Chapter 5
Daniel looked up sharply.
"What about it?"
"You said it was already paid for."
"I'm working on it."
"With what money?"
"Vanessa, please…"
"With Elena's money?"
Daniel's expression changed.
It was barely noticeable.
But it was enough.
Vanessa stood up.
"Oh my God."
"Don't jump to conclusions."
"Did you use money from your marriage to buy me things?"
Daniel tried to approach her.
She stepped back.
"What kind of man does that and then goes back to his wife demanding an apology?"
His temper exploded.
"Don't talk to me like you didn't happily accept everything I gave you!"
Vanessa stared at him.
"I accepted gifts from a man who claimed he was getting separated. I never agreed to be part of a fraud."
Their argument continued well past midnight.
Finally, Vanessa pointed toward the door.
"I need you to leave."
Daniel let out a bitter laugh.
"Now you're throwing me out too?"
"Yes."
"After everything I've done for you?"
Vanessa answered with a sentence that, as I learned months later, he would never forget.
"If everything you did for me depended on deceiving someone else, then it was never something you truly had the right to offer."
And she closed the door.
Once again, Daniel found himself standing with his suitcase in his hand.
Only this time, there was no one waiting downstairs.
## The Life I Found on the Other Side of the Ocean
While all of that was happening, I was in Toronto.
I had arrived with two suitcases, six boxes shipped by a moving company, and a strange mixture of fear and relief.
For months, I had been talking with an architecture firm looking for a project coordinator.
It was an opportunity I had initially turned down because Daniel thought it was ridiculous that I wanted to work in another country.
"Why do you need so much professional growth?" he'd asked when I received the first offer. "You already have everything you need here."
At the time, I hadn't answered.
Now I understood that he had confused his own comfort with my happiness.
My new apartment was small.
It had one bedroom, a narrow kitchen, and a window overlooking a tree-lined street.
There was no designer furniture.
No enormous walk-in closet.
And no one criticizing the way I folded the towels.
On my first night, I ate instant soup while sitting on a blanket on the floor.