“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it.” I pause, half-expecting her to interrupt, but she says nothing, her eyes holding mine. “Last year, your husband was involved in an affair—with his colleague, his teaching assistant to be exact. It went on for about five months. And the only reason it ended… was because she became pregnant.”
Her expression remains stoic—calm, unreadable. But her eyes are distant, as if silently weighing, and deciding whether to believe me or not.
“I’m guessing that’s your so-called proof,” she says, gesturing towards the folder on the table.
I nod and slide the evidence across to her. She hesitates for a moment, then takes it and slowly opens the folder. Her eyes fall on the first photograph—Adrian and Lucia walking with their arms around each other outside the café they’d frequent before heading to work.
According to Bryan, my PI, it happened almost every day. They’d meet there an hour before school started for coffee… and, apparently, other extracurricular activities too.
Hope flicks through each photo, taking her time, her jaw tight, nostrils flaring. Her breathing grows heavier, but she maintains her composure. Ten photos in total of Adrian and Lucia’s secret romance, each one more damning than the last.
It isn’t until she reaches the final photograph that her restraint finally cracks. Her hand shoots to her mouth, half-covering her shocked expression as she gasps in horror. I know that image all too well—it’s the one that has lived rent free in my head for the past few months.
An image of Lucia in the backseat of Adrian’s car, wearing nothing but a black lace bra, straddling him, her head thrown back in a moment of rapture.Adrian’s face is pressed into her chest as if inhaling her very essence.
“Oh my God,” Hope whispers, her voice sounding choked.
“I’m so sorry—”
“How did you get these?”
“I hired a private investigator to follow them. He sent me those photos.”
“What business do you have hiring someoneto follow them?”
“Because that woman your husband was having an affair with... was my girlfriend.”
Another gasp escapes her. “Your girlfriend,” she repeats back quietly.
“Yes,” I nod. “She began cheating on me with your husband a few months after we moved in together. I’d see her texting her colleague, who she kept referring to as Addie, for most of the day, and I just assumed it was a woman. I had no idea Addie was actually a thirty-two-year-old married man… with a child.”
Hope drops the file onto the table, pressing a palm to her chest as if to steady her breathing, and to dull the sharp ache I imagine is piercing straight through her heart right now.
“I found out about the affair after I went through Lucia’s phone one night while she was in the shower. There were hundreds of messages between her and Adrian, along with several explicit photos and half a dozen emails. I printed everything out. It’s all there in that folder.”
She huffs involuntarily, the sound dry and humourless, as if the entire situation is unbelievable—something that simply doesn’t happen in her world. But her expression quickly shifts as her gaze drops back to the file. A flicker of fear crosses her features, her eyes growing heavy with an emotion she can no longer contain.
She draws in a slow, steadying breath before lifting the folder again and flipping through its contents, stopping at the screenshots of Lucia and Adrian’s text exchanges.
I watch her in silence, scrutinising her expression for any signs that this is all becoming too much for her. I may not know her very well, yet a deep concern for her wellbeing gnaws at me, especially after everything she’s learned today.
Hope continues her slow perusal of the documents, shaking her head in disbelief and letting out sharp, uneven exhales. When she’s finally had enough, she lowers the papers and turns her gaze to the left, scanning the crowd as if she’s too humiliated, or too shaken, to meet my eyes.
“I… I don’t know what to make of all this.”
“It’s a lot to process, I know. I couldn’t believe it at first either, but after seeing all the proof, it finally hit me that it was real. I began therapy not too long ago, and it’s been helping, little by little. Without it, I’d be in a far worse position. I think, after today… after everything you’ve just learned, it could be useful for you to see someone as well.”
She quickly glances back at me at the mention of therapy, as if surprised by the suggestion, but doesn’t say anything on the matter. She leans forward, resting her elbows on the edge of the table, her hands covering her mouth as she tries to process everything I’ve just laid in front of her.
When I consider holding off on discussing the baby, especially after everything else she’s just been hit with, she surprises me by being the one to bring it up first.
“You said your girlfriend was pregnant around the time their affair ended. Is the baby yours?”
Though it’s been nearly six months since I last saw Arianna, she still drifts into my thoughts from time to time. And it’sduring those quiet moments, when I find myself wondering how she’s faring—wherever she may be.
I release a slow, fragile breath, the ache of knowing Ari was never mine still fresh, like an open wound.
“No.” I shake my head slowly. “She isn’t mine. After I found out Lucia had been cheating, I had a DNA test done immediately. It confirmed I wasn’t the father.”
