My Cheating Husband’s Secret Affair with My Sister (Her Marriage in Crisis #71)

1. Camille

— ? —

Camille

The dress still fits.

I run my fingers over the soft blue fabric, remembering the woman who bought it five years ago.

She had her own business back then. Clients who respected her opinion.

A life that didn’t revolve around someone else’s schedule, someone else’s needs, someone else’s definition of what a good wife should be.

I slip it on anyway, because today is our fifth anniversary, and I’m going to surprise Jared at work with champagne and reservations and this dress that used to make him look at me like I was the only woman in the world.

My phone buzzes. Maya.

“Happy anniversary!” she chirps when I answer. “Please tell me you’re doing something actually romantic and not just another boring dinner at whatever restaurant Jared’s trying to impress clients at.”

“I’m surprising him at the office.” I check my reflection, tugging at the neckline. “Champagne, the blue dress, the whole thing.”

“Wait, seriously? You? Spontaneous?”

“I can be spontaneous.”

“Camille, you plan your grocery lists two weeks in advance.”

“That’s just good organization.” I grab my keys and head for the door. “Besides, things have been... I don’t know. Off lately. I thought maybe if I reminded him why he married me-”

“Stop.” Maya’s voice sharpens. “You shouldn’t have to remind your husband of anything. He should already know.”

“It’s not like that. He’s just stressed about making partner, and I’ve been stressed about the fertility stuff, and we’ve both been so caught up in everything that we forgot to actually be married, you know?”

She’s quiet for a moment. “How are the fertility treatments going?”

“They’re not. Jared keeps saying we should wait until he makes partner.

” I don’t mention that I went off birth control a year ago anyway.

That I’ve been tracking my ovulation in secret, crying in bathrooms after negative pregnancy tests, wondering what’s wrong with my body that it can’t do this one simple thing.

“But I don’t want to think about that today. Today is about us.”

“Okay.” She doesn’t sound convinced. “Call me later?”

“I will.”

“And Camille? You deserve someone who makes you feel like the champagne, not the one always bringing it.”

I laugh it off, but her words follow me all the way to Jared’s office.

***

The elevator opens onto the thirty-second floor, and Marcy looks up from her desk with a genuine smile that makes something warm move through my chest. She’s always been kind to me in a way that feels increasingly rare in Jared’s world.

“Mrs. Harrison! What a lovely surprise!”

“Hi, Marcy.” I hold up the champagne. “Anniversary surprise. Is he in?”

“He’s in his office. Go right in!”

I start down the hallway, heels clicking against marble, and I’m halfway there when something makes me pause. Some instinct I can’t name.

“Hey, Marcy? Has he seemed okay lately? Happy?”

Something flickers across her face before she smooths it away. “Oh, yes. Very happy. He’s been in great spirits the past few months.”

“Good. That’s good.”

I keep walking. Raise my hand to knock on his door.

Then I change my mind. It’s a surprise. Surprises don’t knock.

I open the door.

***

Time fractures.

Jared is there. He’s not alone.

My sister - my baby sister Alexis, the one I begged Jared to hire after three failed careers, the one who cried on my shoulder just last week about her terrible dating life - is bent over his desk with her skirt bunched around her waist and Jared’s hand fisted in her hair.

For three heartbeats, nobody moves.

Then Alexis’s head snaps up, her eyes meeting mine, and I watch her face cycle through shock, guilt, and something that looks almost like relief.

“Camille-” Her voice comes out strangled. “It’s not - we didn’t mean-”

I watch myself from somewhere outside my body. Watch my hands set the champagne down on the nearest surface. Watch my mouth form words that sound like they’re coming from very far away.

“Happy anniversary, Jared.”

“Camille, wait-” He’s scrambling now, reaching for me. “Please, baby, let me explain-”

“Don’t.” The word cuts through the air like a blade. “Don’t touch me. Don’t call me baby. Don’t.”

I turn and walk out.

My heels click against the marble, steady, measured, the walk of a woman who is absolutely not falling apart. Marcy looks up as I pass, her smile faltering.

“Mrs. Harrison? Is everything-”

“Have a good day, Marcy.”

The elevator opens immediately, and I step inside and watch the doors close on my reflection, mascara intact, posture perfect, soul in pieces on the floor of my husband’s corner office.

My hands start shaking first. Then my whole body.

I press my palms flat against the elevator wall and count backward from ten, trying to hold myself together long enough to make it to my car. I can fall apart there. I can scream and cry where nobody can see me, where nobody can use my pain against me.

The doors open. I walk through the lobby with my head high.

I make it to my car.

I close the door.

And then the scream tears out of my throat, raw and animal, echoing off the concrete walls until my voice gives out and I’m just sitting there in the silence, tears streaming down my face, the blue dress from our first date now feeling like a costume from a funeral I didn’t know I was attending.