James’s car was parked in the driveway.
Olivia stared at it through the windshield. Her pulse drummed loudly in her ears. He hadn't been home this early in months. Not once. There was always a late meeting, a client dinner, or a corporate emergency that kept him away until long after she had stopped waiting up. Seeing the sleek silver car sitting there in the late afternoon sun felt inherently wrong.
For a second, her hands gripped the steering wheel, and she wondered if she should put the car in reverse and leave.
Then she forced herself to exhale. Maybe this was better. She didn't have to sit on the sofa and wait for the dread to build. She could get this over with right now.
She turned off the engine, grabbed her purse, and walked up the front steps.
She pulled her keys from her bag. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, her thumb tracing the familiar grooves of the metal. This used to be her haven. Now, sliding the key into the deadbolt felt like trespassing.
The lock clicked. Olivia pushed the door open and stepped into the foyer.
At first glance, the house looked painfully ordinary. The sunlight slanted through the living room windows, illuminating the dust motes in the air. The framed photos from their vacations still sat perfectly aligned on the console table. Nothing about the quiet, immaculate space announced that her life had been ripped apart.
Then, she heard it.
A muffled sound echoing from the second floor.
At first, her mind simply refused to process it. She stood frozen by the front door, listening.
It came again. The heavy, rhythmic thud of the headboard hitting the drywall.
A woman's breathless moan.
Olivia went completely still at the foot of the stairs. For one impossible, agonizing second, her body locked up. Her hand stayed wrapped in a white-knuckle grip around the strap of her purse. Her brain scrambled to reject what her ears were picking up.
No. Not here. Not in our house. Not in our bed.
But the sounds did not stop. They grew louder. Another high, hitching moan.
Then, a man's low, rough groan.
James's voice.
That was what finally made her move. She didn't run. She didn't march up with righteous fury. Her feet climbed the carpeted stairs mechanically, driven by some terrible, self-destructive part of her soul that needed to see the absolute truth with her own eyes before James could ever try to turn it into another lie.
Each step felt detached from reality. The air in the hallway felt too thin to breathe.
She reached the top of the landing.
The master bedroom door was wide open.
Olivia stopped in the doorway. Inside the room she had meticulously decorated, on the sheets she had washed, in the bed she had shared with her husband for five years, Olivia saw the scene that destroyed the final, fragile sliver of hope she hadn't even realized she was still holding onto.
Olivia stood paralyzed in the doorway, the sound of her own heartbeat deafening in her ears, finally understanding that the forged signature and the stolen money were not the only things her husband had betrayed.
Chapter 14
Olivia
Olivia stood paralyzed in the doorway of the master bedroom.
For a few agonizing seconds, she could not move. Her mind scrambled to absorb the pieces of the scene before it fully became real. The sheets were twisted and shoved down to the foot of the mattress. James’s bare back flexed, slick with sweat. Amanda’s dark hair was spread wildly across Olivia’s own pillows.
Then came the sounds. The heavy, rhythmic, wet slap of flesh colliding with flesh.
The air was thick, suffocating with the heavy scent of sex, sweat, and the sharp, expensive perfume that did not belong there. The framed wedding photo rested on the nightstand, sitting just inches away from where Amanda’s manicured hand gripped the edge of the mattress.
