My Best Friend Was My Husband's $3 Million Secret

"Luna, what the hell is wrong with you? I already told you, she's the one who wouldn't leave. I couldn't get rid of her. Why are you taking it out on me?"

I stepped past him and walked into the living room.

There were two glasses of water on the coffee table.

The rim of one was smudged with that orange lipstick Katherine always wore.

And the glass was Horace's favorite mug, the one he treasured.

I'd asked to use it once, and he'd wrinkled his nose and said he had a thing about germs, that he didn't share cups with anyone.

I picked it up.

Then I opened my hand.

Crash.

The glass shattered into pieces at Horace's feet.

Water splashed across the bottom of his trousers.

"Get out." I pointed at the door, one word at a time.

Horace stood there for a long moment.

He stared at the shards on the floor, his chest heaving.

"Fine. Luna, you're out of your mind today. I can't be bothered with you."

He yanked off his tie, threw it on the couch, turned, and slammed the door on his way out.

The security door crashed shut hard enough to rattle the calendar on the wall.

The apartment went completely silent.

I dropped onto the couch, drained.

It was the exact spot where Katherine had been sitting.

Her peach perfume still hung in the air.

That perfume—Horace had pinched his nose and cursed it in front of me more times than I could count.

He'd say, "What is that smell? It could kill flies. Only someone tacky like Katherine wouldn't know what's actually classy."

But he'd just sat so close to her, their shoulders nearly touching, and somehow the smell hadn't bothered him at all.

I closed my eyes and let out a cold laugh.

I laughed until the tears ran into my mouth, salty and bitter.

I stood and walked to the bedroom.

We'd already torn off the masks. I might as well look for something.

I pulled open Horace's nightstand and started digging.

I'd never gone through his things before, because he said couples needed their privacy.

The locked drawer at the very bottom—the key was right there on his spare keyring.

I took it and turned it in the lock.

A soft click.

There was no pile of cash inside, like I'd imagined, no secret diary either.

Just a thick stack of receipts, bound neatly with a rubber band.

I slid the band off.

The first one: a diamond necklace from a luxury brand.

Twenty-eight thousand.

Dated the fifteenth of last month.

My hand trembled.

The fifteenth of last month—that evening Horace came home from work and griped over his phone while he ate.

"Look at the post Katherine put up. That cheap necklace sparkling like a disco ball at some nightclub. So unbelievably tacky. What kind of idiot buys something like that?"

And I'd gone right along with him. "If she likes it, that's her business. Why do you even care?"

Now the receipt was in my hand.

The idiot who bought the necklace was him.

I kept going.

Bags worth tens of thousands, perfumes that ran three thousand. All of it had shown up on Katherine's feed, and every single piece he'd torn apart in front of me.

By cursing her, he'd covered every trace of the money he spent on her.

I'd believed him for five years.

I spread all the receipts out on the bed and photographed them one by one, saving each shot.

By the time I finished, the sky had turned light.

The next morning I went to the office as usual.

I'd just sat down at my desk when the front desk called.

"Luna, there's a woman named Katherine downstairs. She insists on seeing you. Her eyes are red and swollen from crying."

My hand tightened on the mouse.

"Send her up."

Less than two minutes later, Katherine pushed open the door of the meeting room.

She had on a white dress washed pale, dark circles under her eyes, and the moment she saw me, she started crying.