "I shouldn't have done that. Eat whatever you want from now on."

He said it as though he could give back three years with one sentence.

His phone lit up on the coffee table. I didn't touch it. The preview was enough.

*Maddie: Can you come early tomorrow? I can't handle the stall alone.*

Tomorrow was our third wedding anniversary. I'd reserved our old favorite restaurant a week earlier, and he'd promised to be there.

"You remember tomorrow?" I asked.

He glanced at the message. "I have something important at work."

I went to the food market the next evening and found him at Maddie's stall. His expensive suit jacket was thrown over a chair. He was wearing an apron, moving skillets and teasing her as if they were newlyweds.

Maddie saw me and smiled. "Adrian, do you know her?"

The man I'd married looked directly into my eyes.

"She's... a colleague."

The market was crowded and noisy. Inside me, everything went quiet.

"That's right," I said. "We work together."

His face flickered with surprise. Perhaps he'd expected me to cry, scream, or expose him.

Maddie eagerly offered me a taste of the food. Adrian hovered behind her, protective and pleased. On the very evening he'd promised to celebrate our marriage, he had chosen to play boyfriend to another woman.

I went home alone.