The woman at my front door did not hesitate for even a second.
She pressed the doorbell with the impatient confidence of someone who already believed she belonged inside the house, and when I opened the door she barely glanced at my face before removing her designer coat and handing it to me as if I were part of the furniture.
Her perfume drifted past me in a cloud of expensive floral notes.
Then she gave a casual instruction.
“Tell Richard I’m here.”
She stepped into the house without waiting for permission.
Her heels clicked against the hardwood floor while she looked around the living room with the critical curiosity of someone evaluating a property she might soon claim as her own.
“This place really needs updating,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ll talk to Richard about that.”
Richard.
My husband.
Or at least the man who had still been my husband less than an hour earlier.
The same man I had helped support through medical school by working two jobs, the same man who moved into this house five years ago after we spent years saving for it together.
I closed the door quietly behind her and hung the coat on the hallway rack.
For a moment I simply watched her walk deeper into the house as though she had visited dozens of times before.
Perhaps she had.
She was probably around twenty-five years old, with long blonde hair that fell carefully across the shoulders of a dress that almost certainly cost more than most people’s monthly rent, and she carried herself with the effortless confidence of someone who had rarely been questioned about her presence in places she did not truly belong.
She stopped in the center of the living room and looked back at me for the first time.
Her expression suggested mild annoyance.
“Where is Richard?” she asked.
“He’s not home right now,” I replied.
She frowned slightly.
“And when will he be back? I really don’t have all afternoon to wait.”
I studied her face for a moment.
“Who exactly are you?”
She tilted her head with amused curiosity.
“I’m Alexis,” she said.
“Richard’s girlfriend.”
The word hung in the air between us.
Then she smiled brightly.
“And you must be the housekeeper.”
She laughed lightly, clearly pleased with her own observation.
“That makes sense,” she continued. “Although Richard usually hires staff who dress a little more professionally. Are you new here?”
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