Wife's Dirty Little Trap

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[The new lace lingerie arrived. Go easy tomorrow night, and don't rip it all to shreds like last time, Daddy.]

When this glaring text popped up on the lock screen, my husband was sitting on the wool rug in the living room, his arm wrapped around our son, playing the perfect family pillar. You're a year older now. You need to be a man of responsibility. He ruffled our son's hair, his face the picture of fatherly devotion.

Ten years of marriage. A multi-million dollar empire and the perfect family. I thought I had it all.

I was wrong.

My husband was sleeping with a sugar baby.

Chapter 1

This year marked my tenth anniversary with Alistair. By our second year of marriage, we had our son and launched our own brand of high-end children's dance studios. We had it all.

I built an empire while building a family. After surviving the grueling first three years, our annual revenue hit the multi-millions. I had spent a decade building this perfect glass house.

Now, the shards were cutting right into my palms.

Our son had ripped open his birthday present tonight, eager to test it out. A specific feature stumped him, and the two of them huddled over the manual. Boys and their toys.

I swiped open Alistair's phone, intending to pull up the product details on Amazon. Instead, an iMessage dropped down from the top edge of the screen.

[The new lace lingerie arrived. Go easy tomorrow night, and don't rip it all to shreds like last time, Daddy.]

My finger froze inches from the glass. I tapped the Messages app. Before I even opened the thread, the gray bracketed word [Image] popped up.

A cold ringing started in my ears. I tapped the chat. I tapped the thumbnail. The screen loaded.

A mirror selfie of a young girl in a white, skimpy, high-cut swimsuit filled the display. She held the phone with both hands, obscuring her face, her arms pressing together to showcase a deep, shadowed cleavage. Below that, her impossibly narrow waist and perfectly flat, stretch-mark-free stomach practically screamed at me from the pixels.

Youth. Raw, unblemished youth.

I backed out of the thread. Swiped left. Tapped Mark as Unread. I set the phone face down on the exact spot on the coffee table where I found it.

Aging strips away collagen, but it buys you ironclad control. Ten years ago, I would have thrown the phone at his head. Tonight, my pulse barely spiked. A few feet away, Alistair and our son were still arguing over the toy's battery compartment.

I walked into the master bathroom on the second floor, poured myself a full glass of expensive Cabernet Sauvignon, and climbed into the dry, freezing porcelain bathtub fully clothed. I needed space to think. The scarlet liquid swirled in the crystal glass, matching the glaring Bordeaux red of the sports car roof in that girl's social media posts.

Divorce? Alistair was pushing fifty, his hairline retreating just as fast as his waistline expanded. Standing next to him, people usually mistook me for his trophy wife. If it weren't for the wealth we built together from the ground up, he wouldn't have a dime to attract these young girls.

If I filed for divorce now, I'd be handing half my empire to a parasite.

Stay? And swallow this nausea every morning? Let Alistair siphon off my hard-earned marital assets to fund a sugar baby's lifestyle?

Either way, I was bleeding out.

By the time I finished my evening routine, Alistair was fast asleep. He lay on the far edge of the mattress, his back to me. His phone was nowhere on the nightstandshoved under his pillow, no doubt. He was snoring heavily.

Twenty-four hours ago, I would have thought he was just exhausted from providing for us. Now, the sound grated against my eardrums like nails on a chalkboard.

I shoved my noise-canceling AirPods in and sank into the velvet armchair by the window. I opened my contacts and scrolled down to a number I had saved a few months ago. The profile name read Peyton.

Yes. The girl in the white swimsuit. I knew exactly who she was.

Chapter 2

I tapped her profile. Seeing our chat history jogged my memory of when I had added her. She was a nobody; I hadn't even bothered to change her contact name.

[Hi Meredith, this is Peyton. I just interviewed for the dance assistant position.]

[Hello.]

That was our first and last exchange. Four months ago, she came in for an audition. She was gorgeous. Her routine was flawless, and her technique was sharp.

But she didn't get the job.

Because twenty minutes before her audition, I ran into her in the mall restroom.

Maybe she was just impatient from waiting in line, but when a tired mother and her toddler finally emerged from a stall, Peyton rolled her eyes and muttered. "Why even bring a kid out if you're just going to slow everyone down? Such a nuisance."

I stood quietly behind her, my nails digging into the soft leather of my purse. I wanted to shove her headfirst into the porcelain bowl.

I rarely checked Instagram, and I certainly didn't care about Peyton's feed. Exactly eight years ago tonight, I was gripping the hospital bedrails, screaming until my throat bled through labor pains.

Tonight, my eight-year-old son was sound asleep down the hall, clutching his new toy. Meanwhile, over the rhythmic, booming snores of my husband, I sat in the dark, scrolling through the feed of the girl whose swimsuit he was planning to rip off tomorrow.

Hilarious.

Peyton didn't hold back. She flaunted every sugary detail of her romanceeverything except his face. Her grid told me they started hooking up three months ago.

On day one, he took her to a high-end steakhouse. Dry-aged steak. The only kind I ate. Ninety days of aging, trimming away forty percent of the outer crust just to leave the tender, intensely flavored center.

It was exorbitant. After a decade of building a business empire, I figured I had earned the right to that luxury. But Peyton? At twenty-three, she got it handed to her on a silver platter.

She was also flaunting a dozen premium Gillardeau oysters and a bottle of Dom Prignon. In that thousand-dollar dinner, every drop of champagne and every bite of meat was paid for with the cold, hard cash sitting in my joint marital accounts.

She was spending my money.

She was sleeping with my husband.

Peyton also scored a Porsche 718. A convertible. Crisp white body, Bordeaux red soft topthe ultimate rich-girl starter pack. In the photo, she leaned against the hood, her long, tanned legs on full display.

Half the money for that car was mine.

Peyton came from a blue-collar family. Her resume told me that much. But on Instagram, she had successfully rebranded herself as trust-fund royalty. Realizing I was essentially her main financial sponsor, a dry, humorless chuckle scraped the back of my throat in the dark.

Could I still turn this game around?

I stared at the glowing screen.

I absolutely could.

Chapter 3

Morning came. I picked out an outfit for Alistair. His absolute favorite. A tight polo shirt that squeezed his beer belly, paired with garish loafers drowning in the Gucci monogramthe ultimate nouveau riche starter pack.

Alistair genuinely believed this try-hard ensemble masked his midlife crisis. He even had the audacity to pop the collar.

To any woman with eyes, it screamed aggressive sleaze. I usually just hid those pieces in the back of his closet and never said a word.

But today? Let the man shine.

He smoothed down the front of his shirt and strapped on his most expensive Rolex. Catching his reflection in the hallway mirror, he casually tossed out, "Henderson and his crew drink like fish. I'll probably crash over there tonight."

It was 10:00 AM on a Saturday. Henderson? Please. What kind of high-level business meeting started before brunch on a weekend?

My expression didn't flicker. "Alright. Pace yourself. Come back tonight if you can."

"Will do! If I make it back, I'll help the kid with his homework." He promised without missing a beat. The man deserved an Oscar.

"Okay." I beamed back at him. My acting chops weren't bad either. Right on cue, Alistair grabbed the keys to his most expensive car and left.

How stupid could a man be? Risking half an empire for a sugar baby he bagged wearing a popped collar and logo-vomit shoes. Was it really worth it?

I checked the morning reports from the studios out of habit, dropped my son off at his Spanish tutor's, and drove from the Upper East Side all the way down to Soho. I had a lunch date with an old college roommate I hadn't seen in years.

Adult friendships are entirely transactional. My skills for your resources; my network for your capital. That was why, even after years of zero contact, she was more than willing to do me this favor.

I stood in the middle of her talent agency, walking past soundproof streaming rooms. Inside, it was a conveyor belt of thin, delicate girls and tall, muscular pretty boys. The current crop of top-tier "aesthetic influencers." My targets were the male streamers.

But after reviewing a sea of attractive faces, none of them clicked. They all had perfect bone structure, but the desperation in their eyes was too naked, too hungry.

"Meredith, honey, your standards are through the roof!" My friend laughed, linking her arm through mine. "Let's go grab a bite, do some people-watching, and come back. You've got menu fatigue."

I smiled politely. "Sounds good."

Just as we stepped into the elevator, Alistair texted. As I hit the "Close Door" button, his phony voice note played from my phone.

[Don't wait up, babe. Definitely won't make it back.]

Stay gone, I thought. Just don't drop dead there, or the probate process will be a nightmare.

The second his grating voice ended, a shout echoed down the hall. "Hold the door!" I jammed my finger on the "Open" button.

A tall figure ducked inside. Wardrobe: a solid A. Physique: an A+. He radiated this feral, bad-boy energy, yet he had these soft, wide puppy-dog eyes and a slightly crooked, boyish grin.

Chapter 4

That exact blend of feral edge and boyish vulnerability was pure catnip for women.

He flashed a polite smile. "Morning, boss."

Ah. He was one of her streamers too. The elevator chimed. He immediately planted a hand against the door, stepping sideways to let us pass first.

Smooth. Practiced. He knew exactly how to cater to women.

He was exactly what I needed.

"Why were you hiding premium stock like him from me?" I asked as we walked out into the lobby.

"Him? Absolutely not." My friend's voice instantly dropped to a hushed whisper. "You claimed you were scouting models for your dance studios, but you passed on every Juilliard grad in there. I'm not stupid. I have a pretty good idea of what you're actually looking for."

She grabbed my arm. "If that's your play, Jace is off limits." Then, leaning right into my ear, she lowered her voice and dropped a massive bomb. "He doesn't just play the field. He caught a nasty STD he can't shake off."

I froze for a few seconds. Then, staring at my own slowly rising smirk in the reflection of the lobby glass, I let out a cold, sharp laugh.

This was literally the perfect revenge weapon handed to me by God.

Jace was twenty-seven. He had bounced around tending bar after dropping out of community college before pivoting to streaming. His entire playbook for handling women was forged in the trenches of real-world nightlife.

I got his number and texted him to meet me in three days. On the third day, he showed up right on the dot. I gave him a slow ocular pat-down.

The total value of his outfit wouldn't even crack a hundred bucks, but he was gripping the newest iPhone Pro Max in his hand. Clever boy. Most young girls couldn't clock the difference between Zara and Zegna, but they could absolutely spot the triple-camera lens of a thousand-dollar phone from across the room.

I took him to a high-end department store first, buying him a few outfits from those quiet luxury brands where a plain t-shirt easily cost a few hundred dollars. Then, I dragged him to an upscale salon to give him the trendiest "old money" haircut currently blowing up on TikTok.

Jace didn't put up a fight. He gripped the heavy shopping bags, a gleam of clear anticipation in his eyes. I hadn't even briefed him on the job yet.

I could only guess what kind of sugar-mommy setup he thought he was walking into.

Next stop: the luxury high-rise apartment my broker had prepped. A two-thousand-square-foot penthouse just a five-minute walk from Wall Street. Rent was ten thousand dollars a month.

From the moment we pulled into the gated parking garage, Jace stared blankly at the polished concrete. We stepped into the sprawling living room. As the broker rattled off the specs and the lease terms, I didn't look at him. I turned to Jace.

"Do you like it?"

He stared at me, visibly shell-shocked. After a long beat, he managed a slow nod.

"Good." I finally looked at the broker. "Could you give us a minute?"

The broker, sensing the dynamic, immediately backed out into the hall, making sure to pull the heavy oak door firmly shut behind him. I pulled a thick manila folder from my tote, closed the distance between us, and slapped it flat against his chest.

"I need a job done. Play the part of a trust-fund kid. Make the girl in this file fall hopelessly in love with you. This penthouse is your base of operations.

I bankroll every single expense. When the job is done, you walk away with a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus."

Blank confusion washed over Jace's face. He clearly hadn't expected this kind of twisted transaction.

I slid Peyton's glossy headshot from the folder and held it right up to his face. "Look at her. It's hardly a sacrifice on your end."

As Jace's eyes locked onto the photo, that familiar, hungry gleam flared in his pupils. Beauty was a lethal weapon. And right now, I was the one holding the trigger.

Jace shifted his weight, trying to mask his eagerness, before finally giving a stiff nod. I turned, yanked the door open, and waved the broker back inside.

"I'll take it. But I'm only signing a three-month lease."

The broker grimaced, ready to cite building policy, until I offered to triple his commission fee. He suddenly found a pen. I turned back to Jace, dropping my voice to a sharp edge.

"Remember. Three months. That's your deadline."

"You got it, boss."

With that simple acknowledgment, the trap was officially set.

Chapter 5

The next day, I took Jace to lease a Lamborghini. It was the perfect prop for his trust-fund boy persona, sitting in a completely different weight class than Peyton's entry-level Porsche 718. The moment Jace gripped the keys, his pupils dilated.

After signing the paperwork, he practically dragged me into the passenger seat for a spin.

We parked on a tree-lined avenue. He pulled out his phone, itching to snap a picture, but hesitated with me sitting right there. He didn't dare take a blatant selfie.

I glanced at him. "Nothing flashy goes on your Instagram or Facebook. No flexing on any social media."

Jace awkwardly slid his phone back into his pocket. "Got it, boss."

From there, we drove straight to the luxury gym on the ground floor of Peyton's office building. It was an ultra-premium spot with floor-to-ceiling glass walls. I ordered a cold brew at the caf across the street, giving me a front-row seat to the sweaty, affluent crowd inside.

Six o'clock. Peyton would be arriving any minute. She was a player. Alistair was hardly her only target, and this gym was just one of her regular hunting grounds.

She hopped on a treadmill in a pair of Lululemon leggings that were a size too small. She wore that innocent, fresh-faced makeup look, but her body was weaponized. The fabric hugged every curve, making every guy who walked past the cardio section linger just a second too long.

Barely five minutes into her run, some young, decent-looking guy hopped on the treadmill next to hers. He was barely breaking a sweat before he leaned over, clearly trying to hit on her.

Peyton gave him a quick once-over. Cheap gym clothes. Average income. She shot him an ice-cold glare.

"I don't need a trainer, and I don't give out my number." She knew exactly what she was doing.

A few minutes later, Jace walked over. He took the treadmill two spots down from Peyton. She threw a glance his way. Then another.

She was clearly eating up his whole aesthetic. And Jace? For thirty straight minutes, he just blasted his music and ran, never once looking in her direction.

That total indifference instantly sparked her interest. Whoever said only men loved the thrill of the chase was dead wrong.

Women are predators, too.

After his run, Jace headed over to the water cooler. Peyton followed. I figured she would just strike up a conversation.

Instead, Peyton "accidentally" spilled a full cup of ice water directly onto Jace's chest.

The tight athletic shirt instantly clung to his abs. What a brilliant play. She definitely watched way too much of that trashy reality TV on how to bag a sugar daddy.

Next thing I knew, the two of them were heading down to the underground parking garage together. I had specifically told Jace to park the Lamborghini right next to Peyton's 718. When they walked up to those cars side-by-side, her heart rate must have gone through the roof.

Less than two hours later, Jace had Peyton's number. And she was the one who asked for it.

During the first week of Jace and Peyton's new "friendship," Alistair's sneaky little text-and-hide routine didn't drop off at all.

By week two, Peyton initiated a date. She invited Jace to Disneyland. I almost laughed out loud when he told me. The girl was practically an apex predator in the dating pool, yet she picked the most innocent, sugar-sweet spot on the map.

Well, theme parks are crowded. Somehow, Peyton's Chanel bag got scratched. Using it as an excuse to apologize for the ruined date, Jace dragged her straight into a high-end boutique and dropped a few grand on a brand new Lady Dior.

The naked thrill on Peyton's face couldn't be hidden.

That night, Jace played the perfect gentleman. He drove her back but purposefully dropped her off right at the entrance of her apartment complex, pretending to head home. Why? Because Peyton had a stalker-level admirer waiting for her downstairs.

Some guy named Carter. He was a purchasing manager at a tech startup in her building. Early thirties, zero real wealth, but fantastic at faking it. He had bled his own savings dry trying to hook her in the beginning.

Chapter 6