Chapter 1

People often say the greatest mistake a woman can make is to spoil a man by doing everything for him.

I used to laugh whenever I heard that.

Now I know better.

I am thirty-two years old, and I run a small but successful business selling traditional fabrics and clothing materials in my hometown.

I have never been afraid of hard work.

For years, I believed my husband, Daniel, was simply unlucky.

He didn’t have a stable job.

So I worked harder.

He didn’t like difficult work.

So I told him to stay home and take care of the house.

My parents warned me.

“Let him go out and work,” my father said more than once. “A man who has nothing to do will eventually find something he shouldn’t be doing.”

I refused to listen.

I thought I was protecting my husband.

I thought love meant making his life easier.

I was wrong.

The first signs were small.

Daniel started protecting his phone.

Whenever I entered the room, he would turn the screen down.

Whenever I asked who had messaged him, he would smile and say, “Nobody important.”

Then the calls began.

He would step outside to answer them.

Sometimes he would disappear for an hour.

When I questioned him, he accused me of being jealous.

Eventually, people began whispering.

At first, I defended him.

Then one evening, I saw a message on his phone.

It was from a woman.

The message contained only five words.

“I miss you already, Daniel.”

My hands went cold.

That was the moment I realized the woman who had spent years protecting her husband might have been protecting the wrong man.