I almost laughed.
Because Aaron had forgotten something very important.
I knew exactly where my place was.
I had simply let him forget how powerful it was.
I reached the end of the jet’s private corridor.
One of the flight attendants hurried over.
“Ma’am?”
I stopped.
She looked nervous.
Behind her, another crew member appeared. Then another.
They weren’t looking at me with pity.
They were looking at me with something much closer to respect.
The senior flight attendant lowered her voice.
“Should we cancel the flight?”
I looked at her.
For a moment, I didn’t understand.
Then I spotted the small golden emblem on her uniform.
My family’s aviation company.
Of course.
Aaron had never known that the jet he proudly called his corporate aircraft wasn’t technically owned by his company.
It belonged to one of my family’s holding companies.
He’d been using it for almost two years.
And I’d never bothered to correct him.
“Not yet,” I whispered.
The attendant nodded immediately.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I glanced toward the cabin door.
Through the narrow glass panel, I could see Aaron.
Still sitting in my seat.
Jasmine beside him.
Whispering something into his ear.
His expression had softened.
He looked happy.
For the first time in years, something hit me that hurt far more than his betrayal.
He wasn’t afraid of losing me.
Not even a little.
He genuinely believed I had nowhere else to go.
I turned back to the crew.
“Keep everyone on board.”
The senior attendant hesitated.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I smiled.
“Let them enjoy the flight.”
Then I walked down the stairs.
The second my heels hit the private terminal floor, my phone buzzed.
Once.
Twice.
Then nonstop.
I glanced at the screen.
Thirty-seven missed calls.
Twenty-three messages.
Most from numbers I didn’t recognize.
Then one message caught my eye.
Daniel: Please tell me you didn’t just leave the aircraft.
Daniel was Aaron’s chief financial officer.
And for the last six months, one of the few people at Prescott Technologies who still treated me with real respect.
I typed:
Me: I did.
The reply came almost instantly.
Daniel: Alyssa, we need to talk. Now.
I stared at the message.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
Then another came through.
Daniel: There is something you need to know about Jasmine.
My heart stopped.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Jasmine.
I’d known something was off about that woman from the moment Aaron hired her.
Not because she flirted with him.
That alone wouldn’t have been enough.
It was the way she watched me.
Always smiling.
Always polite.
Always careful.
But never once looking at me the way a subordinate looks at the CEO’s wife.
She looked at me like someone waiting for me to disappear.
I typed:
Me: What about her?
The dots appeared.
Vanished.
Appeared again.
Then Daniel sent:
Daniel: Not over text.
I frowned.
Before I could answer, another message landed.
Daniel: And don’t trust anyone in Aaron’s inner circle.
I locked my phone.
For the first time all morning, my anger gave way to something colder.
Suspicion.
Twenty minutes later I was in the back of a black sedan.
My driver had worked for my family since I was nineteen.
He never asked questions.
He just drove.
I watched the city slide past the window.
Four years.
Four years of marriage.
Four years of pretending I hadn’t noticed the little things.
The late-night meetings.
The unexplained transfers.
The new accounts.
The sudden password changes on Aaron’s end.
The way he’d started keeping his phone face-down.
The way Jasmine had somehow started getting pulled into decisions that used to run through me.
I’d noticed all of it.
I just hadn’t wanted to believe it.
Because love makes smart people stupid.
And I had been very, very stupid.
My phone rang.
My mother.
I answered.
“Alyssa.”
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
“Mom?”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
A pause.
Then she said something that made my stomach knot.
“Your father wants you to come home.”
I stared out the window.
“Why?”
“He says it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
Another pause.
Then:
“To stop protecting Aaron.”
I closed my eyes.
So they knew.
Of course they knew.
My family had known for years.
They’d watched me pour billions into a man who increasingly acted like my existence was an inconvenience.
“Mom,” I whispered, “how much did Dad know?”
“All of it.”
My throat tightened.
“The money?”
“All of it.”
“The patents?”
“All of it.”
I swallowed.
“And Aaron?”
My mother didn’t answer right away.
When she finally spoke, her voice had changed.
“He knows much less than he thinks he does.”
At Prescott Technologies headquarters, Aaron was celebrating.
The private-jet incident had turned into a joke before the plane even landed.
Someone had filmed the moment I walked away.
By lunch, the video was circulating through several executive group chats.
By three, someone had posted it online anonymously.
The caption read:
“Billionaire CEO’s spoiled wife throws tantrum after secretary takes her seat.”
The comments were brutal.
Aaron didn’t stop any of it.
In fact, Daniel told me, he laughed when someone showed him the post.
Jasmine sat beside him in his office.
Wearing a white dress that looked suspiciously like one I’d once bought for her.
She crossed her legs.
“Do you think she’ll come back?”
Aaron leaned back in his chair.
“She always does.”
Jasmine smiled.
“You sound very sure.”
“I am.”
