My Husband’s Secret Affair with His Coworker (Her Marriage in Crisis #68)

1. Cara

— ? —

Cara

The lingerie is a mistake.

I know it the second I walk out of the bathroom and Marcus doesn’t even look up from his phone. Black lace. The set he used to love. The one that used to make him drop whatever he was doing and cross the room in three steps.

Now he just scrolls.

“Hey.” I lean against the doorframe, trying to look casual. Sexy. Not desperate. Definitely not desperate. “Long day?”

“Mm.” He doesn’t look up. “Early rounds tomorrow. Henderson’s got me on the cardiac unit at five.”

“It’s only nine.”

“I need sleep, Cara.”

I stand there for another few seconds, feeling the lace dig into my hips, feeling stupid. Feeling like I’m seventeen again, trying to get the attention of a boy who’s already moved on to someone else.

When did this happen? When did I become someone he doesn’t see?

“Okay.” I grab my robe from the hook, wrap it around myself. Armor. “Goodnight then.”

“Night.”

He’s asleep in ten minutes. I lie next to him in the dark, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time he touched me. Really touched me. Not the absent pat on the shoulder as he passes. Not the obligatory kiss on the cheek when he leaves for work.

Three months. It’s been three months since we’ve had sex.

I’ve counted.

God, that’s pathetic. I’m pathetic. Lying here in expensive lingerie, counting the days since my husband wanted me.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’ve let myself go. Maybe I’m boring. Maybe-

I squeeze my eyes shut. Stop the spiral before it can drag me under. I’m good at that now. Lots of practice.

***

The next morning, I find the receipt.

I’m not snooping. I want to be clear about that. I’m doing laundry - his laundry, because apparently that’s my job now even though we both work full-time - and I check his pockets before throwing his pants in the wash. Like a good wife. Like the wife I’m trying so hard to be.

The receipt is crumpled in his back pocket. Harrison’s Fine Jewelry. $4,000.

My heart does a stupid little leap. He bought me something. He’s planning something. Maybe for our anniversary. Maybe he’s been distant because he’s planning a surprise and-

I smooth out the receipt. Read the description.

Diamond tennis bracelet. 14k white gold.

My wrist is bare. Has been bare for months, actually. I’ve stopped wearing my watch because Marcus said it looked cheap next to his colleagues’ wives’ jewelry.

I don’t have a tennis bracelet. I’ve never had a tennis bracelet.

Maybe it’s in his dresser. Maybe he’s hiding it. Maybe-

I check. I check everywhere. His dresser, his closet, his home office desk. Nothing.

Four thousand dollars. On jewelry I’ve never seen.

There’s an explanation. There has to be an explanation.

***

At work, I watch him.

I’m a nurse at the same hospital where Marcus is a doctor. That’s how we met, actually. He was the handsome young resident, I was the new hire, and it was all very Grey’s Anatomy for about five minutes before real life set in.

Now I watch him from the nurses’ station, pretending to update charts while he stands by the coffee machine with Amanda Cole.

Amanda. Twenty-eight. Pretty in that effortless way I’ve never quite managed. She started six months ago, and Marcus was the one to show her around.

He’s just being friendly. He’s her supervisor. That’s all.

His hand is on her lower back. Right at the curve of her spine. The exact spot he used to touch me.

She laughs at something he says, tilting her head, exposing her neck. He leans closer.

And then Amanda looks up. Right at me. And she smiles.

Not a friendly smile. Not an “oh hi, coworker” smile.

A smirk. Like she knows something I don’t. Like she’s winning a game I don’t even know we’re playing.

My stomach turns to ice.

You’re being paranoid. You’re being crazy. He’s your husband. He loves you. He-

Marcus glances over his shoulder. Sees me watching. His expression flickers - annoyance? guilt? - and then he says something to Amanda and walks away.

He doesn’t come to say hi. Doesn’t wave. Doesn’t acknowledge me at all.

Amanda is still smirking.

***

I bring it up at dinner. Try to, anyway.

“I found a receipt in your pocket.” I keep my voice light. Casual. Not accusatory at all. “From Harrison’s. The jewelry store?”

Marcus’s fork pauses halfway to his mouth. Just for a second. Then he keeps eating. “And?”

“It was for a bracelet. Four thousand dollars.”

“Okay.”

“I just…” I take a breath. “I was wondering what it was for.”

He sets his fork down. Looks at me. And there it is - that expression I’ve come to dread. The one that makes me feel small. Stupid. Crazy.

“You’re going through my pockets now?”

“I was doing laundry. I always check-”

“So you’re checking up on me.”

“No, I-”

“This is why I can’t talk to you, Cara.” He pushes back from the table. “Everything becomes an interrogation. I buy a gift for my mother’s birthday - which, by the way, is next week, not that you remembered - and suddenly I’m on trial.”

His mother’s birthday. Right. Of course.

“I’m sorry.” The words come out automatically. “I didn’t mean to-”

“I need some air.” He grabs his keys from the counter. “Don’t wait up.”

The door slams behind him.

I sit at the table for a long time, looking at his half-eaten dinner, feeling the familiar shame wash over me. I’ve done it again. Pushed too hard. Been too suspicious. Too needy. Too much.

His mother’s birthday. That’s all it is. You’re being crazy.

But his mother hates tennis bracelets. She said so at Christmas. Called them tacky.

I remember because I’d been wearing one. A cheap one from Target, but still.

You’re being crazy. You’re being paranoid. He loves you. He married you. He-

I clean up dinner. Do the dishes. Go to bed alone.

***

It’s after midnight when I wake up.

Marcus is beside me, finally, his breathing deep and even. He smells like whiskey and something else. Something floral. Perfume that isn’t mine.

I lie there in the dark, heart pounding, telling myself I’m imagining it. Telling myself I’m crazy.

His phone lights up on the nightstand.

I shouldn’t look. I know I shouldn’t look. But my hand is already moving before my brain catches up, tilting the screen toward me just enough to read the notification.

Office Supply Company: I miss you already. Tonight was amazing.

Office Supply Company.

My husband doesn’t order office supplies. He barely knows how to work the printer.

I read it again. And again. And again.

I miss you already. Tonight was amazing.

The phone goes dark. Marcus shifts in his sleep, mumbles something, rolls away from me.

I stare at the ceiling.

I don’t sleep.

***

The next morning, Marcus kisses my cheek on his way out the door. “Sorry about last night. Shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The words come out like muscle memory. Like a reflex. I’m not sure I mean them anymore. I’m not sure of anything anymore.

After he leaves, I sit at the kitchen table with my coffee going cold, replaying that text over and over in my mind.

I miss you already. Tonight was amazing.

There are two possibilities.

One: there’s a perfectly innocent explanation. A work thing. An inside joke. Something I’m blowing out of proportion because I’m paranoid and insecure and broken in some fundamental way.

Two: my husband is fucking someone else.

I think about the receipt. The bracelet I’ve never seen. The perfume on his collar. The way Amanda smirked at me. The three months of excuses. The way he looks at me now - when he looks at me at all - like I’m a problem to be managed rather than a person to be loved.

You’re being crazy.

Maybe.

Or maybe I’ve been crazy to ignore it this long.

I pick up my phone. Put it down. Pick it up again.

I could hire a private investigator. I could check his email. I could ask him directly, sit him down, demand answers.

Or I could do nothing. Keep my head down. Keep being the good wife. Keep pretending I don’t see what I see.

Keep dying slowly in a marriage that’s already dead.

I think about my mother. Thirty years with a man who cheated on her constantly, and she stayed because “that’s what you do.

” She stayed until the staying killed her - not physically, but in every other way that mattered.

The light went out of her eyes somewhere around year fifteen, and it never came back.

I’m thirty-two years old.

I don’t want to be my mother.

I don’t want to spend the next thirty years wondering. Suspecting. Slowly going mad.

I need to know.

One way or another, I need to know.