He dug up his flight logs, examined cloud backups he thought were private, and discovered the dirty secret he’d tried so hard to hide.
When Jeff returned from the Maldives two weeks later, my left side was still weak, my smile was still crooked, but I could move. I could speak.
He entered my hospital room smelling of coconut oil and cowardice. He had tanned skin and a smile that was too wide.
A man standing in a hospital room | Source: Midjourney
“I brought you a seashell,” she said, placing a small white spiral on my bedside table as if it were a peace offering.
I smiled, and the right side of my face did all the work. “Fascinating. How was your brother?”
She blinked. “Oh, he couldn’t come at the last minute… I just brought a friend.”
“A friend,” I repeated. “How kind.”
A woman smiles faintly | Source: Midjourney
I already knew that the “friend” was Mia, her secretary, the woman Ava had caught with her ex-boyfriend six months earlier.
Some strange expenses Ava had discovered in our financial records suggested that Mia had recently done more than file paperwork for Jeff.
That evening, after Jeff left, promising to “come back the next day,” Ava and I hatched our plan.
A determined woman stands in a hospital room | Source: Midjourney
“He thinks he’s so smart,” Ava said, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “But he has no idea what’s coming.”
He was right. Everything he thought we possessed together? In reality, much of it wasn’t true.
The house? Purchased with my grandmother’s inheritance. Traced and documented. Separate ownership.
A house in the suburbs | Source: Pexels
The investments? Prenuptial funds I’d accumulated from working two jobs before we met. Mine.
The joint account? He can keep it. Five thousand dollars wouldn’t give him peace of mind for long.
California law is not lenient on unfaithful partners, especially those who abandon their sick spouse for a tropical vacation with their lover.
Ava helped me hire a divorce lawyer with a backbone of steel and matching stilettos.
A lawyer in his office | Source: Pexels
“Cassandra,” she introduced herself, shaking my partially functioning hand. “I realized we had a problem.”
“We have a plan,” I corrected. “And a deadline.”
Our lawyer filed a financial restraining order. A request for exclusive use of the marital home. Ava tracked down and organized every receipt, every text message, every selfie of Jeff and Mia at the beach that Jeff thought he’d deleted.
