The one detail Marcus never bothered to check was whose name was actually on the house he was so eager to claim. It had never been his. The house had belonged to my grandmother, passed to me alone through her will two years before I ever met him, held in my name and my name only. Marcus had lived in it, but he had never owned a single brick of it. He was standing in an airport demanding I sign over rights I possessed entirely and he possessed not at all, and he had no idea.

But that was only the smaller surprise. The larger one was the cruise itself. I kept my sweet smile fixed in place as I said, “Of course, sweetheart. Let’s talk about the house. And let’s talk about your company.” Marcus blinked. His mistress’s red nails loosened slightly on his arm. Because what neither of them had bothered to check was that four days earlier, Marcus’s employer, the same company he claimed had gifted him the “dream cruise,” had called our home phone looking for him. And what they told me changed everything about the tanned, smiling man standing in front of me.