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“Wear the midnight-blue gown,” he said.
“I will.”
“Good. I want you beside me.”
No, I thought.
You want me positioned.
“Of course,” I said.
After we hung up, I did not sleep.
I watched security footage from our home system instead.
Grant had installed cameras after a nearby burglary. He loved control. Loved systems. Loved evidence, apparently, when he believed it belonged to him.
The footage showed Elise entering our house four months earlier while I was in Aspen managing a winter wedding. Grant opened the door himself. She wore a red coat and carried no business files.
She stayed three hours.
I saved the clip.
Then another.
And another.
By sunrise, I had a timeline.
Not just an affair.
A campaign.
Hotel stays disguised as conferences. Transfers disguised as consulting. Meetings before board decisions. A draft statement designed to discredit me. A partnership that could make them both rich beneath the glow of medical progress.
At seven-thirty, Grant came home.
I was in the breakfast room wearing silk pajamas, drinking coffee, with fresh white tulips in the center of the table.
His step faltered.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
“Morning,” I said.
“You’re up early.”
“So are you.”
“I told you, meetings ran late.”
“Of course.”
His eyes moved to the tulips. “New flowers?”
“Yes. I suddenly remembered how much I like them.”
He studied me.
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