A Stranger Told Me My Husband Cheated, So We Cheated Back novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Room 614

Trevor lies and then says the cruelest thing he knows; Jo drops her ring in Bianca's champagne, walks out, and agrees to Nolan's plan to play the same game back.

Bianca turned around slowly.

"Nolan," she said. "You're early."

Trevor spun so fast he knocked a bottle off the vanity.

He grabbed his shirt from the chair and held it against his chest.

His face went white, then it went smooth.

I watched him do it.

I had never seen him do it that fast before.

"Jo. Babe." He held up both hands. "This isn't what it looks like."

"It's exactly what it looks like, Trevor," Bianca said, and picked up her champagne glass.

"Stay out of this," Trevor snapped.

"You're standing in a hotel room with no shirt on. I think I'm in it."

She said it so lightly.

Nolan hadn't moved from the doorway.

He just looked at his wife.

Trevor took a step toward me, and I stepped back into the hall.

"She came on to me," he said. "I was going to tell you tonight. I swear to God, Jo."

"You told her I never ask you anything."

"I was being nice to her. People say things."

"For four years, you said."

His smile slipped.

Behind him, Bianca sipped her champagne and watched.

Trevor dropped his voice.

It was the low, kind voice he used on me at the kitchen table.

"Jo. Think. What are you going to do, walk out? Where would you go?"

"Home."

"To what? Your sister's couch?" He shook his head. "Who else would have you? You can't even give a man a baby."

The hallway went quiet.

A housekeeper with a stack of towels had stopped at the end of the corridor and was pretending to read a door number.

I heard Bianca laugh into her glass.

It wasn't a big laugh.

It was a small one, the kind you give a joke you've heard before.

I looked down at my left hand.

I turned the ring once with my thumb and pulled it off.

It came easily.

I walked into the room, past Trevor, right up to the vanity.

Bianca raised her eyebrows.

I held the ring over her champagne and let go.

It made a tiny sound, and then it sat at the bottom of her glass with the bubbles climbing past it.

"You two seem to like sharing," I said. "Keep it."

Bianca stared at the glass.

For the first time since I'd opened the door, she didn't smile.

I walked out.

I didn't run, and I didn't look back at Trevor.

Nolan was already beside me, and he pushed the elevator button with one knuckle.

The doors closed on the sound of Trevor shouting my name.

I made it to the third floor before my knees started to go.

Nolan caught my wrist, not hard.

His thumb found the inside of it, right on the pulse, and stayed there.

"Breathe in for four," he said.

"I'm fine."

"Your heart's going like a hammer. In for four."

I breathed in.

I hated how well it worked.

"You can't file today," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"The deposit on his Harbor East gym was a cashier's check for ninety thousand dollars. I've got a copy. The name on the account was your father's estate."

The elevator kept dropping.

My father had been dead fourteen months.

His life insurance had gone into an account Trevor set up for it, all of it, because he'd said we would look at it together after the funeral.

"That's my money," I said.

"I know. If you file today, his lawyer freezes the accounts by tonight and whatever's left disappears." He let go of my wrist. "Do you want it back?"

"Yes."

"Do you want her to feel what you just felt?"

I thought about the small laugh.

"Yes."

"Then we don't fight them," Nolan said. "We go home and we act like we're fools who want to forgive them. And in public, where they can see, we give them something to look at."

"You mean we pretend."

"Two can play."

I turned and looked at him properly for the first time.

His face gave away nothing, but a muscle was jumping in his jaw.

"I have rules," I said.

"Say them."

"We touch only when they're watching. We don't sleep together. And the day they're finished, we walk away clean."

"Agreed," he said.

The doors opened on the lobby.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and kept buzzing.

Fourteen texts from Trevor, and the last one said, "Please come home. I'll explain everything. I love you."

I looked at it for the length of one breath.

Then I typed, "Make the carbonara."

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