Tessa’s voice softened.
“She snapped. She said yes. She said she just wanted to hurt you.”
My breath left me in a slow, shaking exhale.
“She said Ray ruined her business by pulling contracts. She said she felt humiliated. So she went to the funeral and decided to humiliate you. Those were her words. She said she wanted you to hurt.”
“And the children?” I whispered.
“They’re her husband’s,” Tessa said firmly. “She admitted she lied.”
Silence filled the kitchen.
There was no secret family. There was no hidden betrayal. There was only a bitter woman who decided my grief was not sufficient punishment.
I covered my face and sobbed then. It was not heartbreak this time. It was release.
When I finally lifted my head, Tessa said gently, “My dad always said Ray was the most loyal man he knew.”
“It matters,” I said. “That matters.”
After she left, I went upstairs and took one of Ray’s journals into my lap again.
“I’ll walk away. But I won’t forget what she’s capable of.”
“Neither will I,” I murmured.
Then I did something I had never done before.
I took an empty notebook from my nightstand and opened it to the first page.
If Lydia could write lies and slip them into my husband’s hands, I could write the truth and keep it with me.
I began with the rose. I wrote about the note, the cameras, the confrontation, Marcus and Tessa, and the moment the truth returned my husband to me.
I wrote about our honeymoon motel and our failed fertility treatments. I wrote about the way he always took the outside seat in restaurants.
I wrote until my hand cramped.
My marriage was not a lie.
Ray had been flawed. He was stubborn and occasionally infuriating. But he was loyal. He was mine.
