The amber glow of whiskey still lingered on Sophia's lips as she stumbled through the front door, her heels clicking against marble floors that suddenly felt foreign beneath her feet. The evening with friends had been a welcome escape, but now the familiar scent of their shared home wrapped around her like a suffocating embrace.

Something was wrong. The house breathed differently tonight. Muffled sounds drifted from upstairs low murmurs that didn't belong to late-night television or Adrian's business calls. Her heart began its treacherous climb toward her throat as she ascended the stairs, each step echoing her growing dread. The bedroom door stood slightly ajar, spilling golden light into the hallway like a confession.

She pushed it open.

The world tilted on its axis. There, tangled in silk sheets that had once been their sanctuary, lay Adrian with another woman. Her hair cascaded across his chest, her frame fitting perfectly against his muscled torso as if she belonged there as if Sophia had been the intruder all along. Adrian's ice-blue eyes met hers across the room, and for a heartbeat, she saw something flicker there. Not guilt never guilt with Adrian but calculation. Always calculation.

"Sophia." His voice remained steady, controlled, even as he gently shifted the woman away from him. "You're home early."

The casualness of his tone shattered something inside her chest. Sophia's face contorted with a mixture of disbelief and raw betrayal, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly as if the words had been stolen from her throat. Then, like a dam breaking, fury erupted from her in a torrent of screams and accusations.

"HOW COULD YOU?!" Her voice cracked with the force of her rage, hands trembling as she stumbled further into the room. "IN OUR BED, ADRIAN! IN OUR BED!"

The alcohol in her system stripped away any filter, any dignity she might have clung to. She lunged forward, her palm connecting with Adrian's cheek in a resounding slap that echoed through the bedroom like a gunshot. Adrian's head snapped to the side, his jaw clenching as a red mark bloomed across his skin. For a moment, dangerous fury flickered in those ice-blue eyes, but he controlled it with practiced ease.

"Sophia, you're drunk—"

"DON'T!" Another slap, harder this time. "Don't you DARE tell me I'm drunk! I know what I'm seeing!"

The woman had scrambled from the bed, clutching the sheet around her body, her eyes wide with terror as she pressed herself against the far wall. She looked small, vulnerable everything Sophia wasn't in this moment of explosive rage. "Get out," Adrian said quietly to her, his voice cutting through Sophia's continued screaming. His tone carried absolute authority despite his naked state. "The Meridien Hotel on Fifth Street. Take my car. I'll handle this." As she gathered her clothes with trembling hands, Sophia turned her fury on the other woman, hurling insults and accusations that would have made a sailor blush. Adrian stepped between them, his muscular frame a barrier as she fled the room.

When they were alone, Sophia's rage transformed into something more dangerous cold determination cutting through the alcohol haze.

"I'm telling my father," she said, her voice suddenly steady, lethal. "I'm telling him everything. About you, about her, about this whole sick charade you call a marriage." Adrian's expression shifted, calculation replacing the carefully maintained facade of the caught husband. "Sophia—"

"Tomorrow," she continued, backing toward the door. "First thing tomorrow, I'm going to him. And you know what? He'll believe me. He always believes me."

She turned and fled, leaving Adrian standing alone in the bedroom, his mind already racing through contingencies and possibilities. For the first time that night, a ghost of a smile touched his lips. **"We'll see about that, my dear."*