I Sent My Husband Fake Cheating Proof, He Flew Home Overnight novel · Chapter 1 of 16
Chapter 1: Proof Sent
Hazel sends her husband fake affair photos and divorce papers at midnight, and at seven a.m. he walks into the kitchen from London, tears the papers up, and orders her to invite the man to dinner.
At 12:04 a.m. I sent my husband proof that I was sleeping with another man.
Four photos.
Me in a man's white shirt and nothing else, laughing at a stove.
A tanned arm around my waist.
Two coffee cups on a yellow table.
A blond head on the pillow beside mine, face turned away.
Under them I attached the divorce papers, already signed.
I typed one line.
"I'm in love with someone else. Please sign."
Then I turned my phone face down on the kitchen island and poured the rest of the wine down the sink.
None of it was real.
My sister Pippa took those photos in her own kitchen on Tuesday afternoon.
The arm belonged to her friend Henrik, who is gay and charged me two hundred dollars and a pizza.
I did it because I couldn't stand one more year of being married to a man who wouldn't touch me.
Christian Kane and I had been married three years and two months.
He had never kissed me except once, at the altar, for the photographer.
He had never held my hand unless his grandfather was watching.
We slept in separate bedrooms on separate floors of a house in Tribeca that still didn't feel like mine.
He flew three weeks out of every four.
When he was home, he said good morning and good night and "Do you need anything?"
I always said no.
He always looked relieved.
I married him to save my father's company.
Dad died eleven days after the wedding.
After that there was no reason left for Christian to pretend, so he didn't.
That evening his ex, Portia Vanderpoel, had posted a photo from a hotel bar in London.
Two whisky glasses.
A man's hand on the bar, with the steel watch I'd bought Christian for our first anniversary.
The caption said, "Some things come back."
Christian had been in London for eleven days.
He hadn't called once.
I stared at that watch until my eyes burned.
Then I texted Pippa.
"Send me the photos. I'm doing it tonight."
My phone started buzzing at 12:09.
Christian.
I let it ring out.
It buzzed again.
And again.
The phone lit up again and again before I went upstairs.
I didn't sleep.
I lay in the dark and pictured him reading it in some hotel suite with Portia asleep beside him.
He'd sign it over breakfast.
He'd be glad.
At six I gave up and went down to make coffee.
At 8:31 the front door opened.
I heard it before I saw him.
The heavy lock turned, and a suitcase hit the marble.
Then footsteps came down the hall, fast and even.
Christian stopped in the kitchen doorway.
He was wearing yesterday's suit.
His tie was gone and his collar was open, and there was stubble along his jaw I had never seen before.
His dark eyes were red at the edges.
He hadn't closed them since midnight.
"You're in London," I said stupidly.
"I was in London."
He set his phone on the island, screen up.
My photos were open on it.
"I landed at Teterboro forty minutes ago," he said. "I flew the plane myself. My pilots were asleep."
I held my mug with both hands so he wouldn't see them shake.
"You could have just signed it."
"Could I."
He walked around the island.
Mrs. Dunleavy, our housekeeper, came in from the pantry with a basket of lemons and stopped dead.
Christian didn't even glance at her.
He reached into his jacket and took out the divorce papers.
He had printed them.
Somewhere over the Atlantic he had printed them, and folded them, and carried them home in his chest pocket.
"Christian, please. Just sign it and we both get our lives back."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he tore the papers in half.
He put the halves together and tore them again.
The pieces fell on the marble between my coffee and his phone.
Mrs. Dunleavy set the lemons down very slowly and backed out of the room.
"Who is he?" Christian asked.
"That's none of your business."
"You're my wife. It's the only business I have this morning."
"Since when do you care what I do?"
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
He picked up his phone and zoomed in on the blond head on the pillow.
"What's his name?"
My mouth went dry.
"Henrik."
"Henrik what?"
"Lindqvist."
He said it back to himself, quietly.
"How long?"
"A year," I lied.
Something moved behind his eyes.
It was gone before I could name it.
"You want a divorce, Hazel?"
"Yes."
"Then I want to meet the man I'm losing you to."
"What?"
He slid my own phone across the island to me.
"Invite him to dinner. Tomorrow night. Here."
"You can't be serious."
"Seven o'clock." He loosened his cuffs. "Tell him to come hungry."
"And if I don't?"
Christian leaned down until his face was level with mine.
He smelled like jet fuel and cold air.
"Then I'll find his address myself," he said. "And I'll go to his house instead."
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