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When Iris Monet married millionaire Jared Darling, she had only one rule - that he could cheat on her with anyone except the household staff. This arrangement of theirs would have gone on quite happily if she hadn't caught him...
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WHEN your husband's surname is also a term of endearment, it's not easy for him to know if you're being sweetly affectionate or pogo-hoppingly mad.
That's why you should always try to make it clear in other ways.
I stop in the middle of a carpeted corridor. From beginning to end, paintings from the artist Monet line the walls. There are nine in total, and while eight of them are reproductions, the centre piece is an original. Kept in a gilt-edged frame, it was procured after a very tense hand-raising competition in an auction and dug a deep crater in Jared's wallet.
I place a gentle hand on the glass. Underneath, irises bloom in daubs of violet shades, and the grass looks like it just needs a friendly wind to come alive. I don't know much about art, but an odd feeling starts spreading in my chest whenever I look at this piece. It seems to press out against the underside of my ribcage and beg to break free.
Three years ago, when construction began on the house, Jared commissioned this corridor as a testament of his love and devotion to me. In front of our family and friends, he proposed to me while kneeling on the red carpet – the very carpet I'm now standing on – as the sunlight streamed in from the window behind him. He told me it's no coincidence that the painter and I share the same surname, and that I carry the ethereal beauty of Monet's paintings in my entire physical being. It was all really romantic.
At the end of the corridor there's a baseball bat hanging on a pair of mahogany wall brackets. Previously owned by a famous baseball player (whose name I've clean forgotten), it was last used in 1934 to hit the winning home run at Yankee Stadium.
Today, it's about to be used again.
Taking the bat down, I give it a few experimental swings. I like it. A nice, solid weight.
For a second there's an ounce of hesitation at what I'm doing. For a second the idea of smashing a priceless piece of art fills me with guilt.
But then the bat comes down, and the glass framing the original Monet shatters into a thousand pieces, and suddenly all I'm feeling is euphoria.
Anthony skids to a halt at the end of the corridor. "Madam! What on earth are you doing?"
I look at Anthony, raising the bat. "You were right, Anthony. Jared wasdoing the cleaning."
The bat comes down again. The painting wobbles, teeters for a second – then it falls forward, hitting the carpeted floor. I put my stiletto on the frame and look at Anthony.
"You best get your master before I do anymore damage," I say.
The butler doesn't need telling twice. He flies off and comes back with Jared just before I'm about to tear an irreparable hole in the oil canvas.
"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" I've never heard Jared scream before, but it's something I imagine pterodactyls sound like. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THAT COSTS?"
