Elena “I won’t be back for our anniversary, Elena.” My husband’s voice came through the phone smooth and familiar, like he wasn’t ruining our tenth wedding anniversary for the fifth year in a row. I stood alone in the dining room staring at the candles I’d spent an hour arranging. The food was already getting cold. “Oh.” My grip tightened around the phone. “I thought you said you’d be home tonight.” “I know, baby.” Damien sighed softly. “Trust me, nobody’s more upset about this than I am. I have to meet with the Morrettis tonight. If this contract goes through, everything changes for us.” I closed my eyes. Unknown to Damien, I’d already spoken to the Moretti CEO earlier that afternoon. There were no meetings with Damien tonight. Every word leaving my husband’s mouth was a lie. “I understand,” I said quietly. The line went silent for a second, like he noticed the difference in my voice. “Are you mad at me?” “No.” “Baby.” His tone softened into the one that used to melt me years ago. “You know I’d rather be with you.” My chest tightened painfully. Ten years ago, I would’ve believed him immediately. Now, I just stared at the untouched anniversary cake sitting on the table. “I should let you work,” I whispered. “Elena—” “Have a safe trip, Damien.” I hung up before he could answer. The room fell silent. I looked around. Candles. Flowers. The silver dress he once called his favorite on me. Suddenly, I felt stup!d. Slowly, I blew out the candles one by one. Near midnight, I started cleaning up. Damien had left one of his jackets hanging over the couch earlier that week, so I grabbed it absently, planning to send it for dry cleaning. Then I noticed the blue stain near the sleeve. Crayon. I frowned. Damien hated children. Whenever I brought up having kids, he’d kiss my forehead and say, “We’re enough for each other.” A strange feeling crept up my spine. I slipped my hand into his pocket and found candy wrappers. My stomach tightened immediately. Then my fingers brushed against folded paper. I pulled it out carefully. It was a child’s drawing. Three stick figures holding hands beneath a bright yellow sun. Daddy. Mommy. Me. The air caught in my throat. Something else slipped from the folded drawing and fluttered onto the floor. A hotel receipt. Silver Pines Family Resort. Not a business hotel—a family resort. Why was he at a family resort during his business trip? My fingers started shaking. Maybe a client brought their child. Maybe Damien found the drawing somewhere and kept it to be polite. Maybe— Then I saw the date printed on the receipt. Last weekend. The same weekend Damien claimed he was trapped in Chicago for meetings. My knees weakened so suddenly I had to grab the edge of the table. All the lonely nights. The cancelled plans. The unanswered calls. Every suspicion I buried for years came rushing back at once. I grabbed my phone with trembling hands and made the call. James answered immediately. “I need you to investigate my husband.” The next evening, my phone rang while I sat frozen on the couch. “It’s done,” James said quietly. “I sent everything to your email.” My pulse started pounding as I opened my laptop. Photos. Videos. Hotel bookings. I clicked the first video. A little boy appeared on the screen laughing loudly as he ran across a courtyard. “Daddy!” he shouted excitedly. The camera shifted. A man turned around near the fountain with his ἅrms spread open. My breath stopped. Damien. My husband caught the little boy easily before lifting him onto his shoulders. He was laughing—really laughing. Not the tired, distracted smile he gave me lately. This was different. A brunette woman walked into frame scolding the boy lightly. “Don't be so rough, Daddy is tired from work.” The little boy giggled before tugging Damien’s hair. “Daddy,” he asked innocently, “are you staying with us tonight?” Damien smiled without hesitation. “Of course I am, buddy.” My chest caved in. For years, I thought work was stealing my husband from me. I was wrong. Another family was. *** Damien returned the next morning just after nine. I heard his suitcase wheels dragging across the floor before the front door opened. “Baby?” he called out tiredly. I looked up from the couch slowly. He walked in wearing a wrinkled dress shirt, his tie mildly loose around his neck like he’d just survived an exhausting business trip. Flowers rested in one hand, a small gift bag in the other. The sight made my stomach twist. Ten hours ago, those same hands had probably been wrapped around another woman. “Hey.” Damien smiled softly when he saw me. “God, I missed you.” I stared at the man I’d spent ten years loving. How many times had he walked through that door after leaving her bed? The thought made my chest ache. But I smiled anyway. “You’re home early.” He loosened his tie with a sigh before leἅning down to kiss my forehead. “Flight got in earlier than expected. I’m exhausted.” Liἅr. “I brought you flowers.” He handed them to me casually before glancing toward the dining room. “Did you make breakfast?” I held his gaze. “No. I didn’t cook.” Disappointment flickered across his face. It vanished just as quickly. “That’s okay.” His smile returned easily, smoothly. “Let me make it up to you tonight instead.” Damien stepped closer, his voice lowering into something warm and intimἅte. “We’ll go out, have fun. Maybe dancing.” His fingers brushed lightly against my waist. “Then afterward, I’ll mἅke love to you properly.” God. He was perfectly charming. That was the reason I fell for him in the first place. And suddenly, I understood how he managed to keep two women in love with him for years. I didn’t push him away. Instead, I smiled softly. “That sounds nice,” I whispered. Hope flashed briefly across his face. I crushed it instantly. “But… I’m leaving for a business trip tonight.” Chapter 2 Elena Damien stared at me for a long moment after I mentioned the business trip. “A trip?” he repeated slowly. I nodded calmly and walked toward the kitchen. “A last-minute client issue. I leave tonight.” His eyes narrowed slightly, like he was trying to figure out if something was wrong. “With who?” “The Lawson account.” That seemed to satisfy him enough. Damien smiled tiredly. “Guess we’re both terrible spouses this week.” The joke would’ve made me laugh once. Now it just made me feel sick. He walked over and slipped an ἅrm around my waist. Instinctively, my body stiffened, but Damien either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “I’ll miss you,” he murmured against my hair. Liἅr. I forced a small smile. “You’ll survive.” *** I flew to the neighboring state where my husband’s other family was. For the next three days, I watched another version of my husband's life. The woman from the hotel was named Naomi Reed. I watched her and little boy go grocery shopping. “Mommy! Wait up!” her son called out, running up to her. Naomi turned with a laugh, catching him before he crashed into another cart. She was nothing like the cold, calculating mistress I’d imagined in my head. She was soft, warm, the kind of woman people trusted immediately. And on her finger sat a wedding ring. Every time I saw it, something twisted painfully inside my chest. Over the next few days, I spoke to her twice. Small conversations at the local coffee shop, and once in the parking lot. Naomi smiled easily whenever she saw me, while I struggled to breathe standing next to her. Because she had no idea who I was. *** The rain started suddenly on the fourth day. One second the sky was gray. The next, water hammered violently against my windshield. A few houses ahead, I spotted Naomi hurrying toward her front door carrying grocery bags. Then an idea formed in my mind. I stepped out into the rain and lifted the hood of my car. “Damn it,” I muttered loudly. Naomi noticed immediately. “Oh my God,” she called out. “Are you alright?” I forced a strained smile. “I think my car stalled.” Rain soaked through my clothes within seconds. “You can’t stay out here,” Naomi said quickly. “Come inside until the storm calms down.” I hesitated just enough to seem polite before nodding. The moment I stepped into the house, my stomach tightened. I recognized the furniture immediately. The cream-colored couch. The marble coffee table. The chandelier Damien once showed me online before casually saying, “Someone said it looked good.” “Sorry about the mess,” Naomi laughed softly as she set the groceries down. My eyes drifted toward her hand as she pushed wet hair behind her ear. “That’s a beautiful ring,” I said quietly. Naomi smiled automatically and glanced down at it. “Oh. Thank you.” Her expression softened immediately. “My husband picked it himself.” She laughed lightly. “Honestly, I still don’t know how he had time. He’s barely home most days.” Something sharp twisted beneath my ribs. “He travels a lot?” “All the time.” Naomi sighed, moving toward the kitchen. “Consulting work. Meetings. Flights. Sometimes he’s gone for weeks.” There was exhaustion beneath her smile now. “For a while, I used to get really upset about it.” She gave a small embarrassed laugh. “Especially after our son was born. Doing everything alone gets hard sometimes.” My throat tightened painfully. “But…” Naomi smiled softly to herself, almost guilty for complaining. “He really does try his best for us. He works so hard for this family.” I couldn’t breathe for a second. Her words sounded almost like an echo of mine. Because Damien probably told her the exact same thing. “Everything I do is for us.” My eyes wandered across the room until they landed on a framed wedding photo. Naomi stood in a white dress smiling radiantly at the camera while Damien stood beside her with his hand around her waist. Naomi followed my stare and smiled fondly. “That’s my husband.” “Really?” I asked hoarsely. She nodded easily. “Yeah.” My chest tightened. “How long have you been married?” Naomi smiled softly. “Five years now.” My vision blurred for a second. Five years of Damien’s lies. Naomi looked back at me curiously. “You recognize him?” I stared at the wedding photo again. At my husband. At the man who would kissed my forehead goodbye every morning. Then I slowly turned toward her. “Yes,” I whispered. Naomi frowned slightly. “Really? How?” I looked directly into her eyes. “Because,” I said quietly, “he’s my husband too.” Chapter 3 Naomi “...What?” I stared at the blonde woman sitting across from me, certain I’d misheard her. “Because he’s my husband too.” No. That didn’t even make sense. A weak laugh escaped me. “What do you mean your husband?” Her expression didn’t change. That calmness terrified me more than if she’d screamed. “We’ve been married for ten years,” she said quietly. I blinked at her, then at the wedding photo again. My eyes moved back to the man smiling beside me in the frame. “You’re joking, right?” Please say yes. Instead, she slowly reached for her phone and unlocked it. “I wish I was.” She turned the screen toward me. A wedding photo filled the display. My husband in a tuxedo standing beside Elena in a white dress, with his hand around her. My stomach dropped so violently I thought I might thr0w up. “No…” I whispered. The phone nearly slipped from my hands as I stared at the image again. Same eyes. Same smile. Same man. Except in this picture, he looked younger. “That’s impossible,” I breathed. “Eric would never—” “He calls himself Eric with you?” Elena interrupted softly. Something inside me went cold. “With me, he’s Damien.” The room tilted. I sat down slowly before my legs gave out completely, as my entire world collapsed quietly around me. “How long have you known him?” Elena asked carefully. “Ten years,” I answered numbly. “We’ve been married for five.” Her eyes closed briefly like my words physically hurt her. “We've been married for ten years.” The air left my lungs. “No...” My hand flew to my mouth. “No, he wouldn’t do that.” But deep down, I already knew he had. Because suddenly everything made sense. Every missed holiday. Every cancelled plans. Missing the birth of our son. “He told you he traveled for work too?” I asked weakly. Elena laughed softly, but there was no humor in it. “All the time.” “With me, he says he works overseas. That’s why he’s gone so often.” My chest tightened painfully. “He only comes home every couple weeks sometimes.”. For the next hour, we compared pieces of our lives like two strangers assembling a horror story. The same cologne. The same watch. The same stories. Except every story had different names attached to it. “He told me his parents d!ed when he was young,” I murmured. Elena looked sick. “He told me they d!ed the year we met.” No family. No relatives. No old friends. Nothing that could expose him. Then another realization hit me so hard it made my stomach twist painfully. “When's your birthday?” I asked. “October twenty-fifth,” she answered. “Why?” My face paled. “We got married on your birthday. He said it was his mother's birthday.” Neither of us spoke after that because suddenly this felt bigger than cheating. This man had built entire lives on lies. A small sleepy voice suddenly broke the silence. “Mommy?” I looked up. Ethan stood near the hallway rubbing his eyes sleepily, his small dinosaur pajamas twisted from his nap. The second he saw my face, his expression changed. “Mommy, what’s wrong?” My heart shattered instantly. “Nothing, baby.” I wiped my face quickly and forced a smile. “Mommy’s okay.” But he still walked over cautiously and wrapped his tiny ἅrms around me. Like he could sense something breaking apart inside me. How was I supposed to tell my son that everything we knew about his father was a lie? The thought made me physically sick. After a few minutes, Ethan wandered back toward his room sleepily. The silence he left behind felt unbearable. Elena looked at me carefully. “Your son?” I nodded slowly. Neither of us needed to say how much worse that made this. An hour later, we sat on the kitchen floor with an open bottle of wine between us. Neither of us had touched dinner. Neither of us could probably stomach food anymore. Then Elena’s phone rang. The name Damien flashed across the screen. My stomach twisted immediately. Elena stared at the screen for a second before answering and placing the call on speaker. “Baby.” His warm voice filled the kitchen instantly. “I miss you already.” The sound of it made chills crawl down my ἅrms. “When are you coming back?” Elena’s face remained terrifyingly calm. “Soon.” “You better,” he laughed softly. “I’m already thinking about you. And don't forget about the investor gala.” Our eyes met. “Sure. I have to go,” Elena said before ending the call. The kitchen fell silent again. Then my own phone buzzed. Eric. My hands shook as I opened the message. [At work thinking about you and our son. I’m sorry I can’t do better. I love you both so much—Eric] Usually, messages like this made me feel guilty for ever doubting him. Now that I could see it clearly, all I felt was cold. My vision blurred as I stared at the screen. “I want to k!ll him,” I whispered. Elena stared into her wine glass for a long moment before finally looking up at me. “Me too,” she said softly. Then her expression hardened. “But first, we’re going to ruin him." Chapter 4 Elena Naomi barely spoke on the drive to the divorce attorney. We dropped Ethan at her parents’ house first. Naomi forced a smile while her mother fussed over Ethan happily, completely unaware that her daughter’s entire life had collapsed in less than twenty-four hours. “You sure you’re okay?” her mother asked gently before we left. Naomi nodded too quickly. “Just tired.” I understood her. I also hadn't dared to tell my mother what was happening. Neither of us spoke much after that. By the time we reached Cynthia’s office, my stomach felt tight. Cynthia was been my college friend and one of the sharpest divorce attorneys in the system. If anyone could make sense of this, it was her. The moment we sat down in her office, I didn’t waste time explaining. I simply placed everything on her desk: photos, receipts, messages, bank screenshots, and the hotel video James had sent me. “Oh my God,” she whispered after twenty minutes of silence. She stopped, scanning another page. “This is serial deception.” She leaned back in her chair, clearly trying to process the scale of it. “He married both of you?” she asked carefully. “Yes,” I said. Naomi nodded, still pale. “And we didn’t know about each other.” Cynthia leaned back heavily in her chair and removed her glasses slowly. “In twenty years of practicing family law,” she muttered, “I’ve never seen deception on this scale.” “I’ve seen cheating cases. I’ve seen bigamy cases. But this level of structured double life is… calculated.” Something cold settled deeper in my chest hearing another person say it aloud. Because it made everything feel horrifyingly real. Cynthia flipped another file open, then paused. “Elena,” she said slowly, “did Damien ever ask you for a prenup?” I blinked slowly. “Yes.” Ten years ago, I’d been touched by it. Damien told me he never wanted my family money influencing our relationship. “I need you to know I’m not marrying you for your inheritance.” I remembered crying after he said it, assuring him that I didn't think he was with me for my family's wealth. God. I’d been such an id!ot. Cynthia opened the prenup file quickly and scanned through several pages before letting out a sharp breath. “Well,” she said grimly, “that backfired on him spectacularly.” Naomi and I exchanged confused looks. Cynthia tapped the document. “There’s a severe adultery clause in this agreement. If Damien is proven unfaithful, he forfeits every marital claim.” Her eyes lifted toward me. “He loses access to inherited assets, company ownership claims, settlement rights… everything.” For the first time in days, something inside my chest loosened slightly. Naomi blinked. “So he gets nothing?” “Legally? Nothing,” Cynthia confirmed. But her expression darkened again as she moved to another set of documents. “However… there’s something else.” My stomach tightened immediately. “Elena…” She turned a document toward me slowly. “Did you know about these transfers?” My stomach tightened instantly. “What transfers?” “These financial records show repeated hidden transfers from your joint company accounts,” Cynthia frowned deeply. “Shell expenses and layered withdrawals through subcontractors. This didn’t happen recently.” The blo0d drained from my face. The company Damien and I built together was obly ours on the surface. It was mine. Part of my inheritance funded it. My connections built it. My family resources kept it alive during the early years. And now Cynthia was staring at financial records that suggested Damien had been stealing from it. For years. “Oh my God,” Naomi whispered beside me. I couldn’t breathe suddenly. A sharp pain rose in my throat before I could stop it. I bent forward slightly, trying to steady my breathing as everything collapsed into place. This wasn’t just betrayal. Damien, if that was even his actual name, had planned all of this from the beginning. He dug out my hard work behind my back while sleeping beside me at night. Naomi reached for my ἅrm instinctively, her voice shaking. “Elena…” A sob escaped before I could stop it. I bent forward abruptly, covering my mouth as tears blurred my vision. My chest hurt so badly it felt impossible to inhale properly. Ten years. Ten years loving a man who never truly existed. Naomi moved beside me immediately, wrapping her ἅrms around my shoulders awkwardly but gently. “It’s okay,” she whispered shakily, even though it sounded like she was crying too. And somehow that made it worse. Because Naomi had known the truth for less than a day, yet she was comforting me. I wiped my face roughly after several minutes and forced myself upright again. “Prepare everything,” I said hoarsely to Cynthia. “Divorce. Fraud. Asset freeze. All of it.” Cynthia nodded immediately. “I’ll move fast.” Naomi sat still beside me, staring at the documents in silence. Then she spoke, her voice suddenly uncertain. “Wait…” We both looked at her. Her eyes were fixed on the papers, but her expression had changed completely. “If he’s legally married to you as Damien Cross…” she said slowly, “then how is he married to me as Eric Reed?”
Not enough history yet to show a trend.