Sara Dillon and Andrew Morton at the annual Chicago Sun-Times Holiday Bash, where Congressman Morton announced his plans to run for the United States Senate next fall.

I clicked the link and read the entire article, confirming that this story was written only last winter, and that meant the congressman was probably already on the Illinois campaign trail. I routed back to the main image page and scrolled back to the top where, beside several similar shots, there was a picture of Sara running through a tangle of paparazzi, covering her face with her coat. I’d ignored these at first because her face hadn’t been visible. I clicked the link to the story associated with the photo, dated only a few weeks before I met her, and an article from the Chicago Tribune came up.

Democratic congressman Andrew Morton was spotted last night in an intimate tête-à-tête with a woman other than his fiancée, Sara Dillon. The brunette, identified as Melissa Marino, is a junior aide in his Chicago-based offices.

In the middle of the article was the photo in question, of a man—obviously Andy—passionately kissing a woman—obviously not Sara.

Dillon and Morton have been linked since 2007, and the pair, the darlings of the Chicago social scene ever since, were engaged last December shortly after Morton announced his intention to run for the U.S. Senate. Sara Dillon, head of finance for the commercial firm Nieman & Shimazawa, is the only child of Roger and Samantha Dillon, founders of the well-known department store chain found across seventeen states and hefty financial backers of the Morton campaign.

The Dillon family spokesperson couldn’t be reached for comment, but a spokesperson for the Morton reelection campaign responded to the Tribune inquiry with only, “Mr. Morton’s private life has never been a subject for public consumption.”

Unfortunately, the widely rumored playboy legislator may have finally broken strategy and brought his extracurricular activities front and center.

Widely rumored playboy. Motherfucker.

I sat back in my chair as I looked at Sara and Andy together, a hot curl of anger sparking in my chest. She was the kind of woman men hoped they’d get to drink in for days, to know better than any other man has, to protect somehow, to take a punch for or to sweep away from an oncoming bus. I looked at every image I could find. She’d smiled so brightly in every photo prior to the ones dated last April. She’d been a natural in front of the camera, the brightness of her smile changing very little over the years.

And this twat had cheated on her—multiple times, if the article was to be believed.

He was a good enough looking bloke, I supposed, though obviously older than her. I clicked through to another article, one that listed his age at thirty-seven, ten years her senior.

According to one story published only two months ago, it was the world’s worst-kept secret that Andy had cheated on Sara several times in the past year, and a growing perception was that he was using her for her family’s name and their money, exploiting the press’s love for their local-celebrity romance whenever his reputation was in need of a little public relations boost.