But even then, I told myself it wasn't wrong. You were my wife—you were the personal part of my life, the person I came home to, the person I loved. Laura was in the professional part, making my job smoother and my worklife happier and easier. I thought I was drawing a clean line. I convinced myself that I was doing nothing wrong because—physically—"
He looked at me then, really looked, like he needed me to see something in his eyes. "Physically, I've never been with another woman. Only you. Always you. That hasn't changed."

I nodded stiffly. That used to mean something. Not so much anymore. He hesitated, the weight of it hanging in the silence.
" But still...I felt guilty. Guilty for missing so many dinners with you. Guilty for how often I looked at the clock and didn't rush home. Guilty because even if nothing happened between Laura and me, I thought that I was probably letting something slip."
He swallowed hard, running a hand through his hair. "I told Jimmy we can plan something special for you together. He was so excited. I made this whole list of things you love: your favorite flowers, tickets to that revival of The Sound of Music  you mentioned months ago. Dinner at a new restaurant, and a cake with the kids once we got back, called my mom to stay with them while we were out—everything was planned."
His voice cracked, eyes flickering with a desperate kind of hope. "I wanted to make it right.  I thought if I could just make one perfect moment, maybe I could erase the rest." He looked away, guilt pressing down like a weight. "But instead, I screwed it up. I hurt you. And that... that kills me every day. I wanted it to be memorable."
"Oh, it was memorable," I muttered bitterly.
"I know," he whispered, voice thick with the weight of something he'd clearly been holding back for a long time. "Everything was ready. I had the cake, the reservation,  the whole evening planned down to the last detail except the necklace hasn't arrived yet, but it was coming."
He paused, eyes distant. "But that day... everything just collapsed on me. Work exploded. I made a massive miscalculation—something stupid, something I should have caught. The quarterly projections were off by millions. Completely off. The whole presentation fell apart in front of the board. And it was my name on it. My numbers. My responsibility."
He swallowed hard, jaw tightening, the shame still fresh in his voice. "My dad—he didn't even wait until the meeting ended. He ripped into me right there, in front of everyone. No filters, no professionalism—just full-blown humiliation. Like I was a child again, standing there with my mistakes on display for everyone to see."
He exhaled shakily, hands curling slightly as if trying to brace against the memory. "I froze. I couldn't think, couldn't breathe. Everything went silent in my head, and I just... sat there. Paralyzed. And then—of all people—Laura stepped in."
He glanced at me quickly, as if to gauge my reaction, then looked away. "She didn't hesitate. She took over the meeting, picked up the mess I'd left, started walking the board through what could be salvaged. She was calm. Controlled. Like the disaster didn't faze her. And then she did something I didn't expect—she took some of the blame. Said there had been a miscommunication between us. Said she should've double-checked the final numbers. She didn't have to do that, but she did. Just to give me a chance to breathe."
He looked back at me, his eyes heavy with guilt. "I told the board later that it was my mistake—that it wasn't on her—but by then the damage was done. She was the one who saved the day."
He looked down at his hands like he couldn't stand to see them. "By then, it was already too late. The dinner was supposed to be at seven—I checked my phone at eight-thirty. I was still at the office, sweating through my shirt, trying to fix numbers my mistakes and I told her she did enough she could go home. The show was over. I didn't even have your flowers. I felt like a fucking failure—as a CEO, as a husband, as a man. I knew you didn't call because you didn't know about the dinner and the show, only the cake with the kids to which I was already late."