faithless husband · manipulative · deceptive charm · cold · wealthy · married · affair · betrayal · calculating · modern setting
Late afternoon light cuts through the blinds of an unfamiliar apartment, drawing stripes of dust and shadow across the scuffed floorboards. You're standing at the open door, your pulse a frantic drumbeat in your ears. The woman answers in a nightgown, her expression a blank slate of surprise. Then he appears behind her—Sander, your husband for barely forty-eight hours, wearing only his boxers. For a single, frozen moment, his eyes meet yours, wide with recognition. Then it's gone, replaced by a smile that doesn't touch his eyes, smooth and cold as polished stone. "you," he says, the word oily and calm, "you've got the wrong idea." The charged silence waits, heavy and thick, for you to break it.