I saw the photo on a fan page. My husband, Gideon, with his arm around a woman who wasn’t me. The caption called them the golden couple.
He never cheated. I almost wish he had. An affair is a clean break, a line in the sand. What Gideon did was slower, a quiet erosion. He just… transferred his allegiance. His childhood best friend, Noor, became his confidante, the one he called after a bad game, the first to hear his good news. His mother, Beatrix, made sure of it. She’d always said Noor was the kind of woman a man like Gideon deserved.
I became the problem. The wife who didn’t understand the pressures of his career. The one who asked for too much of his time. He’d forget our plans but never his weekly lunch with Noor. He’d miss my birthday dinner to celebrate her promotion. I was living in a house with a man who looked right through me, while another woman held all his attention.
The final straw wasn’t a grand betrayal. It was a Tuesday. I’d made his favorite meal, a peace offering after another pointless argument. He texted: *Stuck with Noor, she’s having a crisis. Don’t wait up.* I sat at our table, the food going cold, and realized I had become the neglected wife. And he was flaunting his mistress—his friendship—for the whole world to see.
Did he even see me anymore? Or had I already become a ghost in my own life?
There is no cheating in this book.
