Page 33 of Mr. and Mrs. Novak

I stop and watch her. Her screen is filled with lines of code scrolling at a dizzying speed. I notice the tension in her shoulders, the way she leans forward slightly when something catches her eye. Her face hardens, just a fraction.

“What are you working on?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant.

“A security audit.”

Her voice is neutral, but she still doesn’t look at me.

A quiet beep comes from her laptop. In less than a second, her fingers dart over the keys, and the screen changes. The movement is too smooth, too natural to be innocent. But in that brief instant, I caught a glimpse of a black window filled with cryptic characters. A coded conversation, without a doubt.

She shuts down her laptop, closes it, and slides it into her hard case. Her movements are quick but precise. I take note of the extra care she takes to lock the case’s combination—an automatic gesture, the kind that comes from long-standing habit.

Who protects a simple work tool like that? And more importantly, what’s on that laptop that warrants such extreme security?

“I’m going to take a shower,” she says.

And she disappears into her sanctuary. Not long after, I hear the sound of her keyboard again—she only stepped away to keep working. But on what? That question haunts me late into the night.

That night, I was reading in bed when I heard her bedroom door open and close softly. Despite our separate bedrooms, I catch even the slightest of her movements. This is the second time since we got married that she’s about to leave the penthouse in the middle of the night. The muffled sound of her footsteps echoes down the hallway, followed by the faint click of the front door.

I step into the living room and move toward the window overlooking the street. She has swapped her impeccable suit for a dark, form-fitting outfit, a gym bag slung over her shoulder. She slips into her car, starts the engine, and disappears into the night.

Theories race through my mind. The most obvious one twists my insides: a lover. I picture her in another man’s arms, and the thought eats me alive. The idea that someone else could touch her, kiss her, own her… I clench my fists until my knuckles turn white.

But that dark outfit, that bag… Other, equally troubling possibilities push their way in. A gambling addiction? There are those ultra-private clubs that only open their doors during the darkest hours—places where fortunes are lost in mere hours, where adrenaline drowns out reason. Unless she’s attending one of those scandalous high-society parties, the kind people only whisper about, those exclusive gatherings where the elite indulge away from prying eyes?

A darker idea creeps in: what if she’s selling herself? The thought sends an icy chill through me. Her beauty, her natural elegance, her education… She could easily seduce those wealthy men willing to pay a fortune for one night. While I lie awake dreaming of her body, aching for even the slightest touch, she might be…

I shake my head violently.

I’m losing my mind!

This is Sophia I’m talking about.

The sleepless nights without her, the forced abstinence, her unexplained absences—they’re making me paranoid. But I can’t live like this anymore. These questions are eating me alive. I need answers.

I grab my phone and dial Nicolas’s number. It’s time to find out the truth.

“I work from nine to six. If you need something, call during office hours,” Nicolas says the moment he picks up.

“I want you to put my wife under surveillance. I need to know where she goes, who she meets, what she does. Check her bank accounts, her movements—everything.”

“Whoa! Not even a month into the marriage, and you’re already suspicious?” he mocks.

“Spare me the commentary and just do what I say,” I snap before hanging up.

As I’m still wrestling with the reasons behind her nocturnal disappearances, my gaze falls on the pot of tulips sitting on the coffee table.

The bulbs have yet to break through the soil—no stems, no signs of life. I reach out and brush my fingers against the dirt: it’s damp. An involuntary smile tugs at my lips. Sophia is taking care of them. I know this for a fact because I had explicitly forbidden Asli and Laurent from tending to them. These tulips are our story, a fragile yet unyielding bond between Sophia and me, a buried hope waiting for its moment to bloom.

I eventually return to my room, but sleep eludes me.

Three hours later, I hear the door open with an exaggerated caution that only fuels my irritation. Does she really think I don’t notice her absences? She must take me for a fool.

She moves through the living room like a shadow before vanishing into her bedroom. The shower runs for fifteen minutes, then silence.

18. Two separate routes

SOPHIA