The anniversary gift my husband swore he could not find appeared on another woman’s feet before he had even finished kissing me hello.
Chapter 1
Three days earlier, Daniel Mercer had called from Chicago before boarding his flight home. “Anything you want for our anniversary?” he asked, sounding distracted but affectionate. I had laughed and told him about a limited-edition pair of Christian Louboutin pumps I had admired at a boutique on Michigan Avenue. Daniel asked my size, the color, even whether I preferred the higher heel, and for a few foolish hours I felt like the luckiest wife alive.
My personal shopper, Claire, ruined the surprise that evening by sending me an excited text. She had seen Daniel leave the boutique carrying the unmistakable red-and-gold box. “That man still knows how to romance his wife,” she wrote. I smiled at the message and said nothing, imagining the shoes waiting in his suitcase.
When Daniel finally came through our front door, he handed me a silver keychain shaped like the Chicago skyline. He kissed my forehead and gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Anna. The shoes were sold out. I tried.”
I was still holding the keychain when my phone lit up.
His new executive assistant, twenty-six-year-old Madison Cole, had posted a photograph on Instagram. She was standing in front of a hotel mirror, one leg bent playfully behind her. On her feet were my shoes—the same limited-edition pumps, in my size and the exact deep burgundy shade I had requested.
Her caption was worse.
“Best boss in the world! He knows how to spoil a hardworking girl. How am I supposed to repay him? Maybe I should marry him.”
There was a winking face after the sentence and three red hearts.
I set the keychain on the entry table. “Daniel, I want a divorce.”
He stared at me as though I had announced that the house was on fire. Then he laughed once, uncertainly. “What?”
“I want a divorce.”
His expression tightened. “Over shoes?”
“Were they sold out?”
Daniel glanced away for half a second. “They’re limited edition, Anna. Things sell out.”
I held up my phone.
He looked at Madison’s photograph without blinking. Then, instead of apologizing, he calmly took the phone from my hand and placed it facedown on the table. “Young women joke like that online. You’re reading too much into it.”
“You bought them for her.”
“She works harder than anyone in that office. It was a reward.”
“For doing what?”
His jaw hardened. “Don’t be vulgar.”
I almost laughed. After twenty-eight years of knowing men who disguised selfishness as logic, I recognized the trick. Daniel wanted me to argue about the price of the shoes because then he could make me look spoiled. But the shoes had never been the point.
“You lied to me,” I said.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He dragged a hand across his face. “Look in your closet. You have more shoes than you can wear in ten years. I buy one pair for an employee, and suddenly our marriage is over?”
“It isn’t the shoes.”
“Then what is it?”
“The fact that you still think it is.”
He walked upstairs without answering.
Three minutes later, Madison deleted the Instagram post. Almost immediately, another appeared on her private story.
“Some women really need to act their age instead of getting jealous when younger women receive attention.”
Daniel liked it.
By morning, the office gossip had become a public spectacle. Madison complained online that a “bitter older woman” was using friends at work to bully her. One of our senior accountants defended me, pointing out that I had personally organized employee hardship funds, holiday bonuses, and maternity support for years.
Madison answered, “A few Christmas gifts don’t make someone a saint.”
I made one mistake. I replied.
“Confidence comes easily when the boss is protecting you.”
Daniel texted me within seconds. “Stop humiliating yourself. You’re management. Act like it.”
The next morning, he entered the conference room with Madison beside him. Her eyes were swollen and red, though her mascara was flawless. Daniel stood at the head of the table and announced that the company had zero tolerance for harassment.
Then he looked directly at me.
“Anna, apologize to Madison.”
Thirty employees stopped breathing.
Madison lowered her eyes with theatrical modesty. “Daniel, please. I don’t want trouble between you and your wife.”
I studied her for a moment. “What did you mean when you called someone a bitter old woman?”
Her lips trembled. “I never named you.”
“Then who did you mean?”
She began to cry.
Daniel hurried after her when she fled the room.
I finished the meeting.
An hour later, the head of human resources came into my office looking ill. He closed the door and placed his phone in front of me.
Daniel had terminated me.
The notice accused me of leading a workplace bullying campaign and damaging the company’s reputation. The business I had helped build for six years had erased me in four paragraphs.
When I went upstairs to confront my husband, Madison was waiting outside his office. Her tears were gone. So was her trembling.
“Daniel isn’t seeing anyone,” she said. “And technically, you don’t work here anymore.”
I texted him.
“Are you really doing this?”
His reply came immediately.
“Mistakes have consequences. Apologize to Madison and I’ll reconsider.”
Madison smiled when she saw my face.
I turned around and headed for the elevator.
My longtime assistant, Rachel, caught me in the underground garage. She was breathless and furious. “If you’re leaving, I’m leaving too. But first you need to see something.”
She handed me her phone.
Madison had a private account under a different name. There were candlelight dinners with a man whose face was cropped out but whose watch I recognized. Photographs of Daniel’s hand resting on her knee. A hotel balcony from a weekend when he claimed to be visiting investors.
Then I saw the post from the day before his Chicago trip.
“If she wants something, would you give it to me instead?”
Daniel had commented beneath it.
“I’d give you the world.”
I stared at those five words until Rachel whispered my name.
And suddenly, the missing shoes were no longer the most expensive thing my husband had given away.
