Chapter 17
I had no answer.
“And I didn’t even know someone else was competing.”
“You weren’t competing.”
“My father thought I was.”
“That doesn’t make it real.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You know what the worst part is?”
“What?”
“I spent thirty-eight years believing everything depended on being perfect.”
He looked toward the window.
“Turns out even perfection wouldn’t have saved me.
He had another son waiting.”
I reached across the table.
Then stopped myself.
Declan noticed.
He turned his hand palm upward.
I placed mine in it.
Not because I had forgiven everything.
Not because we were suddenly married again.
Because sometimes a person needs another human hand.
Nothing more.
Then Declan said:
“Why did Alexander say you know him?”
“I don’t.”
“Maybe you met him thinking he was me.”
I stared.
My stomach dropped.
Five years earlier.
Our final months together.
There had been nights Declan came home strange.
Colder.
Less familiar.
I had always assumed stress.
One memory surfaced.
A charity dinner.
A man I believed was my husband appeared behind me on a balcony.
He wrapped an arm around my waist.
I turned.
Something felt wrong.
He smelled different.
Not the cedar cologne Declan always wore.
Something sharper.
I asked why he changed it.
He had stared at me for one strange second.
Then said:
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
I had assumed it was another marital cruelty.
Now?
“Declan.”
His face changed.
“What?”
“There was a night.”
I told him.
Every detail.
His hand slowly released mine.
“What date?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
“October.”
His face drained.
“When in October?”
“I searched my memory.
“The Hawthorne Foundation gala.”
He stood.
“No.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t there.”
I stared.
“Yes, you were.”
“No.”
“Declan, we fought afterward.”
“I was in Zurich.”
“You came late.”
“No.”
“You were on the balcony.”
“No, Cassidy.”
He opened his phone.
Found old travel records.
October 17.
Private flight Atlanta to Zurich.
Departure: October 16.
Return: October 19.
I stopped breathing.
The gala had been October 18.
“No.”
Declan looked sick.
“No.”
I stepped backward.
The room seemed to tilt.
I remembered the balcony.
A hand at my waist.
A kiss against my temple.
The smell.
The unfamiliar look in his eyes.
Then later…
Home.
Wine.
A reconciliation attempt.
A night I had believed belonged to my husband.
My knees nearly collapsed.
Declan caught me.
“Cassidy.”
“No.”
His face was gray.