Chapter 1

The ninety-ninth time my best friend helped me test my husband, she sent the screenshot as usual.

In the picture, Fred Harding's reply was cool: "I'm married."

I sent Paige Sullivan a kissy emoji, smiling, and saved the screenshot to my album.

There were ninety-nine screenshots like it in that album, and every one of them made me feel like I'd married a good man.

That night I leaned against Fred's shoulder and decided I'd stop testing him.

Fred lay beside me scrolling his phone, and suddenly he laughed.

"Celeste Pruitt, that loyalty test of yours, still not tired of it?"

I froze. His tone was flat.

"The first time she added me, I knew you'd set it up."

"But Paige really does know how to work a man, so the night of that first test, we were already together."

He paused, as if remembering something funny.

"After that, before every test she came to me first. Those pictures you saved? She begged me in bed to help her write them."

The savoring look on his face pushed a wave of bile up my throat.

I thought of the line Paige always tacked onto each screenshot: "Relax, babe, your husband adores you."

So she'd typed those while the warmth of his side of the bed hadn't even faded yet.

I deleted every screenshot in the album.

The second all ninety-nine pictures vanished, our marriage ended too.

......

"Fred, let's get divorced."

I held the emptied album up in front of him.

Fred's voice came from beside me, carrying a trace of careless amusement.

"You really didn't have to delete them. Keeping them as a memento wouldn't have hurt, since I wrote those captions for her myself."

"Paige's a dim girl. She can't even tell a lie that holds together."

I finally turned my head and looked at this face that had shared my bed for five years.

His eyes still held the old gentleness.

"Neither of us meant to affect the marriage. She wanted the thrill, I needed an outlet. We each got what we needed."

He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his fingertips warm, the motion practiced and easy.

"Celeste, if you hadn't insisted on your loyalty test, if you hadn't pushed her right in front of me, none of it would ever have started."

He drew his hand back, and there was even a note of reproach in his tone.

"You created the temptation with your own hands, and now you come blaming me for failing the test. That's hardly fair, is it?"

I looked at those righteous eyes of his and it struck me as absurd beyond belief.

So in his mind, the cheating wasn't just an amusing game, the fault was entirely mine.

"If you've already lied to me this many times, why confess today?" I forced down the tremor in my voice.

"Because you keep bothering her. The girl's been nagging me. Just stop using her for your tests." Fred sighed and got up out of bed.

He poured a glass of water and held it out to me.

"I know you've been under a lot of pressure lately, that you need this fake sense of security. I played along in your little act to make you happy. Isn't that a kind of love?"

"Get some sleep. Stop throwing a fit."

I didn't take the glass.

My thoughts drifted, helplessly, back to five years ago.

Back then we'd just started the company, and to land our first hundred-thousand-dollar investment, Fred drank with a client until his stomach bled.

On the hospital bed, cold sweat breaking out from the pain, he still gripped my hand.

"Nina, from now on my back belongs to you, always." He'd smiled weakly then, his eyes full of trust he held nothing back from.

"Even if the whole world betrays you, I never will."

Back then, Fred would blush just telling me a white lie.

Later there were more and more work dinners, he came home later and later, and one young woman after another kept coming.

I was afraid we'd drift apart, so I asked Paige, again and again, to test him.

I closed my eyes and crushed that ridiculous little memory flat, deep inside me.

"The aurora trip next month, I'm not going."

That was our fifth-anniversary trip, three months in the planning, the itinerary something I'd built piece by piece over a dozen sleepless nights.

Fred set the glass down on the nightstand with a soft clink.

"Fine, don't go then. I've already passed the tickets and the itinerary to Paige." He lay back down and pulled the blanket over himself.

My head snapped toward him.

His eyes were closed, his tone as matter-of-fact as ever.

"You've been too sensitive lately. It's worn me out."

"Paige happens to be on her annual leave, and she said she'd like to see it. The hotel's booked anyway. Cancel it and it'd just be a waste."

He turned over and gave me his back.

"You're only anxious because the test slipped out of your control. Sleep it off and you'll be fine."

"The place as Mrs. Harding is always yours. I never even thought to guard my assets against you. What more could you want?"

I looked at his back. I didn't cry, and I didn't make a scene.

My phone screen lit up just then.

It was a message from my lawyer, Paddy Stephens.

"【Ms. Pruitt, the risk-isolation agreement you commissioned earlier has taken effect. The moment you sign, the core shares under Mr. Harding's name will be fully frozen for breach of contract.】"