His Assistant Ruined Our Marriage (Her Marriage in Crisis #102)
1. Victoria
— ? —
Victoria
The candle had been burning for two hours and seventeen minutes.
I knew because I’d been watching it the way you watch something die slowly, the wax pooling around the wick in a pale yellow lake, dripping down the sides of the holder the restaurant had probably paid too much for.
The flame flickered every time someone walked past my table, and people kept walking past my table, because the ma?tre d’ had seated me in the center of the room like I was supposed to be the romantic centerpiece of someone else’s evening.
Happy anniversary to me.
The wine had finished breathing an hour ago.
Timothy’s favorite, a 2018 Brunello I’d had the sommelier decant at 7:15 because I thought he might actually show up on time for once.
The reservation was for 7:30. It was now 9:47, and I’d memorized every crack in the ceiling, every murmured conversation at the tables around me, every pitying glance from the servers who kept refilling my water glass like hydration might fill the empty chair across from me.
I didn’t call him. I’d stopped calling to ask where he was after our third anniversary.
“More water, ma’am?”
I looked up. The server’s face was arranged in that particular expression of professional sympathy, the one they probably trained into staff at restaurants like this. How to handle the sad wife whose husband forgot about her.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
I wasn’t fine. But I was good at pretending, and that was almost the same thing.
The worst part wasn’t the anger. I’d burned through anger somewhere around 8:30, when I’d excused myself to the restroom and stared at my reflection for three full minutes, wondering when I’d become the kind of woman who sat alone at anniversary dinners.
The worst part was that I wasn’t even surprised.
My chest felt hollow, scraped clean of anything resembling hope.
I’d stopped checking the door twenty minutes ago. I’d stopped hoping an hour before that.
When did I learn to expect nothing?
The question settled into my bones like the cold.
When did I stop being worth showing up for?
***
Five years.
I’d been married to Timothy Gibbons for five years, and I could chart the decline of his presence like a scientist tracking extinction.
Year one: he missed my gallery opening. I’d curated my first solo show at the Whitmore, spent six months agonizing over every piece, and he’d called at 5:47 p.m. to say something had come up.
The flowers arrived the next morning, white roses with a card that read So proud of you, darling.
- T. His assistant’s handwriting. I recognized the loops in the y.
Year two: I woke up on my birthday to a cold bed and a pillow that still held the indent of his head from the night before.
The text came at 7:12 a.m. Emergency board meeting.
Rain check on breakfast. I’d made reservations at the little French place where we’d had one of our first dates, back when he used to look at me like I was the only thing in the room worth seeing.
I canceled them while standing in the kitchen, still wearing the silk pajamas I’d bought specifically because I thought he might actually be there when I woke up.
Year three: my mother’s charity gala. The one event I’d begged him to attend, the one night I needed him beside me.
He came. His hand settled on the small of my back for exactly three photographs, his smile perfect and practiced for the cameras.
Then he spotted someone from the Henderson Group across the room, and his hand fell away like I’d burned him.
I gave a speech about my mother’s legacy to a room full of people, and when I looked for him in the audience, his seat was empty. He’d left before the speeches.
Year four: I stopped asking him to come home for dinner.
I stopped leaving notes on the counter. I stopped waiting up.
And Timothy, my husband of four years, never noticed that I’d stopped.
Never asked why the bedroom was dark when he finally stumbled in at midnight.
Never wondered why I’d started sleeping facing the wall.
And now, year five. Our anniversary. This.
The melting candle. The breathing wine. The empty chair.
I reached for my water glass and caught my reflection in the window beside me.
Twenty-nine years. Hair done, makeup done, wearing the emerald dress Timothy had bought me for our second anniversary that I’d never had the chance to wear because something always came up.
I looked beautiful. I looked pathetic. I looked like a woman who’d spent five years shrinking herself into the margins of her own marriage.
This is what loving him looks like, I thought. Sitting alone in restaurants. Smiling at servers. Pretending not to notice that the entire room can see your husband didn’t come.
***
The door opened.
My heart lurched, a traitorous kick against my ribs, and I hated myself for it. I hated that five years of disappointment hadn’t killed the reflex, the stupid animal hope that made my head turn every time someone walked into a room.
It wasn’t Timothy.
It was Michelle.
My cousin. Timothy’s assistant. The position I’d recommended her for three years ago, because she’d been struggling to find work and I’d thought it would be nice to have family close to him.
Someone who might remind him that he had a wife, that there was a world beyond quarterly reports and shareholder meetings.
She spotted me across the restaurant and crossed toward my table, a leather folder tucked under her arm.
Her heels clicked against the hardwood with the confidence of someone who belonged here, and something flickered across her face when she saw me.
Surprise, maybe. Or something else. Something that looked almost like satisfaction, quickly hidden.
“Victoria.” She stopped at the edge of my table, her eyes sweeping over the scene: the empty chair, the melted candle, the untouched wine. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“It’s my anniversary.”
The words came out flat. I didn’t have the energy to make them sound like anything else.
Michelle’s gaze lingered on the empty place setting. On the second wine glass, still pristine. “Right. Of course.” She didn’t sit, but she didn’t leave either. Her fingers tapped against the folder. “Timothy needed these contracts signed for the Henderson closing. I thought he’d be here by now.”
“He’s not.”
“The meeting’s been running all night. You know how Henderson gets.” Her voice was casual. Too casual. The voice of someone who knew his schedule better than his wife did. “I’m sure he’ll call when it’s done.”
I stared at her. Something cold crept down my spine.
“You came all the way here to drop off contracts,” I said slowly. “At ten o’clock at night. On our anniversary.”
The pause lasted half a second too long.
“He asked me to.” Michelle set the folder on the table, next to the empty place setting where my husband should have been sitting. “I’m sure he didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”
She wasn’t apologizing for him. I noticed that. She wasn’t embarrassed on his behalf, wasn’t making excuses the way a normal person would when faced with evidence of someone else’s marriage falling apart. She was just standing there, watching me, and something in her eyes looked almost hungry.
I studied her face in the candlelight. The careful neutrality of her expression. The way her gaze kept drifting back to the empty chair, like she was savoring the sight of it.
She’s enjoying this.
The realization hit me like ice water. Not covering for him. Not feeling awkward about interrupting whatever this sad tableau was supposed to be. Enjoying it. Savoring the proximity. The knowledge that she knew where he was and I didn’t. The small thrill of being closer to my husband than I was.
“I should go,” Michelle said. “I’ll remind him to call you.”
She walked out without looking back.
I sat in the silence she left behind, staring at the folder of contracts that mattered more than showing up.
The leather was warm from her hands. The papers inside probably outlined some deal worth millions, some acquisition that would make Timothy feel powerful and important and completely justified in missing the one night that was supposed to be about us.
The candle guttered. The flame went out.
I didn’t relight it.
There was no point in pretending anymore.