Chapter 3

Callum came home at 1:17 a.m.

I was still sitting in the living room. My wedding ring was upstairs on the vanity where I'd left it.

The moment Callum walked through the door and saw me, I could see the relief on his face. He probably thought I'd been waiting for him.

He took off his coat and came over, carrying the chill of the night with him and the faint trace of a perfume that wasn't mine.

"Did everything get sorted out with Tessa?"

"Yeah. She sent the wrong document. Legal took care of it."

He sat down beside me and quietly asked if I was still upset about dinner. He admitted he shouldn't have left on our anniversary, but Tessa had been terrified, and he couldn't just leave her alone like that.

I looked at him without answering.

Even now, he still thought the only problem between us was that he'd walked out in the middle of our anniversary dinner.

He had no idea I'd seen the photos.

And he had no idea that a few hours earlier, I'd already contacted a divorce lawyer.

"It's late. I'm going to bed."

I had barely stood up when Callum stopped me.

He pulled his laptop from his briefcase, opened a document, and set it on the table.

"Before you go, can you look at this for me?"

I stopped.

He'd already pulled up the section he wanted checked. It was something that had to go to a client first thing in the morning, he explained. Legal had reviewed it once, but something still felt off to him. He wanted me to go through it one more time.

Twenty minutes, at most.

This had happened countless times over the past five years.

Sometimes at the breakfast table, sometimes in our bedroom after midnight. There were even days when his documents arrived in my inbox between my own meetings.

Callum rarely acted as if any of it was my responsibility.

Because it wasn't.

He had simply grown used to asking.

And I had grown used to helping.

I walked back to the table but didn't sit down.

"No."

Callum looked up.

I pushed the laptop back toward him.

"Not tonight."

He clearly hadn't expected me to refuse. He frowned and reminded me that the document had to go out in the morning. Legal had already checked it, but he trusted my judgment more.

"Because you always catch what they miss."

I looked at him.

So he had known all along.

He knew I saw things other people overlooked. He knew how many problems I'd caught before they ever had the chance to reach him, and how many risks I'd quietly removed before they became his to deal with.

It had simply gone on for so long that both of us had almost forgotten one important thing.

None of it had ever been a wife's responsibility.

"I'm tired."

I didn't touch the laptop again.

Callum watched me for a moment.

"Lenora, something's off with you tonight."

"I know."

I turned and went upstairs.

This time, he didn't stop me.

By the time I woke the next morning, Callum had already gone to the office.

The laptop and the document were gone with him.

I didn't ask what happened after that. It wasn't until later that afternoon, through a mutual acquaintance, that I heard the project scheduled to move forward that morning had been delayed.

It wasn't a disaster.

Callum's team eventually found what had been missed, and Callum made the necessary decisions quickly. But something that should have been finished before lunch stretched well into the evening, forcing his team to recheck the documents, contact the client, and go back through a process they had thought was already complete.

Callum could still solve his own problems without me.

For the first time, he simply had to bear the time and cost of solving them himself.

That same afternoon, another document arrived in my inbox.

The first draft of my divorce agreement.

I sat in the study and read it from beginning to end. I didn't ask for more money, and I had no interest in finding some elaborate way to punish Callum for cheating. I changed only what was necessary.

My lawyer called soon after and asked if I was certain.

I looked out the window.

The tree we'd planted when we moved in five years ago was still standing in the yard. Callum's coffee cup from yesterday morning was still in the kitchen, and upstairs, his shirts still hung beside my clothes in our closet.

The house looked exactly the same.

But I didn't want to stay in it anymore.

"Yes. I'm sure."