The class reunion was in full swing when Chloe Miller, our former prom queen, threw a question out to the girls. “After ten years of marriage, what would you do if you found out your husband was cheating?” Most of them declared, “Divorce!” Chloe’s gaze landed on me. I scoffed, a bold statement ready on my lips: “Me? Scarlett Hayes? I’d rather be a widow than a divorcee, any day!” Everyone laughed, but Chloe’s face utterly changed, her eyes holding a strange glint. Seven days earlier, Chloe called me, suggesting a middle school reunion. It had been nearly twenty years since we graduated, and the thought of seeing everyone again gave me a little thrill. I have a bad habit: excitement often leads to insomnia. That first night, I tossed and turned, unable to find sleep. My husband, Victor Sterling, groggily reached back and pulled me close. “Honey, what’s wrong?” “Chloe said she’s organizing a middle school reunion. I’m just a little excited, can’t sleep.” “Silly goose,” he murmured, gently patting my back as if I were our daughter. “Let’s count sheep together.” Lulled by his comforting presence, I slowly drifted off. It’s no exaggeration to say my husband was the most gentle, understanding man in the world. And then, at the class reunion, Chloe, our former prom queen, asked the women a question. “After ten years of marriage, what would you do if you found out your husband was cheating?” Most of them declared, “Divorce!” Chloe looked directly at me. I proclaimed with utter confidence, “Me? Scarlett Hayes? I’d rather be a widow than a divorcee, any day!” Everyone laughed, but Chloe’s face drained of color, her eyes holding a strange, unsettling expression. I brushed it off, thinking it was just a lighthearted moment at the party, and I had absolute faith in Victor. But all evening, Chloe’s eyes kept drifting my way. The moment I met her gaze, she’d quickly look away. Later, when I went to the restroom, I cornered her inside. “Chloe, we’ve known each other for years. If there’s something on your mind, just say it.” Chloe forced a laugh and denied it. I might have been out of the game for a while, but I could spot cheap tricks a mile away. “Spill it!” Chloe’s eyes locked onto mine, and she spoke earnestly. “You have to promise me you’ll stay calm!” A shiver of an ominous premonition ran down my spine, but I took a deep breath and nodded. Chloe pulled out her phone and opened her photo album. It felt like my brain had just detonated. A bomb went off in my head. Those photos were of Victor with different women. If they were just ordinary photos, I wouldn’t have cared; I’m not the jealous type. But Victor’s pose with each woman was far too intimate, even more affectionate than he was with me. And his eyes—they were practically oozing with flirtation. “These… you…?” Seeing my confusion, Chloe gave a bitter laugh and pulled up one particular photo. “Look.” It was a picture of Chloe and Victor together. I was about to explode. That homewrecker had the nerve to be so brazen? “He told me he was single!” Chloe quickly interjected. “That bastard completely conned me!” “Why would I believe you?” Chloe then showed me her SnapChat conversations with Victor. Flirty. Suggestive. And there was money involved. “He told me he was single, took over a hundred thousand dollars from me! I was totally in the dark, fantasizing about marrying him and starting a family, until one day Valerie sent me a picture of his family. That’s when I realized I’d been duped.” “Who’s Valerie?” My head was spinning. “Another woman that scumbag fooled.” Rage, confusion. One Chloe wasn’t enough, now there was a Valerie too? I made an excuse and left the reunion early. I had to go home and confront Victor. What was going on? What had he been doing behind my back? How many women was he entangled with?! Chloe chased after me. “Scarlett, don’t do anything rash!” Rash? If she weren’t an old classmate I hadn’t seen in years, I swear, I wanted to slap her silly! “Scarlett!” Chloe grabbed my arm, and I violently yanked it away. “Get your hands off me, don’t contaminate me!” Chloe’s eyes immediately welled up. Oh, so now she’s playing the innocent victim? Give me a break! I hopped into a taxi and sped away. As I wrestled with how to confront Victor, how to unleash the anger boiling within me, my phone rang. It was Victor. That scumbag had the audacity to call me? I answered, about to unleash a tirade, but then my daughter’s soft voice came through. “Mommy, what time are you coming home? I miss you.” My nose stung, and tears threatened to fall. After ten years of marriage, I’d finally managed to get pregnant and have our daughter. My five-year-old Lily was the apple of my eye. If Victor and I blew up, what would happen to Lily? If Victor was prepared, I might not even get custody of her. I remembered my earlier flippant remark: “I’d rather be widowed than divorced!” I swallowed hard, forcing the rising tears back down. I wouldn’t let Victor walk away unscathed. For this devil of a bastard, only hell awaited him! Back home, Victor was as solicitous as ever, fetching my slippers and running a bath. Normally, I’d have been touched and given him a quick kiss. But now, looking at him, I felt a wave of nausea. Turns out, this handsome man was just a pretty face with rotten insides. “Honey, did you drink too much?” Seeing my pale face, Victor didn’t seem suspicious. It was true; my straightforward nature was an open book to him. Given his two-faced behavior—chasing women outside while being a devoted husband at home—I’d been completely outmaneuvered. As a woman, facing her husband’s infidelity, it was impossible not to feel panicked, confused, and furious. But what could I do now? The only thing I could do was force myself to calm down! I had already lost so much; I couldn’t afford to lose everything! Playing along with his comment, I pretended to be drunk.
I stumbled into the bathroom, forced a few retches, and then let the tears I’d been holding back finally stream out. “I need a shower.” I pushed Victor out of the bathroom, turned on the shower, and cried my heart out. I carried Lily back to her room, and she quickly fell into a deep sleep. Victor quietly opened the door, carefully tucked us in, and then softly left. Everything had happened so suddenly that for a moment, I truly believed Victor had cheated. But as I calmed down, and Victor was so gentle and attentive, I started to question the authenticity of those photos. Chloe and I hadn’t seen each other in over ten years. If she knew Victor was my husband, why would she so publicly organize this reunion? And then, so openly tell me she was sleeping with my husband? I suspected she had another agenda! Was her goal to push me out so she could take my place? It was highly probable! Chloe called again, saying she wanted to talk. I replied, “I don’t want to talk. If you think this will stir up trouble in my marriage, I’m sorry, you’ve got the wrong person!” There was a long silence on the other end, then the call disconnected. I sneered. Did she think being pretty meant she could do whatever she wanted? Beauty isn’t brains! Ridiculous. To my surprise, Chloe wasn’t giving up. She actually came to my office to find me. “Scarlett!” Chloe grabbed me without a word and pulled me towards her car. “What do you want?” I exclaimed, frustrated. “Is it fun to break up someone else’s family?” Chloe didn’t say much. She just drove me straight to an unfamiliar place. It was a place of flashing lights and throbbing music. Since getting married, I’d never been to such a place, especially after having Lily. My life revolved around work, home, and later, taking my daughter to daycare. I believed a married woman should be a dedicated wife and mother. Chloe seemed to be a regular here. She expertly led me to a secluded corner. “There’s a show about to start here. I hope you’ll watch it calmly.” It certainly was a show. I watched with my own eyes as Victor walked in, intimately intertwined with a woman. Their every gesture reeked of flirtation. “That’s Valerie,” Chloe whispered, her eyes fixed on me. “According to our investigation, besides you, his wife, he has two other girlfriends: me and Valerie.” Watching Victor’s brazen behavior, then remembering his gentle attentiveness at home… My mind was a complete mess. Should I believe Chloe, or should I believe Victor was innocent? The three women eventually sat down together. There was me, Scarlett Hayes, Victor’s wife and a business manager at a private company. Chloe, the owner of a chain of beauty salons, who’d been defrauded not just emotionally and physically, but financially too. And Valerie, a rich heiress with inheritance rights to two private hospitals, who had suffered the same fate as Chloe. The atmosphere was incredibly awkward. Chloe asked me again what I planned to do. I was Victor’s legal wife. If I was willing to forgive him, they would withdraw and try to salvage my marriage. “We’re old classmates, Scarlett!” Chloe said earnestly. “I want you to be happy, otherwise I wouldn’t have told you so directly.” A pang of sadness. My marriage needed the help of the other women to survive. “We can step aside,” Valerie offered. “But can you guarantee that scumbag will finally settle down? Be a faithful husband?” Who could guarantee that? No one! Even if I tried to salvage this marriage, could I truly go back to enjoying Victor’s care and affection as before? Could I ever again share a bed, without reservation, with a man whose mind and body felt so sullied? I couldn’t! But if I chose divorce, what would I get? The company I worked for—its legal entity and owner were listed under Victor’s Aunt Mildred. But the real owner, the one unlisted, was Victor. All these years, I’d worked my tail off, bringing in business, thinking it was *our* family business. Now I realized Victor had been meticulously planning against me all along. The house was in both our names. But even if I got half the property, what then? A divorce would mean unemployment for me. Ten years of hard work, all for nothing. Homeless, because Victor had the capital to buy out my half of the property rights. The worst outcome: I’d lose my daughter, whom I’d fought so hard to have. In short, divorce would leave me with absolutely nothing! 2 I remained silent. At this moment, I felt like the biggest loser. Chloe and Valerie were smart women; they understood my predicament perfectly. Chloe gently squeezed my hand. “Scarlett, don’t worry. We’ll teach that bastard a lesson, together!” My demands weren’t greedy; I just wanted to reclaim what was mine. Like the profits I’d earned for the company over the years. Valerie laughed, calling me a pushover. “If it were me, I’d take back ten times as much!” I offered a faint smile. This was the difference between being married and being single. Their relationships with Victor could be resolved with a simple breakup. But I had to consider my daughter. So, I didn’t want to burn all my bridges and potentially jeopardize my chances of securing full custody of my daughter. They say three women make a drama, and our show was just getting started. The company’s legal owner and boss was Victor’s Aunt Mildred. This meant that if Victor and I divorced, the company would have absolutely nothing to do with me. Yet, over the past decade, the profits I’d generated for the company were in the tens of millions, if not hundreds. Walking away with nothing wasn’t my style. As the company’s business manager, and the de facto boss’s wife, I knew all the business operations and finances inside and out. Of course, the most crucial thing was not to let Victor suspect anything. So, I had Chloe anonymously report the company for tax evasion. Sure enough, the IRS soon arrived to investigate. While this caused a lot of trouble for the company, it was the only way I could think of to get Aunt Mildred to step aside. Victor’s Aunt Mildred was a seemingly shrewd middle-aged woman. She had a stable nursing job of her own. And she received monthly consulting fees, plus year-end profit shares from the company, stuffing her pockets faster than anyone. But when trouble struck, she was also faster to flee than anyone. Tax evasion could be a big deal or a small one. If you had a good attitude and voluntarily paid back taxes and fines, it might blow over. But for someone like Aunt Mildred, getting money out of her pocket was like pulling teeth. The truth was, these taxes didn’t even have to come directly from her. But Aunt Mildred received profit shares based on the company’s earnings. Once the taxes and fines were paid, she’d indirectly lose a significant portion of her bonus. Would she ever agree to that? Of course, I knew she wouldn’t. Otherwise, our anonymous tip would have been for nothing. Now, with the IRS investigators coming in daily, she, as the boss and legal owner, naturally had to be present. But she played dumb, claiming to know nothing. So, she tried to push me forward, saying I was the real boss and she was just a figurehead. How could she say such a thing? The IRS agents’ faces immediately darkened. They asked me what was going on. “I—I’m just an employee!” I explained frantically. Aunt Mildred wouldn’t have it. She pointed at me and yelled, “This company was actually opened by her husband! He didn’t want to use his own name, so he used mine. He promised me back then that if anything went wrong, he wouldn’t drag me into it! Now he wants to push it all on me? Dream on!” The investigators told me to call Victor immediately. I cried as I called Victor, saying the company was in trouble and he needed to come quickly. As soon as Victor walked through the door, Aunt Mildred grabbed his clothes and started wailing. “Oh, Victor, Victor! I wondered why you didn’t register the company under your own name, or your wife’s name! Turns out you two were scheming to trick your poor aunt!” “You gave me such a measly consulting fee every month, and then just shut me up with a year-end bonus! You two are really something, evading taxes, living the high life, feasting and celebrating, what a ‘great’ nephew you are!” She wailed and then collapsed onto the floor, gasping dramatically. Victor’s face was as black as thunder. I stood to the side, looking utterly bewildered, but if I wasn’t trying so hard, I might have burst out laughing. Victor finally managed to coax Aunt Mildred away, only to face a barrage of questions from the IRS agents. His handsome face was twisted into a grotesque mask. After seeing the investigators off, Victor sat in the office, staring blankly ahead, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “If I find out who reported this company, I’ll make sure she dies a miserable death!” Who reported it wasn’t important; what mattered was that I couldn’t let Aunt Mildred stay in the company any longer.
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