The Perfect Husband's Darkest Secret novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Don't Wait Up
At Dalton's Father of the Year night Emme pours out her tea, follows him to a hotel and films her sister in his arms, then leaves in silence and returns three months later as majority owner.
The whole ballroom stood up to applaud my husband, and I stood with them.
A children's charity had just named Dalton the best father in the city.
He held the glass trophy against his chest and looked down the ballroom at me.
"I owe everything to my wife," he said into the microphone. "She is the reason I come home."
The room cheered until the chandeliers rang.
My little sister Camille leaned over and squeezed my wrist.
"He means it, Em," she said. "Look at his face."
I looked.
His board loved him. Our daughter's teachers loved him. The mayor, the waiters and the doorman loved him.
Camille had zipped me into my gown that evening and tucked a mint into my hand to calm my nerves.
Before dessert she pressed two fingers to her temple.
"Headache," she whispered. "I'm going home. Don't wait up for me."
She kissed my cheek and slipped out through the side doors.
Dalton found me by the coat check an hour later.
"Singapore wants a call tonight," he said. "It'll run late. I'm so proud of us, Em."
At home, our daughter Poppy slept upstairs with one arm around her stuffed otter.
She was six.
The night sitter dozed in the guest room.
Dalton brought tea to our bedroom, the way he had every night since March.
"Chamomile," he said. "You've been so tired lately. Drink it all."
He kissed my hair and went to shower.
I carried the cup to the bathroom sink and poured it out.
I had never done that before.
I wanted to remember this night clearly.
At eleven I went downstairs for water, and his phone was lying on the hall table, lit and face up.
For two years that phone had lived in his jacket pocket or face down against his knee.
The screen showed one message and no name.
*Harbor Lantern Hotel. Side door by the river. Midnight.*
Dalton came down in a fresh shirt and slid the phone into his pocket.
"That's the Singapore call," he said. "Go to bed, Em."
He kissed my forehead and left.
I watched his taillights from the window until they turned the corner.
Then I told the sitter I needed air, took my keys and followed him.
The Harbor Lantern sat on the river, eight minutes from our house.
I parked on the next street and walked to the side door.
A concrete pillar by the loading dock hid me from the lamp.
Dalton stood under the light with his hands in his pockets.
The door opened, and a woman in a long green coat stepped out.
She put both hands on his face.
"I miss you," Dalton whispered.
I raised my phone and pressed record.
She pulled him in by the lapels and kissed him.
Then the lamp lit her face.
It was my sister.
Camille still wore the silver dress she had worn to applaud him.
I filmed for half a minute.
My hands didn't shake.
The husband everyone adored was kissing the sister I had paid for and forgiven a hundred times.
The headache, the call from Singapore and the nightly tea all made sense now.
I did not scream.
I did not cry.
I put the phone in my pocket and walked back to my car with my back straight.
They believed they had finished me.
I was not finished. I was awake.
So I decided, sitting in the dark with both hands on the wheel, that I would leave without a sound.
I sent the video to three places before I started the engine.
At dawn, Dalton kissed Poppy goodbye and flew to Singapore for three months.
He told me to rest.
I told him we would miss him.
For ninety days I smiled on every video call, and every morning I called my late father's lawyer.
Then, on a Tuesday, I sat on the thirty-first floor of a law firm and watched my own front hall on my phone.
The camera showed Dalton walking in with his suitcase, calling for Poppy.
He found the house empty.
Every closet was bare.
My clothes were gone.
Poppy's drawings were gone from the refrigerator.
Every photo of us was gone from the walls.
Only one thing sat on the hall table, in the place where his phone had lain that night.
An envelope.
He tore it open.
On the screen, I watched him read it.
*You wanted another woman. Keep her. I hope she was worth everything you are about to lose.*
He read it twice.
Then the lawyer's phone rang on the desk between us.
The lawyer looked at me. I nodded.
She pressed the speaker button.
"Mr. Reeve, this is your wife's attorney. The last transfer cleared this morning."
"What transfer?" Dalton said. His voice was thin.
"Your wife now owns fifty-one percent of Reeve Harbor Group."
There was a long silence on the line.
"That's impossible," he said. "Emme doesn't even read the shareholder letters."
The lawyer did not look away from me.
"You married Harold Wray's daughter, Mr. Reeve," she said. "You never read what that came with."
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