Chapter 2: What She Already Knew
Ethan sat down at the kitchen table like a man waiting to be sentenced.
"It's not what you think," he said.
Claire looked at him over the top of her water bottle.
"It never is."
"Natalie and I — it happened slowly.
I didn't plan it."
"How long?"
He hesitated.
"Ethan.
How long."
"Fourteen months."
The number landed between them like something dropped from a great height.
Fourteen months.
Longer than a year.
Longer than their last real vacation.
Longer than the stretch of quiet nights when Claire had told herself she was imagining things.
"I want to fix this," he said.
"I want to fix us."
Claire set the water bottle down.
She looked at him for a long moment — the kind of look that doesn't need words.
Then she walked to the counter, opened the drawer beside the stove, and placed a single folded document on the table in front of him.
Ethan looked down.
His face went completely still.
"Claire—"
"I've known for eleven months," she said quietly.
"I didn't find out by accident."
She paused.
"Your firm's accountant is my cousin's husband.
He's been showing me the transfers for almost a year."
Ethan's hand moved toward the document.
Claire put her hand over it first.
"There's something else in there," she said.
"Something I think you forgot I knew."
---
What was in that document — and what did Ethan forget?
What Claire knew next sh*ttered everything he thought he had control over.
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