William froze mid-step, one shoe still in his hand.
The panic on his face lasted barely a second before it twisted into irritation.
"Celine, what is wrong with you? Going through my phone every night while I'm asleep?"
He yanked off his tie and strode toward her.
"That booking was for Mr. Wang's mistress. She's pregnant, and he didn't want his wife finding the charges, so he ran it through my card. He already paid me back in cash."
His tone was righteous, indignant.
"Do you have any idea how the corporate world works? The boss's private business is none of yours. If you blow my career over this, can you afford the consequences? It's bad enough you've lost your mind entering sweepstakes for pocket change. Now you're playing detective like some paranoid housewife?"
Watching him stand there on his moral high ground, turning the accusation back on her, Celine felt the blood in her veins go cold, inch by inch.
She drew a slow breath and lifted her chin, locking her eyes on his.
"Is that so?" She let a thin smile pull at her lips. "And Mr. Wang's mistress just happens to be named Agnes Fox?"
At the name, William's pupils contracted sharply.
But he recovered fast, his composure snapping back into place.
"Have you been watching too many detective shows? Wang's wife monitors everything. Of course he'd register it under Agnes's name. Who else would he use, you? If you really have that much free time, try cleaning the house instead of acting like a lunatic."
He bellowed it without a shred of guilt.
Celine stood rooted to the spot. For one disorienting moment, his airtight logic almost made her doubt herself.
But instinct screamed from somewhere deep in her gut. Something was wrong.
Then, from the bedroom, their daughter's wail shattered the silence.
Celine rushed in and pressed a hand to the girl's forehead. She was burning up. A hundred and three.
"William, she has a high fever! Get the car, we need to go to the hospital now!"
Sweat beaded across Celine's forehead.
William grabbed his keys with a grunt of annoyance and headed for the door without looking back.
"I've got an emergency meeting. It's just a fever. Take a cab. Stop expecting me to drop everything for you."
The front door slammed shut behind him.
Celine stood in the cold night air, clutching her feverish, half-delirious daughter, and waited thirty minutes before a cab finally came.
She spent the rest of the night in the overcrowded pediatric ER of the public hospital, waiting in line until dawn.
He could swipe his card for a $6,800 maternity recovery center without blinking, but he couldn't spare ten minutes to drive his own daughter to the hospital.
The next afternoon, William texted to say he'd left an important contract at home and needed her to bring it to the office immediately.
Celine dragged herself there, dark circles carved under her eyes from the sleepless night, and pushed open the half-closed door to his private office.
The scene inside hit her like a slap.
Agnes stood beside William's desk, her belly swollen and round, leaning against the edge as she poured him water with a coy, simpering smile. William gazed at her with a look so tender it practically dripped honey.
"Oh! Mrs. Gilbert!"
Agnes spotted Celine in the doorway and let out a startled yelp, scrambling to grab the designer handbag on the desk.
The bag slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a clatter. Its contents scattered everywhere.
An ultrasound printout. And a bank card. Both landed right at Celine's feet.
She stared at the bank card, and the world narrowed to a single, deafening buzz.
That was her debit card.
A few days ago, William had said he needed to check her account statements and took the card. He'd never given it back.
That account held everything she'd saved over the past few years from freelance illustration work, pulling late nights after her daughter was asleep. Combined with the nest egg her parents had left her, it came to eighty thousand dollars.
That was the down payment they'd agreed to put toward a home in a good school district for their daughter by the end of the year.
