Chapter 4: The Friend He Was Told to Forget
Sophia's answer came too fast.
"Daniel Marsh is a troublemaker.
He always has been.
Whatever he's telling you right now, he's doing it to cause problems between us.
That's what he does."
"I haven't spoken to him in three years," Ethan said.
"You told me he made you uncomfortable.
You cried.
I chose you."
"And you were right to."
"He has my number." Ethan held up the phone.
"He texted me the moment this happened.
How did he know?"
Sophia said nothing.
Claire spoke from the doorway.
"Ethan, maybe we should—"
"How did he know, Sophia?"
"I don't know how he knew.
Maybe your father called him.
Maybe this whole thing is coordinated.
Did you think about that?
Your father and your old friend, working together to destroy our marriage?"
Richard didn't raise his voice.
"I have never spoken to Daniel Marsh in my life."
Ethan was already dialing.
The phone rang twice.
Then Daniel picked up, and his voice was careful and quiet, the way voices get when someone has been rehearsing what to say for a long time.
"Ethan.
I'm glad you called."
"You knew," Ethan said.
"You knew something about Sophia before I married her.
And you tried to tell me."
A pause.
"I tried three times.
You stopped taking my calls after the engagement."
Ethan remembered.
He had told himself Daniel was jealous.
Sophia had told him Daniel was jealous.
It had seemed like the obvious explanation.
"Tell me now," Ethan said.
"Her name before she changed it was Sophia Renner.
She went by Renner until about six years ago." Daniel's voice stayed steady.
"I grew up two streets from Gerald Holt.
I watched what happened to him.
I knew who she was the moment you introduced us.
I tried to show you the news articles.
You didn't want to see them."
Ethan turned away from Sophia and walked to the window.
"There's more," Daniel said.
"Gerald Holt wasn't the first either.
There was a case before him, in another city.
It didn't go to court, but the man paid a settlement to make it go away.
I have the name if you want it."
"Send me everything."
"Already done.
Check your email."
Ethan ended the call and stood at the window for a moment without turning around.
The garden outside was very still.
A bird moved across the lawn and disappeared into the hedges.
Behind him, Sophia's voice shifted register.
The cold edge was gone.
Something softer replaced it, something practiced and precise.
"Ethan." Her voice was gentle now.
Almost wounded.
"I know how this looks.
But you know me.
You have lived with me for four years.
You know who I am."
He turned around.
"I thought I did."
"Whatever Daniel told you, whatever your father has put together — they are working against us.
Against our marriage.
Can't you see that?
Your own father sl@pped you when you were fifteen and you told me that yourself.
He is not the innocent old man he's pretending to be."
Richard's head came up sharply.
"That is not what happened," he said, and for the first time his voice had something in it beyond patience.
"And you know it is not what happened, because Ethan told you in private and you are using it now because you have run out of other weapons."
The room went silent.
Ethan looked at his father.
Then at his wife.
"She told me you said that to her," he said slowly.
"That you hit me.
She said you admitted it to her when they were alone."
"I have never said any such thing."
Ethan turned back to Sophia.
"You told me my father confessed to hitting me as a child.
I believed you.
I pulled back from him for two years because of that."
Sophia's expression didn't change.
"You pulled back," Ethan said, "because of something she invented."
He opened his email.
Daniel's message was already there.
Three attachments.
A newspaper article.
A court document.
And a photograph of a woman standing outside a courthouse — younger, different hair, but the same face.
The name beneath the photo read: Sophia Renner.
He set the phone down on the table so the screen faced up.
So everyone in the room could see it.
Sophia looked at the photograph for a long moment.
Then she picked up her handbag from the chair beside her.
"I'm not going to stand here and be ambushed in my own home."
May you like
"This is my father's home," Ethan said.
She stopped walking.
