I saw my boss at a restaurant with his wife.
I went to say hi.
He had told us a day ago that he was going to become a dad, so I smiled and congratulated his wife.
She turned pale.
My boss grabbed my arm and whispered, “My wife actually isn’t pregnant.”
I blinked, confused. “But yesterday in the meeting, you—”
“Not here,” he hissed, his eyes darting around like we were being watched.
His wife gave me a tight, forced smile and excused herself to the restroom. She looked like she was trying not to cry.
I stood there, awkward and cold all of a sudden. My boss—let’s call him Darien—motioned for me to sit. I didn’t want to, but I did. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the way he looked like his entire world was crashing in slow motion.
“Why would you tell everyone you’re having a baby if your wife isn’t even pregnant?” I asked, my voice low.
Darien rubbed his temples, then leaned in. “Because… someone is pregnant. Just not her.”
My jaw actually dropped. Like full-on dropped.
He sighed. “It’s—complicated. And I know what you’re thinking. But it’s not like I planned any of this. It just happened. One mistake. One stupid night. Now the woman I had a fling with says she’s keeping the baby, and I panicked. I didn’t want rumors flying at work, so I told the team it was my wife who was expecting.”
I couldn’t even respond. I just stared at him like he was a stranger.
He must’ve taken my silence as judgment because he shook his head, almost bitterly. “I know it was wrong. But I was going to come clean. To everyone. Soon.”
“Why not just keep it private?” I finally asked. “Why lie at all?”
He shrugged. “Honestly? I think part of me was… proud. Even in the worst way. I felt like if I owned it, it wouldn’t feel like a mistake. It’d feel like something I could control.”
Just then, his wife returned. Eyes red. Face calm. She sat down without a word, looked at me, and said softly, “So you work with my husband?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m his assistant.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You seem like a good person. Loyal. That’s rare these days.”
I didn’t know what to say. I just nodded and excused myself, heart pounding.
The next day at work, Darien acted like nothing had happened. He joked in the break room. Led the team meeting. Talked about Q3 targets like his marriage wasn’t dangling off a cliff.
I kept my head down. But my mind was racing.
Here’s the twist, though.
Three days later, his wife showed up at the office.
Not dramatic. Not yelling. Just calm and put-together. She walked right up to our floor, asked the receptionist for Darien, then marched into the meeting room where he was leading a quarterly review with our investors.
What followed was silence—then muffled shouting.
No one knew what to do. Phones rang. Coffee was left mid-pour. I stood frozen by the copier.
The meeting ended early. His wife walked out without looking at anyone.
Darien didn’t come back to work for a week.
Rumors swirled. Some said she left him. Some said she was going to fight for custody—even though there wasn’t a kid yet. Someone else said she was meeting with the board to get him removed.
None of it was confirmed.
But the real surprise came from the woman he’d had the affair with. Her name was Martine. She was a marketing consultant, used to work with our company on contract projects. Quiet, smart, and honestly… lovely. She showed up one afternoon and asked to speak to me privately.
“I’m not keeping the baby,” she said, her voice calm but sad. “I told Darien that a few days ago. But he’s still using it to justify his own downfall.”
I blinked. “Wait—so he knew?”
She nodded. “I told him. And then I blocked him. I didn’t want him using me as an excuse for what he already broke long before I was in the picture.”
I didn’t know what to say. She didn’t wait for me to.
“I just wanted you to know. You looked… decent. The kind of person who thinks things through. He doesn’t.”
She walked out and I never saw her again.
Weeks passed. Darien returned. Quieter. No jokes in the break room. He resigned two months later, citing “personal reasons.” His wife? Never saw her again either.
And me?
I got promoted. New manager, new responsibilities. And a clearer understanding of how fragile people really are.
Sometimes, the strongest-looking people are just better at hiding their messes. And lies have a strange way of exploding—not when you tell them, but when you try to maintain them.
If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s this:
Trying to control a situation by lying just makes the truth harder to carry later.
It doesn’t protect anyone—it just delays the damage.
And eventually, the truth comes knocking… usually when you’re least prepared.
So yeah, I walked into that restaurant thinking I was just saying hi.
Instead, I walked straight into the unraveling of a lie.
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