Chapter 3
Edward stared at the photo.
His mouth went flat.
He said nothing.
The silence went on and on.
He knew there was nothing left to explain.
Whatever he came up with wouldn't survive the evidence sitting in my hand.
"Charlie."
He finally spoke again, and the exhaustion came through in his voice.
"When did we turn into this?"
That was him changing the subject.
He moved it off the facts and onto how tired the two of us were.
"I'm out there grinding every day. I thought home was where I got to stop," he said.
The blame was sliding back toward me.
In his version, my questions were what made the house unbearable.
"So you found someone relaxing and moved her in?" I said.
"It's not like that!" His voice jumped.
"Emily and I are just..."
"Just what?" I pushed.
"Just a boss and his assistant?
"Just two coworkers putting on a show?
"Just normal enough that she treats your house like hers and your wife like an ex?"
His chest rose and fell hard.
It was the first time I had watched him lose his grip.
I stood up.
I crossed the room and stopped in front of him.
"Edward, I'll ask you one last time," I said.
"Is that invitation real?"
He looked me straight in the eye.
He found no tears there, no anger, nothing but a cold kind of calm.
The calm was what got to him.
He looked away.
"Yes."
He finally admitted it.
The word came out through his teeth.
"Okay," I said.
I nodded.
That answer was all I needed.
Anything past it would have been a waste of my time.
I turned and picked up my bag.
"Where are you going?" He caught my wrist.
His palm was hot and damp.
"Let go," I said.
"Charlie, let's talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about."
I had no interest in another lie.
"You can't leave." His grip tightened.
"Edward, did you forget something?"
I turned to face him.
"We're married. There's a license on file. You marry her and that's bigamy."
He froze.
He might have actually forgotten.
Or he had assumed I'd never take it that far.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying it's simple," I said.
I took out my phone and called my lawyer.
"David Carter? It's Charlotte."
The call connected.
The color went out of Edward's face.
"You called a lawyer?" Disbelief cracked through his voice.
"Yes," I said coldly.
"Charlotte, do you have to make this ugly?"
"I'm not the one who made it ugly," I said, holding his eyes. "That was whoever mailed the invitation."
"Listen to me," David said over the line. "I've started building the file on the affair and the attempted bigamy. Anything new you find, send it straight to me."
My phone was on speaker.
Every word carried clean across the room to Edward.
His hand opened.
I put the phone away and looked at the gray in his face.
"You have three days," I said.
"Clean up your mess and come back to me with an answer."
"What kind of answer?"
"One I can live with."
I said nothing else.
I turned, went down the stairs, and walked out of a house that had stopped being mine.
The car pulled out through the gates of Crestwood.
I texted David.
I sent: [He admitted it. Another woman has moved into the house. I've got photos.]
The message went out.
I leaned back and watched the city slide past the window.
I didn't cry.
Not a single tear came.
I spent the drive thinking.
I wondered what kind of answer Edward would bring me.
There was also the question of how he planned to face the circus he had built himself.
And there was the matter of what sort of wedding gift I owed him.
A plan started taking shape somewhere on that drive.