My Husband Moved His Mistress Into Our Bedroom

I set the table with the white peonies. They were Briggs's favorite, or at least they used to be. I didn't know anymore. I hadn't known anything for a long time.

The good china caught the afternoon light through the floor-to-ceiling windows of our Hamptons dining room. I'd pulled out the Burgundy from our wedding night, still sealed in its wooden box. Five years. I counted them on my fingers like a child. Five years married. Five years trying.

I checked my phone one last time before he got home. Just to see if he'd texted about traffic. Just to—

The Instagram notification loaded at the top of my screen. Briggs had posted a photo.

A newborn boy. Dark hair, tiny fists. Cradled in Nadia Silva's arms.

The caption said: *Heir*.

Three thousand likes already. The comments poured in. Congratulations. He's beautiful. So happy for you both.

My hands went numb. The phone slipped through my fingers and hit the hardwood.

I stood there. The peonies looked fake suddenly. Like props in a stage play. Everything in the room felt like a set I'd wandered onto by mistake.

I walked upstairs. My legs moved on their own. I pushed open the master bedroom door.

The bed was made with new sheets. Cream silk, not the pale blue I'd put on that morning. Nadia's Louis Vuitton luggage sat open on the bench at the foot of the bed. A bassinet stood beside the nightstand where I kept my books. The air smelled wrong. Tuberose. Heavy and sweet and choking.

I opened the closet. Her clothes hung where mine used to be. Cashmere and silk and labels I couldn't afford anymore. My things were gone.

I checked the guest room. My dresses were crammed into the smaller closet, still on their hangers, wrinkled at the hems. Someone had moved me out of my own bedroom. Someone had packed my life into a guest room in my own house.

I crossed the hall. The nursery was finished. Pale gray walls. A white crib. A rocking chair I'd never seen before. A mobile hung from the ceiling with little moons and stars.

I heard the front door open downstairs.

Briggs's voice carried up the staircase. Low, calm, controlled. Then Nadia's laugh. High and bright like breaking glass.

I went back down. My feet didn't make a sound on the stairs.

They were in the living room. Briggs held the baby in the crook of his arm like he'd done it a hundred times. Nadia stood beside him, one hand on his shoulder. She saw me first. Her smile widened.

"Autumn," Briggs said. He didn't look surprised. He looked like he'd been expecting me. "We need to talk about the new arrangement."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

"You're still useful," he continued. His tone was flat, businesslike. The same voice he used in conference rooms. "You'll stay in the guest room. Help with the baby. Nadia's recovering, and we could use an extra pair of hands. You're here anyway. You don't have anywhere else to go."

Nadia tilted her head. "You should be grateful, sweetheart," she said softly. "At least this way, you get to be around a baby—even if you'll never have one of your own."

Something hot rose in my chest. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

Nadia handed the baby to Briggs and walked past me into the hallway. I heard her heels click on the hardwood. She stopped.

"Oh," she said. "These are so outdated."

I turned.

She stood in front of the hallway shelf, holding the two framed photographs of my parents. My mother in her garden. My father on the porch. The only pictures I had left.

Nadia pulled the back off the first frame. The glass fell and shattered on the floor. She slid the photograph out, held it up to the light, and tore it in half. Then in half again. The pieces fluttered down like snow.

She did the same to the second photograph. Slowly. Deliberately. Smiling the whole time.

Then she dropped the torn pieces on the floor and ground them under her stiletto heel. The paper crumpled. The ink smeared. My mother's face disappeared into the wood grain.

I screamed. I didn't recognize the sound.

I ran at her. Briggs stepped in front of me, one hand up. "Stop," he said. "You're being dramatic. They're just pictures."

I looked at him. At the man I'd married. At the man I'd given up everything for.

He looked at me like I was a stranger causing a scene.

I stopped screaming. I stopped moving.

I turned and walked upstairs. I went into the guest room. I locked the door.

I sat on the bed. My hands were shaking.

I sat there for a long time. The house was silent.

Then I stood up. I walked to the closet. I moved the boxes on the top shelf. I pulled out the small fireproof safe I'd kept hidden for five years.

I opened it.

The USB drive was still there. Black. Unmarked. Exactly where I'd left it.

Briggs had given it to me when we had nothing. When he was still climbing. When he trusted me with everything.

I picked it up. It was lighter than I remembered.

I sat back down on the bed. I held it in my palm.

And I stopped shaking.