Chapter 4

The cab stopped outside the Blues.

Through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the restaurant’s second floor, I saw Maxwell sitting across from Arabella.

Candles surrounded a black birthday cake decorated with a silver M. Arabella leaned across the table and held a forkful of cake to his lips.

Maxwell smiled and ate it.

He did not look like a man whose company was facing an emergency.

He looked relaxed. Happy.

In love.

I raised my phone and recorded them through the window. Then I opened my handbag and checked its contents one last time.

A copy of my filed divorce petition.

My wedding ring.

And ninety-nine photographs documenting Maxwell’s five-year affair.

I had printed every one of them that afternoon.

I placed the photographs beneath the filed petition and set my wedding ring on top. Then I slid everything into a black gift box and tied it with a silver ribbon.

I had not come to confront Maxwell.

I did not need another lie, another excuse, or another command to be reasonable.

He had already told me everything I needed to know through five years of photographs.

Inside the restaurant, a server greeted me near the stairs.

I handed him the box and slipped a hundred-dollar bill into his hand.

“Do you see the gentleman sitting beside the birthday cake?”

The server followed my gaze toward Maxwell.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This is his birthday gift.”

He glanced at the name written on the card.

MAXWELL THORNE.

“Would you like me to tell him who it’s from?”

“Yes.”

I looked at Maxwell one last time.

Arabella was adjusting his tie while he watched her with the tenderness he had once promised belonged only to me.

“Tell him it’s from his wife.”

The server accepted the box.

“Would you like to wait until he opens it?”

“No.”

I turned away before he could ask anything else.

Downstairs, I collected the suitcase I had left with the lobby attendant.

Maxwell thought it contained everything I needed for our trip to Iceland.

In reality, it held everything I wanted to take from our marriage.

Five years of my life fit into one suitcase.

I stepped outside and raised my hand for a cab.

As I placed the suitcase in the trunk, I glanced up at the second-floor windows one last time.

The server was carrying the black gift box toward Maxwell’s table.

Maxwell still had his back to me.

Arabella was smiling at him across the candlelight, completely unaware of what was about to arrive.

I got into the cab.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

I gave him Claire’s address.

The cab pulled away from the curb.

My phone remained silent in my hand.

The server had not reached their table yet.

Maxwell was still laughing with Arabella, believing his wife was on a plane thousands of miles away.

He had no idea that the birthday gift moving toward him contained a copy of the filed divorce petition, my wedding ring, and ninety-nine photographs of every lie he had told me.

I turned off my phone before he could open it.

Then I left him behind.