Chapter 1 - Keep Your Hands Off What’s Mine
Mara Collins slapped me across the face in the middle of the executive break room.
Coffee splashed from my husband’s cup across my cheek and cream blouse. My red travel mug nearly slipped from my fingers as my head snapped sideways.
The entire office went silent.
Mara stood inches from me in a fitted burgundy dress, chest rising sharply with anger.
“Keep your hands off what’s mine.”
Behind her, my husband froze.
Ethan Vale wore the light gray suit I had helped him choose that morning. His face drained of color as the meaning of Mara’s words reached everyone standing near the glass walls.
“Mara—stop talking.”
She turned toward him.
Only then did she notice his panic.
I touched my burning cheek and slowly looked from his face to hers.
“Mine?” I asked quietly. “That’s interesting.”
Ethan stepped forward with both hands raised.
“Claire, this is not what it looks like.”
That was the first time anyone in the office heard him use my real name.
Until that moment, I had been introduced as Claire Bennett, a temporary junior operations assistant assigned to observe administrative inefficiencies.
Mara’s expression changed.
“You know her?”
I reached into my skirt pocket and removed my phone.
The recording was still running.
A black evidence folder sat open on the screen, its contents blurred from everyone else’s view.
Ethan took another step.
“What are you doing?”
I held his gaze.
“Finishing the investigation.”
The coworkers surrounding us did not know what was inside that folder.
May you like
Neither Mara nor Ethan knew how much I had already copied.
But from the fear on my husband’s face, I understood that the affair was no longer the secret he was most afraid of losing.
