But he'd forgotten one thing: I despised betrayal more than anything.
How ironic.
A person could pour out his love for me with one breath and bring another woman home with the next.
In that moment, I couldn't help but wonder. All that love I'd once been so proud of—how much of it had been real, and how much had been a lie?
And when had it started between him and that woman?
I sat at the dining table for a long time, trying to steady myself.
Then something occurred to me.
The instant the thought struck, I called my parents and asked them to come over.
They must have heard the urgency in my voice, because they arrived in record time.
"What's going on, Dora? You sounded so frantic on the phone. What happened?"
I didn't hold anything back. I told them everything about Jacob's affair in one breath.
When I finished, my father's face was pure disbelief.
"Dora, is there any chance this is a misunderstanding? Everyone can see how good Jacob is to you."
"And you know what his job is like. He's a surgeon. He's on call around the clock. Maybe he really did have an emergency operation to handle."
"That post—couldn't it just be a coincidence?"
My mother slammed her palm on the table.
"Absolutely not! There's no coincidence that perfect!"
"The post said parking sideways across two spots. He parked sideways across two spots."
"Dora walked in without calling first. The post described the exact same scenario."
"The post said the guy slipped out to drive his mistress home. Jacob found an excuse and slipped out."
"And on top of all that, there's a strange earring in the house. You're telling me that's a coincidence?"
My father frowned. "But Jacob has treated Dora like she's more important than his own life all these years!"
My mother scoffed. "So what?"
"Just because he's been good to her all this time, that proves he can't be cheating now?"
"Every man out there keeping a mistress on the side plays the perfect husband and perfect father at home."
"The better the act, the more convincing the performance."
My father had nothing to say to that.
My mother only grew angrier. "That Jacob Delgado!"
"Back when he was chasing Dora, he knelt outside our front door for three days and three nights. Knelt until his forehead was bleeding from bowing against the ground. Swore up and down he'd treat her right. That's the only reason I agreed to let my daughter marry him."
"And now?"
"Two years into the marriage, and he has the nerve to bring his mistress into their home? Has he lost his mind?"
My mother was furious.
But what I felt more than anger was confusion.
Because my father had a point.
All these years, Jacob had been incredibly good to me.
He was young, accomplished, and devastatingly handsome. There was never a shortage of beautiful young women throwing themselves at him.
Even the hospital director's daughter had gone out of her way to pursue him openly.
She'd even declared publicly that if Jacob would be with her, the entire hospital could bear his name.
But Jacob hadn't wavered. Not once.
He'd offended her because of it and nearly been blacklisted from the entire medical community.
Even so, he'd stayed unwavering and told me:
"I can lose the whole world. The one thing I can't lose is you."
It was precisely because I'd felt his devotion so deeply, so genuinely, that I couldn't make sense of this.
What kind of woman could make a man like Jacob Delgado—a man who treated loyalty like a religion—have a change of heart?
"Dora, what do you want to do?"
My father looked at me, his expression grave.
I paused for a moment, then said firmly, "I want to catch him in the act."
My mother's eyes lit up immediately. "How?"
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I lowered my head and opened my phone, scrolling to an app I had never once opened.
It was a location-sharing app.
