The question gutted him. It was not one he had prepared for, not even one he had allowed himself to ask. His throat tightened until it hurt; his pulse hammering at the edges of his control. “I don’t know.”
Her lips pressed into a line. She looked at him as though she’d already known the answer and had only hoped to be wrong. “Then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.”
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat. Not long enough to collapse, but long enough to feel the truth of it. “I know.”
She did not cry. She did not lash out. She only looked at him as though he were already gone, and perhaps she was right. She turned and slipped back into the crowd, leaving a silence at his side so sharp it felt like a wound.
***
The drive home dragged by in silence, the kind that filled every corner of the car until Jacob thought he might choke on it. The kids were at Caroline’s parents for a sleepover—thank God. At least the fallout wouldn’t have them as witnesses.
Inside the house, the tension pressed against his skin. His tie felt like a noose around his throat as he yanked at it, loosening the knot without relief. He slipped off his jacket and laid it neatly over the back of a chair, a ritual that felt absurd in the face of everything that had shattered.
Caroline’s heels clicked softly against the hardwood floors until she stopped. Her mouth was set in a line that gave nothing away, though her silence spoke louder than any accusation.
His hands hung useless at his sides, his pulse a roar in his ears. He hadn’t wanted this conversation tonight. He hadn’t wanted it at all. Every instinct in him screamed to delay, to smooth, to control the narrative, but there was no delaying anymore. He had lost control the moment Caroline had begun to see through him.
Her breath left her in one brittle exhale before she spoke. “You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?”
The words cut clean through the room. No hesitation, no cushion—just the truth, laid bare.
Jacob closed his eyes. The words cracked open the fragile illusion he had tried to hold together. “I didn’t plan this,” he said, his voice unsteady. “It happened and I—”
Caroline’s laugh was sharp, void of humor. “Jesus Christ, Jacob. Do you even hear yourself?”
The weight of her stare pinned him in place. “I didn’t go out looking for this…” he said.
“Of course not,” she snapped, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as if bracing herself. “So what happened? You tripped and landed inside your co-star? Or does he fuck you?”
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Her voice rose, edged with fury. “Don’t point out that my husband has been lying to me? That he’s been sneaking around like some pathetic cliché?”
The words hit their mark and his body flinched. “Caroline.”
Her hands curled into fists at her sides, her control fraying even as she tried to hold it together. “Do you even love me anymore? Or has this all been a joke I just wasn’t in on?”
Jacob’s throat ached with the weight of it, but he forced the words past. “I still love you.”
Her scoff was derisive. “No. You don’t. You don’t get to stand there and say that.”
He swallowed hard. “I didn’t marry you with the intention of betraying you. I didn’t stand before you and vow forever only to break it. For years I’ve been yours. Every part of me meant it.”
Her voice broke against the words. “Not anymore. You don’t want this anymore.”
The truth of it silenced him. In that quiet, he saw her understanding—the painful acceptance in her eyes. He hadn’t meant to leave her tonight, but now there was no escaping the fact that he already had. He knew it with the kind of clarity that made his stomach twist. It was already done, and no amount of denial could put it back together again.
“How long?” she asked.
His jaw locked before he gave the answer. “A while.”
She shook her head, voice trembling. “No, Jacob. Be more specific.”
He looked away, struggling for the right words. “I don’t know exactly. There was always… something there from the start. A few months, probably. But nothing truly happened until that week on location last month.”
The devastation in her stare hollowed him out. “You really did it. You blew up our whole life. For him.”
He couldn’t answer.
