Chapter 2

When Owen stormed into the clinic, I was printing the photograph Sabine had sent me.

He didn't knock. He planted both hands on my desk.

"How far are you planning to take this?"

I looked up at him. In four years of marriage, this was the first time he had come to my clinic—not to pick me up after work or to see what I did all day, but to confront me on behalf of another woman.

"Get out," I said. "I have patients waiting."

"Record the apology first."

He shoved his phone across the desk.

On the screen was a video Sabine had posted twenty minutes earlier. The title read: [Host's Wife Melts Down Live and Attacks Innocent Cohost.]

She had cut out the beginning, where Owen mocked me. She had also removed the part where she lectured me about how to be a wife.

All that remained was my trembling voice confronting her, ending with the words, "Don't tell me how to be his wife."

The video already had more than a thousand comments.

Some people said I was insane with jealousy. Others told Owen to divorce me. Several insisted that Sabine was prettier and understood how to support a man better than I did.

"She edited the recording," I said.

"That doesn't matter. It's marketing."

I stared at him for several seconds before a laugh escaped me. "So you knew."

Owen looked away.

That one movement destroyed the last excuse I had been trying to make for him.

"Once you record the apology, she'll delete the video." His voice softened as though he were calming an unreasonable child. "Just say you were under a lot of stress and took the joke the wrong way. Two minutes, Laurel. Then this is over."

"What about this photograph?"

His expression changed.

I pushed the printed page toward him. Sabine was perched on the arm of his chair, and the way he looked at her was intimate enough to make my eyes burn.

"She put her hand on your shoulder. You couldn't move away?"

"There you go again. Why do you have to make an issue out of every little thing?"

He snatched up the page and crushed it in his fist.

"Delete it."

"Why? Are you afraid someone might see it?"

Owen lowered his voice. "Laurel, don't make me choose between you and my career."

Someone walked past the office.

He immediately released his grip, straightened his sleeves, and became the mild, likable man his listeners knew.

Suddenly, I understood why Sabine was so confident.

She wasn't certain Owen loved her.

She was certain he was more afraid of losing his show.

I picked up my phone and posted the unedited broadcast to the clinic's social media page while he watched.

One of the receptionists had started recording when she heard Owen mention me on the radio, so we had the entire segment.

I added one line:

[This is the complete recording of what happened this morning. Please listen to all of it before deciding who owes whom an apology.]

Owen lunged for my phone, but he was too late.

"Have you lost your mind? The station is going to hold me responsible for this!"

"When you announced my name, my workplace, and the details of my private life on the air, did you ever wonder whether the clinic might hold me responsible?"

His phone rang immediately.

It was Sabine.

He looked at me as he answered.

Her shrill voice spilled through the speaker. "She posted the full recording? Owen, you said you could keep her under control!"

My chest tightened painfully.

Owen hurried to the doorway and turned his back on me as he tried to calm her in a low voice.

He spoke to her with more patience than he had shown me once since arriving.

When the call ended, he muttered, "We'll discuss this at home tonight," and rushed out.

But when my shift ended, Sabine was the one waiting outside the clinic.

Her sweet on-air smile was gone.

"Delete the recording," she said.

"Or what?"

She stepped closer, the corner of her red mouth lifting.

"Or I'll make sure that every day, Owen dreads going home to you a little more. And when he finally can't stand it anymore, your marriage will be over."

I stared at her without answering.

Sabine leaned close to my ear, her voice as soft as a blessing.

"I want your husband, Laurel. I don't mind taking my time."

She drew back and smiled.

"He's already helping me."