My Husband Slapped Me for Another Woman on Our Anniversary

Maya called before I could finish reading the email.

"Do not go anywhere alone," she said.

"What does M.C. stand for?"

"We are checking. The message came from Vanessa's company account, but it was recovered from a server copy before her team could delete it."

I walked back into Elena's apartment.

She was standing in the kitchen with a coffee mug in one hand and my son leaning sleepily against her hip.

Eli saw me and smiled.

"Mommy."

Everything else disappeared for one second.

I crouched and opened my arms.

He ran into them.

Then he leaned back and stared at my face.

"What happened to your cheek?"

Elena froze.

I had spent the elevator ride trying to decide how to answer that question.

Six-year-olds deserve truth, but not adult burdens.

"Daddy and I had a very bad argument," I said. "He did something wrong, and we are going to make sure it does not happen again."

Eli's eyebrows pulled together.

"Did he hurt you?"

I swallowed.

"Yes."

He wrapped his arms around my neck.

"Do I have to be mad at him?"

That question almost destroyed me.

I held him tighter.

"No, baby. You never have to choose between us. You can love Daddy and love me. Grown-ups are responsible for their own choices."

He considered that with the seriousness only a child can give to something enormous.

"Can I have cereal?"

I laughed for the first time all night.

"Yes."

While Elena poured cereal, I went into the bathroom and cried silently for thirty seconds.

Then I washed my face and went back to war.

Maya had traced M.C.

Marcus Coletti.

Caruso Design Group's director of archives and product development.

I knew him.

He had worked for Dominic's father before Dominic took over the company. Gray hair, perfect ties, old-school manners. He sent Eli a wooden train every Christmas.

"Why would Vanessa be messaging Marcus?" I asked.

"Because according to public records and company materials, he controls the physical design archive," Maya said. "Do any originals of your work exist there?"

I thought back.

"Maybe."

"Maybe is enough. Explain."

Four years earlier, after Eli was born, Dominic had suggested digitizing my old portfolio for insurance. He sent a company courier to collect three flat boxes from our apartment. The boxes came back a week later.

At least, I thought they had.

I had not opened every one.

I had been sleeping in ninety-minute stretches with a newborn.

My stomach turned.

"There were three portfolio boxes."

Maya's voice sharpened. "Where are they now?"

"Two are in our storage room. I don't know about the third."

"What was in it?"

I closed my eyes.

"Original bridal drawings. Fabric swatches. Process notes."

There was a pause.

"Nora, I need Dominic's general counsel to freeze access to the archive immediately."

"Do it."

"I am."

I heard typing.

Then Maya said, "And I need to tell you something you may not like."

"I'm running out of things I like."

"Dominic can help us faster than a court order right now."

I knew she was right.

I hated that she was right.

I called him.

He answered on the first ring.

"What happened?"

"Vanessa emailed Marcus Coletti at 4:11. She told him to destroy originals before you changed sides."

Silence.

Then Dominic's voice changed into something I had heard only a handful of times.

Cold. Precise. Dangerous.

"Where are you?"

"Elena's."

"Stay there."

"Do not give me orders."

"That wasn't an order." He exhaled. "It was fear."

The honesty stopped me.

"Freeze the archive," I said. "Now."

"Already calling security."

He hung up.

Ten minutes later, he called back.

"Marcus is not answering."

"Can anyone get into the archive?"

"Two people. Marcus and the facilities manager. Security says Marcus entered the building twenty-seven minutes ago."

My blood went cold.

"Can they stop him?"

"They are on their way downstairs."

I heard a car door slam on his end.

"Where are you going?"

"The archive."

"Dominic -"

"Those are your originals."

I almost said, You should have cared four years ago.

But there was no time.

"I'm coming too."

"No."

"Try that sentence again."

He went quiet.

Then, "I'll send a car."

"I have one."

Maya met me outside Caruso's garment district building forty minutes later.

Dawn had begun turning the sky pale over Manhattan. Delivery trucks groaned along the avenue. People carried coffee and looked annoyed about normal things.

I envied them.

Dominic was waiting inside the loading entrance with two security officers and the company's general counsel, Robert Hayes.

Robert looked as if he had aged five years since the gala.

"Mrs. Caruso," he said.

"Nora."

His eyes went to my cheek and quickly away.

Dominic noticed.

Shame moved across his face.

Good.

Let it.

"Marcus locked himself in the lower archive," Dominic said. "Security cut his badge access, but the door can be locked manually from inside."

"Can he destroy anything?"

"There is a document shredder and a materials disposal room."

Maya swore.

We took the service elevator down.

The archive occupied nearly half a basement floor. Rows of metal shelving held decades of Caruso samples, sketches, textile books, invoices, and prototypes. Dominic's grandfather had started the company making custom suits in a Queens storefront. They preserved everything.

Apparently, including things that did not belong to them.

A security officer forced the interior lock.

When the door opened, we smelled smoke.

Not fire.

Burned paper.

We ran.

Marcus stood near a metal disposal bin with a stack of folders in his hands.

A small pile of charred paper sat inside.

He stared at us.

Then at Dominic.

"Mr. Caruso."

Dominic looked at the bin.

"Step away."

Marcus did not move.

"You don't understand."

"Step away from the bin."

The two security officers approached.

Marcus slowly raised his hands.

One of the folders slipped free and hit the floor.

My name was written across the tab.

NORA - PRIVATE ARCHIVE.

I stopped breathing.

Maya immediately took out her phone and began photographing everything without touching it.

"No one moves anything," she said. "Robert, I want this area preserved exactly as found."

Robert nodded grimly.

Dominic stared at Marcus.

"How long has that box been here?"

Marcus looked at me.

"Four years."

My knees nearly gave out.

"Why?"

He did not answer.

Dominic stepped closer.

"She asked you a question."

Marcus swallowed.

"Mrs. Caruso's materials were catalogued during the digitization project. Ms. Moretti asked that one box remain for internal reference."

"And you agreed?"

"I was told you approved it."

Dominic's face hardened.

"Who told you that?"

Marcus looked at the floor.

"Ms. Moretti."

"Did you verify it with me?"

"No."

"Did you verify it with Nora?"

"No."

"Then why are you burning documents at six-thirty in the morning?"

Marcus looked suddenly older.

"She said there had been an ownership misunderstanding. She said the old working materials contained duplicates and needed to be removed before outside counsel arrived."

Maya's eyes narrowed.

"She told you to destroy evidence after receiving a legal preservation notice?"

Marcus went pale.

"I did not know -"

"You received the notice at 4:23 a.m.," Robert said. "I have the delivery receipt."

Marcus closed his mouth.

Dominic turned away from him.

I had expected rage.

Instead, he looked sick.

On a worktable nearby sat the third portfolio box.

My box.

I walked toward it.

The lid was open.

Inside were drawings I had not seen in years.

My handwriting.

My fabric notes.

My mother's old pencil marks on one page.

A tiny smear of yellow finger paint on another from the afternoon toddler Eli had climbed onto my lap while I was sketching.

I touched nothing.

I only stared.

Then I saw the red stickers.

Small labels had been attached to several pages.

W24-01.

W24-07.

W24-11.

Product codes.

Caruso product codes.

Maya noticed too.

"Those labels are evidence of internal selection," she said.

Robert closed his eyes.

Dominic looked at me.

"Nora, I swear I never saw this."

"You gave her the key."

He recoiled.

"I know."

"You gave her my archive and then you stopped looking."

"I know."

His agreement made me furious.

"Stop saying that."

He stared at me.

"I don't know what else I am allowed to say."

"Nothing that makes you feel better."

He nodded once.

"Fair."

Maya called in a forensic preservation team.

Marcus was escorted upstairs and suspended pending investigation.

Before he left, he stopped beside me.

"Mrs. Caruso, I am sorry."

I looked at the charred scraps in the bin.

"Which pages did you burn?"

He swallowed.

"Inventory sheets. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"There was one memo."

Dominic turned.

"What memo?"

Marcus looked terrified now.

"A memo from Milan."

The room went silent.

I looked at Dominic.

His face lost color.

"The side letter," I said.

Marcus said nothing.

He did not need to.

Maya stepped between us.

"If a copy exists, we will find it."

Dominic stared at the burned bin.

"There is a copy."

I faced him.

"Where?"

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"My private files."

"Then get it."

He did not move.

"Dominic."

His voice came out rough.

"You are going to hate me more after you read it."

I looked at him for a long moment.

"That is not a reason to hide it. That is the reason I need to see it."

He nodded.

At 7:18 a.m., while forensic technicians photographed my stolen archive, Dominic sent Maya a fourteen-page document signed in Milan four years earlier.

The first thirteen pages concerned financing.

The fourteenth concerned me.

And when I read the first sentence, I finally understood why every promise Dominic had made about my career always ended with the same word.

Soon.