Chapter 6 - ELENA LEARNED SHE HAD BEEN LIED TO TOO
Elena stared at David.
“That’s impossible.”
David stepped toward her.
“Elena—”
“My son’s father was Matthew Cole.”
Nobody in the room recognized the name.
Except David.
I saw it instantly.
Elena saw it too.
Her face twisted with confusion.
Then horror.
“What did you do?”
David rubbed one hand across his jaw.
“He wasn’t good for you.”
Richard’s voice turned cold.
“What exactly does that mean?”
Elena backed away from David.
“Twelve years ago, Matthew disappeared after I told him I was pregnant.”
David said nothing.
“He sent me one email saying he wanted nothing to do with us.”
Still nothing.
Elena’s breathing changed.
“You wrote it.”
David looked toward the floor.
That was enough.
Elena slapped her hand over her mouth.
The glamorous woman who had walked upstairs with my husband twenty minutes earlier suddenly looked like someone whose entire history had been rearranged.
I should have hated her.
Part of me did.
But betrayal recognizes betrayal.
“What about the paternity test?” Elena whispered.
David answered too slowly.
“There was never a real test.”
Her knees nearly buckled.
Rebecca caught her arm.
Elena pulled away.
“You told me Matthew wasn’t Michael’s father.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“No.”
Her voice shook.
“You were trying to own the story.”
That sentence hit me because I understood it perfectly.
David had spent years deciding what everyone around him was allowed to know.
He had convinced Elena that another man abandoned her.
He had apparently been sending money into Michael’s trust.
And somewhere inside that twisted arrangement, he had kept Elena close enough to remain important.
But one question remained.
“Is Michael your son?” I asked.
David hesitated.
Elena looked at me.
Then him.
David finally said, “Yes.”
Richard walked away and braced both hands against the fireplace.
Twelve years of secrecy.
Eleven years of marriage.
An affair hidden inside an older betrayal.
Then Natalie texted me again.
I opened the attachment.
The trust was not the worst part.
David had recently changed Michael’s beneficiary documents.
May you like
And the person whose assets would eventually fund the trust was not David.
It was me.
