My Husband Gave My Grandmother’s Heart to His Mistress

Ten years tomorrow. I stood in the kitchen of our penthouse, checking the list one more time. Reservation at Le Cirque, same table where Kaiden took me on our first date. A custom watch engraved with our wedding date. Two dozen white peonies already sent to his office. I smiled at the box on the table and thought, tomorrow I get to watch his face.

My phone buzzed. A number I didn't recognize at first, then I remembered — Frank, the security guy at Layne's building. I'd met him once, dropping off a package for Kaiden. He'd flagged something odd, he said. Just wanted me to see it before HR did.

I opened the video in the elevator, on my way up to bed. Lobby footage. Two delivery men wheeled in a stuffed bear the size of a refrigerator, the kind you win at a state fair. They left. The bear sat there. Then it moved.

I watched the zipper split down the back. I watched Kaiden climb out of it, brushing white stuffing off his suit jacket like a man stepping out of a car after rain. I watched Layne laugh, cover her mouth, and pull him by the tie toward the hallway.

I played it three times. My thumb kept finding the button on its own.

The gifts sat untouched on the table until morning light came through the windows and made them look stupid.

I didn't cry. I made coffee I didn't drink. Then I opened my laptop and sent the video to every Slack channel at Cole Enterprises, every email list, the shared drive marketing used for campaign assets. No subject line. Just the file.

By nine, my phone wouldn't stop buzzing. By nine-fifteen, I heard shouting two floors down. By nine-thirty, Kaiden was coming through the glass doors of my office so fast his tie had come loose, his face the color of old paper.

"Priscilla —"

He didn't get to finish. Someone screamed from the hallway. A woman's voice. Someone shouted, "She's on the ledge!"

We both ran.

Layne stood on the rooftop parapet, arms wrapped around herself, wind pulling her hair sideways. Twenty floors up. People were already filming from the street. Kaiden climbed over the low rail without hesitation, murmuring her name, wrapping his jacket around her shoulders like she was something precious he'd almost dropped.

I stood at the door and watched him save her.

When she was down, safe, sobbing into his chest, he turned to me. His eyes weren't wet. They were furious.

"You did this," he said, loud enough for the whole roof to hear. "You could have killed her."

"Kaiden —"

"Apologize to her." His voice cracked, not from grief. From rage. "Get down on your knees and apologize, Priscilla."

I looked at him for a long time. The wind was cold. Nobody said anything.

Then I turned around and walked back inside.

That night, alone in the apartment, a pain folded me in half on the bathroom floor. I called him seven times. Seven. Each one went to voicemail. Later I'd learn he was sitting beside Layne's hospital bed, holding her hand while she recovered from her "episode."

I called a cab myself. I walked into the ER doubled over, gripping the counter.

The doctor who saw me had kind eyes and a tired voice. "You're pregnant," she said, like she didn't quite believe her own chart. "Given your history, this shouldn't be possible. But it is. It's also high-risk right now. There are signs of a threatened miscarriage. You need rest, and you need support."

"Is there someone I can call for you?" she asked.

I thought of Kaiden's face on the roof. I shook my head.

I tucked the little gray photo into my coat pocket, right against my chest, and I decided, right there under the fluorescent lights, that he would never know.

The days after, I waited. I told myself he'd come home, that he'd see what he'd done and fight for us. He didn't come home. Instead, my name started showing up online — vindictive wife, controlling, a woman who nearly pushed an innocent girl off a roof. Someone had fed the story to the right people. Kaiden texted me twice. Both times about moving his things to a hotel. He never once said the story was a lie.

I took my vitamins every morning at the same time. I pressed my fingers flat against my chest every night, right where it hurt most, and I did not cry where anyone could see me.