Chapter 12
That I was sorry?
Sorry had not lowered Noah’s fever.
That Sabrina meant nothing?
Then why had I let nothing cost me everything?
“Tell Clara…”
My voice failed.
My solicitor waited.
Finally, I said, “Tell her I won’t come to where she’s staying. I won’t send anyone. I’ll follow whatever arrangement she wants for Noah.”
He studied me.
“All right.”
After he left, I sat alone in the office.
At 8:13, Sabrina arrived.
No appointment.
No warning.
My receptionist tried to stop her.
She walked in anyway.
Black coat.
Hair pinned back.
No red dress.
No softness.
“Get out,” I said.
“We need to talk.”
“We talked.”
“You ended the call.”
“That was the end.”
She closed the door.
“I’m being made into the villain.”
I stared at her.
“My wife took my son and left.”
“And I did not make you stay with me.”
“You leaked the footage.”
“Yes.”
Hearing the word without apology did something strange to my anger.
It simplified it.
“Why?”
“I told you.”
“No. You told me you were tired of waiting. That explains why you wanted us exposed. It doesn’t explain why you recorded me.”
She looked toward the dark windows.
For the first time since I had known her, Sabrina seemed almost tired.
“Because I stopped trusting you.”
I laughed once.
“You were sleeping with a married man and worried about trust?”
“Exactly.”
The answer silenced me.
She stepped closer.
“You told me your marriage was dead. You told me you were leaving after the baby was born. Then Noah came, and suddenly there was always another reason.”
“Because he was my son.”
“Then you should have acted like it.”
I looked away.
She continued.
“I knew eventually you might decide this had all been a mistake. And men like you rewrite mistakes. The woman becomes unstable. Obsessed. Confused. She imagined promises. She misunderstood.”
“So you kept proof.”
“Yes.”
“And released it.”
“Yes.”
“To force me to choose you.”
Her jaw tightened.
“To force you to stop lying.”
I almost shouted.
Then stopped.
Because beneath every manipulation, beneath every ugly decision, there was a fact I could not remove.
She had exposed me.
But she had not invented me.
The man in that video was real.
The man who saw Clara’s messages was real.
The man who stayed was real.
“You didn’t destroy my marriage,” I said.
Sabrina’s expression shifted.
“No.”
“I did.”