Page 21 of The Wife He Accused

It did not come.

"I've had Agnes prepare your things," he said, as if moving to the next item on an agenda. "The car's downstairs. You can come home tonight. I think, if we can talk this through at home rather than here, we can put it behind us by morning."

Put it behind us.By morning.

The words hung in the air like a small clean proposal in a quarterly review, and Melody felt the hope she had been carrying since the first thin gray light that morning finish emptying out of her chest.

"What time?" she asked.

He frowned, faintly. "What?"

"What time did Rivera bring you the file?"

A beat. "Four fifty-one."

"And what time is it now?"

His eyes flicked to the clock on the wall behind her. "Seven twenty-three."

She nodded. "And you're here."

"Yes."

Something in his expression shifted, registering that the ground under him had changed.

She took a breath. It came in steady.

"So," she said. "You read the file. You decided, based on what was in the file, that I had been telling you the truth?”

"Melody —"

"No. Just answer the question."

A pause. Smaller than the one at the gala. Larger than the one he would have preferred.

"Yes."

The clarity settled in her chest like something cold and exact. It rearranged everything. This. This was the thing.

"You didn't believe me."

"I didn't have the full —"

"You didn't believe me," she repeated, firmer. "You stood in that suite last night and I told you what was happening. And you decided I was lying."

"I made a decision based on incomplete information."

"No." The word came out level. She was almost surprised by how level. "You made a decision about me. You decided that the version of me your mother and Vivienne and the woman in emerald and every person in that ballroom has been whispering to you about for the better part of two years was more real than the version of me you married. And then another man handed you a document, andhetold you I was telling the truth, andthatwas the part you believed."

"That isn't —"

"That is exactly what happened."

The silence that followed was different from the one before. Closed.

"I came here as soon as I had the full picture," he said.

"Yes," she said softly. "You did."