The morning sun was warm as Alessia stood in the kitchen, sipping her coffee while scrolling through her phone. Christian had already left for work, his usual charming self kissing her goodbye with a playful, “Don’t miss me too much.” She smiled at the memory as she rinsed her cup and grabbed her bag to head out for the day. But as she turned toward the door, she noticed something on the counter—Christian’s phone.
“Of course,” she muttered, rolling her eyes affectionately. “He’s always so focused on everything else that he forgets the basics.”
She picked up the phone, debating whether to call him from her own, but then realized she’d have to bring it to him anyway. “Guess I’ll drop it off on my way to work,” she decided, tucking the phone into her purse.
Alessia’s car hummed as she navigated through the morning traffic. She reached for her phone to check the time, only to hear a faint buzz. Assuming it was hers, she glanced at the screen but found no new notifications. The buzz sounded again, and this time she realized it was coming from her bag.
Pulling to a stop at a red light, she reached into her purse and fished out Christian’s phone. The screen lit up with a new text message. She hesitated, not one to invade his privacy, but the message preview was hard to miss:
“Are you coming tonight, my love?”
Her heart skipped a beat. Her brows knitted together as she stared at the words, the light from the phone seeming brighter than the morning sun.
“What?” she whispered, disbelief washing over her. “What is this?”
She felt the traffic light turn green, and the honk of the car behind her startled her back into motion. With her heart pounding, she drove on, her mind racing. It’s probably nothing, she told herself. A misunderstanding. Maybe a joke?
The notification was still there when she parked in front of Christian’s office. Her hands trembled slightly as she stared at the phone in her lap. Taking a deep breath, she unlocked the phone. They had each other’s passcodes—there were no secrets between them… or so she had thought.
The message was from a contact listed as “Ava.”
Alessia’s stomach twisted as she opened the conversation. The thread was brief but intimate:
Ava: “I miss you.”
Ava: “The other night was amazing.”
Ava: “Are you coming tonight, my love?”
Her chest tightened as the words blurred before her eyes. This wasn’t just a misunderstanding. The familiarity, the tone—it was unmistakable. She felt a wave of nausea but forced herself to scroll up, looking for context, something to explain this away. But the messages only went back a few days, as if the conversation had been deleted.
Her first instinct was denial. This can’t be true. Christian wouldn’t do this.
But the evidence was staring her in the face.