The doorbell rang again.
I reached over and switched off the screen.
A moment later, my phone lit up.
[I know you’re in there.]
[You only married Alex because you’re angry. Open the door. We can work this out at home.]
[Once the waiting period is over, I’ll divorce Jade. Everything can go back the way it was.]
The way it was.
I stared at those words and suddenly felt as though the last seven years had been one long joke.
Alex didn’t decide for me.
“Do you want to open it?”
“No.”
“All right.”
He didn’t press the issue. Instead, he prepared the guest room for me.
Then he carefully laid out the damaged pages from Mom’s notebook, separating them with clean sheets of paper.
“I’ll take them in to be restored tomorrow.”
I watched him work with such practiced care.
“How do you know how to do that?”
“The day your mother died, you sat in the hospital corridor all night holding that notebook.”
I froze.
“You were there?”
“Yeah.”
Alex lowered his eyes.
“But you had someone with you, so I didn’t go in.”
Something stirred in my chest.
Dylan had been with me that night.
Then, in the middle of the night, Jade called to say her boyfriend had dumped her.
Dylan told me to wait a little while.
I waited until morning. He never returned.
Eventually, the doorbell stopped ringing.
Dylan’s messages didn’t.
I left them unanswered and turned my phone facedown on the table.
The next morning, the police called.
The company had turned over the unedited security footage.
It showed Jade grabbing my bag first. When I pulled my hand away, Jade deliberately fell backward, landing in a sitting position.
I never touched her.
The footage also showed Mrs. Quinn tearing up Mom’s notebook and forcibly grabbing me.
“Ms. Quinn is asking to resolve this privately. Would you be willing?”
“No.”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“The secret recordings and defamatory posts need to come down. I also want a public apology.”
As soon as I ended the call, Dylan rang.
“Ellie, I saw the footage. I got it wrong.”
“And if there hadn’t been footage?”
He went silent.
“Would you have kept believing I stole from you and hurt Jade? Would you have expected me to come back and apologize to you?”
“I was just worried about the baby…”
“It was never really about believing her.”
I spoke quietly, cutting him off.
“You just assumed that no matter how many times you chose her over me, I’d forgive you in the end.”
I hung up.
The company soon removed the videos from its employee chats.
Mr. Carter sent another notice about the Southpoint review.
Jade would have to explain all the project’s key figures on her own. Otherwise, the client would terminate the partnership.
I closed the email without offering her a single hint.
Another message waited in my inbox, this one from Riverton Group.
The company had competed with Dylan’s subsidiary for years. Six months earlier, they’d tried to recruit me.
I’d turned them down for Dylan’s sake.
This time, I clicked Accept.
Alex emerged from the kitchen carrying breakfast.
I looked up.
“I’ve accepted an offer from Riverton. Would that bother you?”
“Why would it?”
“They’re Sterling’s competitors.”
He smiled.
“They compete with the subsidiary Dylan runs. He doesn’t speak for the entire Sterling Group.”
“Work wherever you want. You’ve got the skills to make it on your own.”
I decided to test him.
“What if I steal every project Dylan has?”
“Then you’re better at your job than he is.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that I realized it had never even occurred to him to ask me to make myself smaller for anyone.
I was about to stand when he spoke again.
“Are you free this weekend?”
“Why?”
“Could you take me to see your mom?”
He glanced at the pages laid carefully on the table.
“We’re married. We ought to tell her.”
My throat tightened.
I lowered my head and gave a quiet nod.
“Okay.”
My phone lit up again.
Dylan had texted.
[I’ve talked to Jade. She’s only acting this way because she’s terrified of losing everything she has.]
[She’s pregnant. I can’t pressure her right now.]
[Give me another month.]
I hadn’t even closed the conversation when the police called again.
“Ms. Bennett, there’s something else we need to confirm.”
“The hospital verified the prenatal test report Jade Quinn submitted. It belongs to another patient.”
“She was never pregnant.”