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I rang the doorbell.

Samantha answered, holding Seth on her hip. She looked so ordinary it hit me harder than I expected. Her hair was pulled back in some messy bun and there was baby food smeared on one sleeve of her shirt. Dark circles sat under her eyes. She did not look like the fancy woman from the Halloween gala. She looked like a tired mom and somehow that hurt worse than if she had been all dressed up and perfect.

“Hi Samantha… look we need to talk,” I said before she could say anything.

She stared at me for a second then glanced down at Luke in the carrier. Something careful crossed her face but she stepped back and let me inside anyway.

“Come in,” she said quietly.

I stepped past her into the house. She had no fucking idea who Richard really was.

“Maggie right? Would you like something to drink?”

“Yes, water.”

While she went to the kitchen for water I wandered through the living room. Framed photos covered the walls and shelves everywhere I looked.

Richard holding Seth as a tiny newborn. Their wedding pictures. Vacation shots on sunny beaches. Their first Christmas morning with wrapping paper all over. Their first Thanksgiving dinner. Richard laughing in ways I never saw him laugh with me. I stopped dead in front of one photo where he had his arm wrapped tight around Samantha. He was smiling. I never once saw him smile at me like that.

My throat got tight and I couldn’t swallow.

I kept moving anyway. His watch sat on the entry table like he had just taken it off. His briefcase leaned against the wall. His shoes sat at the bottom of the stairs and his jacket hung near the door. These were not props some guy left behind to keep up appearances. These were the things of a man who lived here every single day as the rich CEO of Kincaid Holdings.

The ground under all my certainty started to shift. I spent years putting together the story of us in my head. Now none of the pieces fit anymore.

Samantha came back with two glasses of water. We sat on the couch. Luke stayed asleep and Seth crawled around on the rug looking up at his mom every few seconds. She asked the question I had practiced a hundred times on the ride over.

“You’re Richard’s assistant, we met at the gala, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you been working for Richard?”

I smiled at her. “We haven’t been working. We’ve been in a relationship.”

Her fingers tightened around her glass. She bit her lower lip, holding back the cry building in her throat. Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away and nodded as though she had already accepted the answer.

“How long has this been going on?” she asked.

“Years. We’ve been together since before you two got married.”

Samantha lowered her gaze to Seth. A tear ran down her cheek, and she wiped it away before it could fall. She pressed her lips together and took a quiet breath before looking at me again.

“I know everything about that man.” I kept pouring it all out. “I know his favorite drink is that expensive scotch he keeps in the decanter on his desk.”

Samantha pressed her lips together and wiped beneath her eye.

“I know the way he organizes his closet with the suits by color and the shirts by season,” I added. “I know how he rubs his jaw when he gets irritated and how he needs total silence when he works. I know the books he reads over and over like that worn copy of The Art of War he keeps in his nightstand. I know how he sleeps on his right side with one arm thrown over the woman next to him.”

With every detail her body got stiffer. She was hearing things only someone who had been in his bed would know.

The tension was thick in the air.

Luke woke up crying hard. I jumped up fast and started bouncing him in my arms trying to calm him down but he just kept getting louder. My heart pounded and everything became too much.

This should be my house. This should be my life with Richie. I started crying too, the tears coming hot while I rocked him harder.

Samantha watched me getting overwhelmed and her face softened a little.