“Send them,” Dakota said.
Adam laughed once, but there was no confidence in it.
“You are both behaving like children.”
Trinity’s eyes narrowed.
“You brought me onto your wife’s flight after telling her you were in another state.”
“I did not know she would be here.”
“That is not a defense.”
Dakota wrote an email address on the napkin and placed it beside Trinity’s water.
Adam reached for it.
Trinity covered the napkin with her palm.
Dakota turned away before either of them could see the tremor that had finally reached her fingers.
Inside the galley, she braced both hands against the counter.
Nine years crowded into the narrow space with her.
The apartment they had decorated together.
The meals she had kept warm when he claimed meetings ran late.
The anniversary photographs he had insisted they post.
The weekends he said he needed to travel because the company depended on him.
She remembered apologizing for doubting him once after finding a hotel charge in a city he had never mentioned.
Adam had kissed her forehead and said accounting had mixed up two employees’ expenses.
Then he had acted wounded that she asked.
Dakota had spent three days trying to make it up to him.
Now she understood why he had needed her to feel guilty.
A soft notification sounded from her phone.
Trinity had begun forwarding the evidence.
Dakota did not open it immediately.
She finished distributing drinks, collected empty cups, and checked on an elderly passenger who needed another blanket.
Her professionalism was not forgiveness.
It was control.
When the service was complete, Dakota stood in the galley and opened the first attachment.
It was a hotel confirmation from eight months earlier.
Adam had booked a suite for two nights.
Trinity’s name appeared as the second guest.
The next attachment showed a first-class weekend trip.
Another showed dinner for two charged to Adam’s company account and labeled “client development.”
Then came the Florence receipt.
Two first-class tickets.
A luxury hotel.
Private airport transportation.
Every charge had been placed on the company card.
Adam had described the trip in an email to Trinity as “our real beginning.”
In a separate message to Dakota, he had called it a partner meeting in Nashville.
The evidence did not arrive as one dramatic revelation.
It arrived piece by piece, each document removing another place where Adam could hide.
A photograph of two glasses beside a hotel bed.
A message telling Trinity which evenings Dakota worked late.
A calendar showing fake meetings created only to support his excuses.
Finally, Trinity sent a voice note.
Dakota placed one earbud in her ear and pressed play.
Adam’s voice sounded relaxed and amused.
“Dakota never suspects anything.
She trusts me too much.”
Dakota stopped the recording.
For the first time since boarding, anger pushed through the shock.
Not because he had called her trusting.
Because of the pleasure in his voice when he said it.
Her faith in him had not merely made the affair easier.
