So when I first met Jane Henson, something in my chest softened without reason.
Dennis was flipping through a stack of resumes in front of me, and his fingers paused on hers.
"You've seen this one. HR says she's decent."
"But I think she looks frumpy."
"I'm hiring a secretary, not a charity case."
Dennis had a vicious tongue.
He'd always been drawn to things that were flashy and beautiful, to people who were easy on the eyes.
Like me. He'd been fixated on me since we were children.
Because I was pretty, and because I never gave him the time of day.
That was exactly why he'd come sniffing around when the Sullivan family went bankrupt and everyone else ran the other direction. He showed up and offered to marry me.
I placed my hand over his before he could flip to the next page. "Her. I think she's good."
"She seems genuine, and she's capable."
"Nothing wrong with molding someone from scratch."
Dennis kept Jane on, just to make me happy.
Back then, I still had that new-toy shine for him. Every day after work, he'd drape himself over me and refuse to move.
And every time afterward, he'd pester me with the same questions. "What was your college boyfriend's name?"
"How far did you two go? Did he ever get this far with you?"
"Who's better, me or him?"
"Sarah, do you still love him?"
Dennis was painfully immature.
From the day he rushed into this marriage, he'd planted a thorn deep inside himself.
Everything he saw reminded him of Mick. Everything he did became a competition with Mick.
But I never breathed a word.
The next time I saw Jane, she was sitting outside Dennis's office in a tailored tweed suit.
Her makeup was immaculate, making her look young and striking enough to turn heads.
"Ms. Sullivan."
"Mr. Whitney is still in a meeting. You can wait out here for now."
Everyone in that building called me Mrs. Whitney. She was the only one who called me Ms. Sullivan.
Every secretary in the office knew better than to make me wait outside. She was the only one who told me to sit.
My gaze settled on the red marks along her neck and the expensive necklace resting just below them.
"You're doing well for yourself, Ms. Henson."
"Less than six months at Harmonia, and you're already buying six-figure necklaces on a whim."
"It was a gift."
Jane's delicate face flushed scarlet in an instant.
In that moment, I knew she'd gotten her hooks into Dennis.
That necklace had been a purchase-with-purchase from one of my handbag orders. It had been sitting untouched in my jewelry box for months.
A few days earlier, Dennis had asked me for it.
I'd assumed it was for a client. Turned out it was for Jane.
In the two years since Dennis and I married, he hadn't gone back to his old ways of chasing every pretty face in sight the way people expected. He'd stayed put, right by my side, for two whole years.
By my count, the clock was about to run out.
A man like him didn't stay for anyone.
This marriage was never more than decoration to me, a tool to keep the Sullivan family from collapsing entirely.
So I wasn't heartbroken. What occupied my mind was how to stretch this hollow marriage a little longer, or, failing that, how to walk away with a piece of the Whitney fortune.
What I hadn't expected was that the woman would be Jane Henson, the same girl he'd dismissed as beneath him.
And Jane, as it turned out, was not the type to stay in her lane.
She sent me those photos and videos while I was at a Whitney family dinner, smiling and playing the perfect daughter-in-law.
I was fielding his parents' questions about when we'd have children with one hand and figuring out how to deal with Jane with the other.
Ms. Sullivan, I'm carrying Mr. Whitney's child.
What Mr. Whitney and I have is real love. Please, do the right thing and let us be together.
I pretended I never saw them. Pretended none of it happened.
But I didn't expect Dennis to come home that night, falling-down drunk, and confess.
"Jane's pregnant. The baby's mine."
