MY CEO HUSBAND CALLED ME A USED FLIGHT ATTENDANT

Five years ago, I gave up the sky for Shawn Mercer.

I was the youngest chief flight attendant in the history of Horizon Atlantic. Twenty-six years old, top of every passenger rating list, with my own crew and a promotion waiting on my desk. I walked away from all of it the day Shawn got down on one knee in the first-class cabin.

"You'll never have to work another red-eye," he'd said, ring trembling in his hand. "Let me take care of you, Ive."

So I let him.

Tonight was our fifth anniversary.

I wore the red dress. The one he used to call his weakness. It still fit, though I had to suck in a little at the zipper. I'd been up since five baking a lemon-raspberry cake, three layers, his favorite. I piped "5 Years, My Love" across the top in shaky white icing.

The receptionist at Mercer Tech jumped up when I walked in.

"Mrs. Mercer! I, uh, I didn't know you were coming."

"It's a surprise." I lifted the cake box. "Is he in?"

Her eyes darted toward the hallway. "He's in a meeting. Maybe you should wait out here."

"I'll wait in his office."

"Mrs. Mercer, really, I think..."

I was already walking.

His office was empty. His laptop was open, his coffee was half gone, and his jacket hung over the chair. Then I heard it.

A woman's laugh. Soft and low. It came from behind the door of his private lounge.

My fingers tightened on the cake box.

*It's nothing. A client. A cleaner. Anything.*

I pushed the door open.

Shawn was on the bed. His shirt hung open. Beneath him, tangled in the sheets, was a blonde woman with her arms wrapped around his neck, and his mouth was on hers.

The box slid out of my hands.

It hit the floor hard. Frosting splattered across the carpet, across my shoes. A chunk of cake rolled to a stop near the bed with half the word "Love" still on it.

Shawn turned his head.

He didn't jump. He didn't panic. He just frowned, like I'd walked in on him taking a phone call.

"Jesus, Ive." He sat up and zipped his pants. "Don't you knock?"

I stared at him. My whole body was shaking.

"Knock?" My voice came out thin. "Shawn, it's our anniversary."

"I know what day it is."

The blonde pulled the sheet up over her chest, slowly, smiling the whole time. I knew that face. I'd seen it in a shoebox of old photos he swore he'd thrown out.

Vanessa Lowell. His college girlfriend. His first love.

"Shawn, baby," she purred, resting her chin on his shoulder. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your wife?"

He didn't even look at me when he answered.

"What's there to introduce? She used to be a flight attendant." He shrugged. "Who knows how many men she served up there. I lost interest in her a long time ago."

The room went silent.

Then I laughed. One short, ugly sound. I didn't mean to. It just came out of me, because nothing else made sense.

"Served?" I said. "Is that what you think I did up there?"

"Don't make a scene."

"You proposed to me on a plane, Shawn. You got on your knees in front of two hundred people. You cried."

"I was young."

"You were thirty-one!"

He rubbed his forehead like I was giving him a headache. "Ive, keep your voice down."

"Why?" I stepped forward. Frosting squished under my heel. "Why would you say that about me? In front of her? I quit my job for you. I gave up everything for you. Five years, and you're going to stand there and treat me like I'm trash?"

Finally, he looked at me. His eyes were flat. Cold. Like a stranger's.

"You want the truth? Fine." He stood and buttoned his shirt. "Vanessa is the only woman I ever really loved. You were just the right kind of woman to marry. Pretty. Polite. Good at smiling. That's it. That's all you ever were."

Something in my chest cracked down the middle.

Vanessa tilted her head. "Oh, honey. Don't cry. It's not personal."

I wasn't crying. Not yet. I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, because I refused to let either of them see it.

"Five years," I whispered.

"And I gave you a good life," Shawn said. "A house. Cars. Cards with no limit. Don't act like you were suffering."

I looked at the man I married. I searched his face for one trace of the man who used to leave notes in my suitcase before every flight. *Come home to me safe.*

There was nothing left.

I turned around.

My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. I made it across the lounge, past the ruined cake, past my own reflection in the glass wall. A woman in a red dress, with frosting on her shoes and her mascara starting to smudge.

My hand touched the door handle.

"Baby," Vanessa sang behind me. "Didn't you say you had an anniversary present for me tonight?"

I froze.

*An anniversary present. For her.*

"I did." Shawn's voice had changed. It was warm now. Teasing. It was the voice he used to save for me. "Close your eyes."

I shouldn't have looked back. I knew I shouldn't.

I looked anyway.

Shawn pulled a small box from his jacket pocket. Blue velvet. Worn soft at the corners.

My heart stopped.

I knew that box. I'd know it anywhere.

He flipped the lid open, and the light caught the stone inside. Deep green. Shaped like a teardrop. Hung on a thin gold chain that my mother wore every single day of her life, right up until the morning she died in a hospital bed, pressing it into my palm.

*Keep it close, Ivy. It's the only thing of mine worth anything.*

My mother's emerald necklace.

It had been locked in my jewelry drawer at home. I had checked on it last week.

Vanessa gasped and clapped her hands. "Shawn! It's gorgeous!"

"Only the best for you," he said, and lifted the chain toward her bare throat.

I gripped the doorframe so hard my nails bent back.

"Don't," I said. "Don't you dare put that on her."