Chapter 5

Paul recovered first.

“Ashley told me about the appointment.”

Ben looked at her. “You never told me.”

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Why was Paul allowed to worry?”

Paul pointed at me as though I had created the question. “Grace is turning a normal friendship into something ugly.”

I did not argue about the baby.

My hands were cold, and my stomach felt hollow, but a public accusation about paternity would let Paul turn the evening into an argument about whether I was jealous or irrational. I would not give him that escape.

I had already learned enough. Paul had lied about the house, our marriage, his ring, and the week he claimed to be with his brother.

Whether the child was his would become someone else’s investigation.

I returned to the lake-view suite and locked the door.

First, I photographed the wedding ring beside the contracts.

Then I packed my passport, blue dress, white cashmere wrap, work laptop, and my mother’s earrings.

I packed slowly. Every zipper I closed made the room feel less like somewhere I was trapped and more like somewhere I was preparing to leave.

I booked a car for five the next morning through a new account Paul could not access.

Downstairs, Ashley’s voice carried up through the stairwell.

“What if Grace cancels everything?”

“She won’t,” Paul said.

“You promised she’d finish the party.”

“She always fixes things. She’ll do it this time, too.”

I stood beside my packed suitcase, listening.

He wasn’t worried about what I might do. He was counting on everything I had done for him before.

I opened my laptop.

Every reservation displayed the same option: CANCEL SERVICE.

The private sunset cruise was the smallest booking. The cancellation policy showed the entire deposit in red beneath the button.

For three years, I had saved in ten-dollar and twenty-dollar choices: lunches brought from home, shoes repaired instead of replaced, trips declined because this one was supposed to matter.

Canceling meant losing some of that money.

Not canceling meant spending the rest of it on the people who had used my patience to humiliate me.

My finger rested on the trackpad.

I thought of Paul downstairs, certain I would fix everything.

My hand shook once. I held it still.

I clicked CANCEL.

A second screen appeared: DEPOSIT NONREFUNDABLE. CONFIRM BY PHONE.

I entered my number and accepted the call. A recorded voice asked for the four-digit security code from my contract.

I knew exactly where it was.

The cruise disappeared from my schedule.

Next, I removed Paul’s phone number from every vendor contact page. Confirmation emails would come only to me.

Then I closed the laptop and placed it in my suitcase.

I turned off the light.

He believed I was preparing to sleep.

I was waiting for my car.