She called me “the help” when she walked into my house
Her jaw tightened. “Then maybe your husband should’ve been honest with both of us.”
Not a bad move. Redirect blame. Divide the room. Cast the mistress as another victim. It might have worked on someone younger, softer, or still invested in maintaining appearances.
Unfortunately for both of them, I was none of those things.
“Oh, I have no doubt Graham has been dishonest with you,” I said. “Men like him usually need layers of lies to sustain an affair. The difference is that you came to my house and called me the help.”
Graham closed his eyes briefly, as though this were somehow exhausting for him.
That irritated me more than anything else.
Seventeen years of marriage. Three miscarriages. Two office expansions. One near-bankruptcy during the 2008 freight collapse that I carried us through by working eighteen-hour days while Graham delivered speeches at charity luncheons about resilience. And now he looked inconvenienced.
I folded my arms. “Let’s do this efficiently. Savannah, how long?”
She glanced at Graham. Wrong move.
I answered for her. “If you need to check his face before answering, it’s already too long.”
“Six months,” she said quietly.
Graham muttered, “It wasn’t supposed to—”
I cut him off. “Nothing about betrayal is ever ‘supposed to.’ It’s simply chosen.”
Savannah’s composure began to crack. “He told me you were basically separated.”
Of course he did.
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