**Diary Entry**
I never thought my life would come to this. Thirteen years of marriage, all for nothing. I loved Helen with all my hearther quiet strength, the way her auburn hair always escaped its ponytail, that soft, tired smile she reserved for our eight-year-old son, Oliver. We lived simply, in a quiet market town where nothing much ever changed.
Then came the betrayal.
Last night, Helen confronted me. «Are you out of your mind?» shed hissed, voice trembling. «You spent the money we saved for five years*my money too*on a flat for your pregnant mistress? How could you?»
Id walked in at half past nine, reeking of some floral perfumenot my usual aftershave. Helen noticed straight away.
«Long day,» I muttered, kissing the top of her head. «Exhausted.»
«Dinner?» she asked, already standing.
«Not hungry. Need a shower.»
But she wasnt fooled. Shed been suspicious for weeksmy late nights, my phone always face down, locked. The cracks were showing.
«Smells like flowers on you,» she said sharply.
I froze. «Must be from the office. Lucy in accounting got new perfume.»
A lie. A bad one.
The moneynearly £25,000was supposed to be for Olivers future, for university. Wed scrimped for yearsno holidays, no new car, just putting every spare penny into that account. Helen sewed dresses for extra income; I worked as an engineer at the local factory.
Then I met Sophie.
Nineteen, wild, everything Helen wasnt. A whirlwind. Last year, at a company retreat, I lost my head. She left me, then came back months laterpregnant. When her mum kicked her out, I couldnt let my child suffer. So I emptied the account, bought her a flat.
Helen found out at the bank. The teller, Sarah, handed her the statementbalance: zero.
When I got home, she was waiting, ice-cold. «Sit,» she said.
No tears, just steel. «You spent Olivers future on *her*?»
I confessed everything. Sophie, the baby, my idiocy. Helen stood by the window, silent, then said the words that shattered me:
«You care for a bastard child, but not your own son?»
By morning, shed filed for divorce. Shes taking the housetransferring my share to Oliver. Sophies gone too. The baby wasnt even mine.
**Lesson learned too late:** Greed burns everything it touches. Even love.
