Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Seeing me fuming in place, Evie hurried over, shut the door, and pulled me back into our bedroom.

“Honey, I know you're still mad about today. But when I went into early labor, Karim was the only one around. There was nothing I could do, right?”

“You know I'm heavy with the baby, and you're always busy at work. Karim was just trying to help!”

A bitter smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. When had Evie ever been this thoughtful toward me?

I ran myself ragged at the office. No matter how important the work was, the second she called, I had to appear in front of her.

Otherwise, she'd throw a fit about it and we'd fight for days.

I still remember it clearly. Last year, I was closing a massive deal for my company, sitting at dinner with the client.

Evie called me nonstop, demanding I come home to take her pet cat to the vet.

I gently pushed back and promised to take it the next day. She didn't listen to a word. She marched straight to the restaurant and found me.

The client was a sharp, successful woman CEO. Evie decided I must be cheating, and she threw a glass of red wine all over her.

To apologize and save the deal, I drank until I gave myself a bleeding ulcer.

And all Evie said was, “Well, you should have explained yourself better.”

“Evie, when did you ever think about me like this?”

Seeing me refuse to let it go, Evie's face soured and she started in.

“Zane Calloway, I've only known Karim for a few days! How could anything have happened between us?!”

“You're the one with the dirty mind! You see filth in everyone! It's disgusting!”

My head buzzed at the words “a few days.” I grabbed her arm.

“Tell me the truth. Did you get together with that exchange student last year, or this year?”

I didn't dare imagine what it would mean if it was last year. The baby in her belly...

My questions wore her patience thin. She walked up to me and slapped me across the face.

“Zane Calloway, are you even a man?! I'm carrying your child, sacrificing my body for you, and this is how you repay me―with suspicion!”

I stopped asking. Evie stormed out and slammed the door behind her.

When she came back, she was carrying toiletries and a late-night snack―for Karim.

“Honey, today was my fault. My pregnancy hormones are all over the place, and I got carried away. Here―I grabbed you something to eat. Have it while it's hot!”

Looking at the steaming noodles in my hands, some of the bitterness in my chest faded.

We'd loved each other for so many years. Deep down, I didn't want to believe she would cheat.

The noodles went down warm, and soon a heavy drowsiness washed over me.

“Rest well, honey. I'll stay right by your side.”

Looking at Evie's smile, I drifted off to sleep fast.

In the dead of night, something closed around my throat. I couldn't pull in a single breath.

“Huff... huff... huff!”

My asthma―the asthma that hadn't flared in years―was back. Gasping for air, I tried to wake my wife.

But the other side of the bed was cold. No one had slept there at all.

“Evie... Evie... my inhaler!”

I called out to her in a rasping voice. Silence answered me.

Helplessness swallowed me whole. If I couldn't reach my rescue medication, I might not live through the night.

I forced myself upright and clawed through the nightstand drawer.

Even though I hadn't had an attack in years, I always kept my inhaler within reach, just in case.

The medicine hit my lungs, and air flooded back into me.

The moment my strength returned, my first thought was to find my missing wife.

The thing I least wanted to believe had happened.

I crept toward Karim's room. Through the crack in the door, I saw my wife―the woman who should have been asleep beside me.

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