Thirty employees watched my husband’s assistant sitting on his lap during a video meeting.

That should have been the worst part.

It wasn’t.

The worst part was the necklace around her throat.

A narrow river of diamonds rested against Selina Price’s collarbone, flashing beneath the recessed lights in Flynn’s office every time she moved.

I recognized it immediately.

One hundred and ten thousand dollars.

Two months earlier, I had stood beside Flynn in a Beacon Hill jewelry store and touched that same necklace beneath glass.

I hadn’t asked him to buy it.

I hadn’t even expected him to.

I had simply said, “It’s beautiful.”

Flynn had glanced at the price card and laughed.

“You don’t work anymore, Mabel. What would you even need something like that for?”

Not we can’t afford it.

Not maybe someday.

You don’t work anymore.

As though the eleven years I’d spent building a career in financial consulting had vanished the moment I agreed to stay home with our daughter.

As though packing lunches, arranging preschool, managing our house, handling every doctor’s appointment, every grocery list, every birthday, every sleepless night and every crisis somehow meant I contributed nothing.

That same week, Flynn had lectured me for spending eighty-three dollars more than usual at the grocery store.

“Our expenses are getting out of hand,” he had said.

He gave me $1,800 a month for groceries, clothes, school expenses and anything our five-year-old daughter, Rose, needed.

Meanwhile, the woman sitting on his lap was wearing six figures around her neck.

I stood in the doorway holding a paper bag containing the dinner I’d driven across Boston to bring him.

Flynn had told me he was working late.

Apparently, he had been.

Just not in the way I thought.

Selina saw me first.

Her eyes widened.

Flynn followed her stare.

He froze.

I looked past them toward his laptop.

A grid of faces filled the screen.

Thirty employees.

Senior managers. Account directors. Analysts. Department heads.

Every single one staring.

For one extraordinary second, nobody moved.

Then I said quietly,

“Darling, you forgot to end the call.”

Flynn nearly threw Selina off his lap.

She stumbled to her feet, yanking the front of her blouse closed.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Flynn snapped.

Not Mabel, I’m sorry.

Not please let me explain.

Not even this isn’t what it looks like.

His first instinct was anger.

At me.

I lifted the dinner bag.

“You said you’d be working late.”

“Mabel—”

I looked at Selina.

Then at the chair.

Then back at him.

“You appear very busy.”

Selina swallowed.

“We were just—”

“Don’t.”

My voice stopped her.

Flynn hurried around the desk.

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

I laughed.

I actually laughed.

“She was sitting on your lap, Flynn.”

“It was an accident.”

“An accident?”

“She slipped.”

Selina stared at him.

Even she looked insulted.

I pointed to the diamonds around her neck.

“And that?”

Flynn’s jaw tightened.

“That’s none of your concern.”

I stepped closer.

“It became my concern when you told me eighty-three dollars in groceries was irresponsible.”

Silence.

Then Flynn said the words that changed everything.

“It was a performance bonus.”