Chapter 10
PAIGE
The cavernous space behind the main stage house always held the cold longest, trapping the damp chill of the Pacific Northwest winter within its towering brick walls.
Late afternoon had settled into the deepest recesses of the loading bay, casting elongated, distorted shadows past the massive steel costume trucks parked in the wings.
The technical dress rehearsal had finally paused for a brief dinner reset, leaving the vast auditorium trapped in a rare, oppressive stillness.
I stood in the dim, concrete corridor just a few feet from the loading dock doors, my arms crossed tightly over my chest as I pulled an old tartan wool shawl tight around my shoulders.
I was actively seeking a temporary sanctuary, a single quiet moment to separate myself from the relentless, demanding choreography of the production crew.
The air in the wings was thick and stagnant, smelling of aged muslin, industrial floor wax, and old playbills.
For a few minutes, I simply closed my eyes, letting the rhythmic, distant hum of the building’s ventilation system try to soothe the chaotic spinning inside my mind.
I needed the work to anchor me. I needed to focus on lighting cues, audio clipping on channel four, and historical register compliance, anything to stop my thoughts from drifting back to the pale, bare skin of my left ring finger.
But the stillness was a trap, and the silence was instantly shattered by the sharp, distinct click of designer heels approaching against the concrete floor.
I opened my eyes to see Cynthia stepping out from the shadow of a hanging velvet curtain.
The sight of her was an immediate, unwelcome jolt to my nervous system, a sudden surge of adrenaline that made my throat tighten with instant defense.
Yet she did not look like a woman who had been violently stripped of her corporate security clearance or exiled from an executive empire.
She was utterly immaculate, her poise razor-sharp and calculated to project an aura of absolute, unbothered superiority that defied the gritty reality of the backstage space.
She wore a tailored cream trench coat with the collar perfectly turned out, her blonde hair pinned back into a sleek, severe chignon that didn’t have a single strand out of alignment.
There was no trace of panic in her cold blue eyes, no sign of the professional humiliation Malcolm had inflicted upon her the previous night.
Instead, she weaponized her elite status, looking down her nose at the scuffed floorboards, the canvas flats, and the exposed wiring as if she were inspecting a low-tier charity exhibit.
She stopped exactly three feet away from me, her presence invading my personal perimeter, filling the narrow corridor with the suffocating, powdery scent of her floral perfume.
“You look absolutely exhausted, Paige,” she said, her voice smooth, low, and terrifyingly casual as she scanned my oversized flannel shirt and work boots. “But I suppose managing a neighborhood production in a drafty warehouse takes a significant toll on a person’s constitution.”
“Get out of my theater, Cynthia,” I said, my voice dropping into a flat, dangerous register that lacked any room for negotiation.
I did not move away from her, though every instinct urged me to put distance between myself and the malice rolling off her silk wrap.
“You don’t have a contract here, you don’t belong on this property, and you certainly don’t have permission to wander behind my stage. ”
Cynthia let out a soft, mocking laugh, a brittle, metallic sound that echoed off the metal sides of the costume trucks.
“Your theater? Still clinging to these little local dramas, I see. It must be so comforting to pretend that this small-time operation actually matters in the grand layout of the city skyline. But I didn’t come to this drafty basement to discuss your aesthetic choices or your community center.
I came to deliver a necessary reality check before you make an absolute fool of yourself trying to crawl back to a man who checked out of your marriage months ago. ”
Before I could call for the stage crew or alert the tech team to remove her from the wings, she reached inside her embossed leather portfolio and pulled out a sleek, dark onyx folder. She held it out between us, the textured paper catching the dim amber glare of the backstage safety lights.
“Malcolm is a very structured individual, as you well know,” she murmured, her eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying, unblinkingly malicious intensity that made my skin turn cold.
“He keeps meticulous records of his investments, his structures, and his assets. But he was particularly careful about obscuring the details regarding our time together over the past year. Luckily for you, I am equally precise with my data.”
I stared at the dark folder, my heart hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against my ribs as a sudden, sickening dread settled deep into my stomach.
“I’m not interested in whatever corporate garbage you’ve drafted to salvage your ego, Cynthia.
Malcolm made his position entirely clear to me already. ”
“Did he?” Cynthia tilted her chin, her smile widening into a sharp, venomous crescent that made my breath catch.
“Or did he just tell you exactly what you needed to hear to protect his public appearance and keep his precious development pipeline from collapsing into a legal scandal? Open it, Paige. Consider it a curation of the past twelve months of your life. A detailed, documented layout of what your husband actually does when he claims he is analyzing core stiffness factors until three in the morning.”
My fingers trembled against the edge of my wool shawl as the cold dread turned into a petrifying necessity to know the absolute truth.
Driven by a raw, agonizing urge to see the depth of the ruin before me, I reached out and took the folder from her hand.
The textured paper felt slick and substantial against my palms, a physical manifestation of a betrayal I had spent months trying to rationalize away.
I flipped the cover open under the weak glow of the overhead corridor lamp, and the concrete floor beneath my feet seemed to dissolve into a shifting, liquid void.
The folder was packed with a carefully organized timeline of absolute devastation.
On the first page were high-resolution color printouts of digital calendar invites, detailing private dinners, late-night weekend design sessions, and weekend bookings at a secluded boutique hotel in Medina.
Beneath those records were printed transcripts of text threads, messages sent directly from Malcolm’s cell phone number that discussed intimate, midnight rendezvous in language that was injection with raw passion and explicit detail.
But it was the final page that drove the blade completely through my chest, shattering the remaining frameworks of my life.
It was a highly specific, handwritten log describing the private layout of Malcolm’s executive suite, including the hidden dimensions of the private lounge behind his drafting table, the precise brand of the imported Egyptian linen sheets he kept in the storage armoire, and the exact security code needed to bypass the evening reception desk after hours.
“You thought the little display you witnessed through the office door yesterday was an isolated incident,” Cynthia whispered, her voice leaning close, her breath hot against my neck as she watched the color drain from my face.
“You thought a simple shoulder massage was the extent of our alignment. It was merely the routine, Paige. We have been carrying on a passionate, completely unyielding affair for nearly a year. He brought me into his private sanctuary because he desperately needed an intellectual and social equal, someone who could actually carry the massive load of his ambition instead of dragging him down into the dirt of neighborhood historic reviews.”
She reached out, her manicured nail gently tapping the edge of the text transcripts, her expression triumphant.
“Look at the timestamps, darling. Every single time he called you to say that a municipal zoning review had gone into a permanent bottleneck, he was actually sitting across from me, drinking single-malt whiskey and laughing about how easy it was to keep you insulated in your little ‘neighborhood bubble.’ He stays with you out of a clinical sense of duty, a standard family habit he simply hasn’t found the administrative time to terminate.
But his real passion, his true intellectual and physical investment, has belonged to me for months.
You were just the domestic placeholder holding the keys to an empty penthouse. ”
The words fell between us like blocks of solid stone, crushing the remaining oxygen straight out of my lungs and turning my vision into a narrow, dark tunnel.