Chapter 7 - THE PILLS BESIDE MY BED
For three months, I had been exhausted.
Headaches.
Memory lapses.
Nausea.
I blamed stress.
I blamed Ethan.
I blamed myself.
Now I looked at Khloe and understood that someone had been poisoning me.
“What did you give me?”
“Not poison.”
Her answer came too quickly.
Marcus slammed his hand on the table.
“What?”
“Prescription sedatives. Low doses.”
Ethan exploded.
“You drugged my wife?”
Khloe backed away.
“I didn’t personally—”
He crossed the room.
Marcus caught him before he reached her.
Ethan struggled once.
Then stopped.
His eyes were terrifying.
“Who touched her medication?”
Khloe cried harder.
“David had access through someone at the pharmacy.”
I felt strangely detached.
“Why?”
“To make you look unstable.”
Of course.
Forgotten appointments.
Missed calls.
Exhaustion.
Maybe even emotional reactions Ethan had accused me of exaggerating.
A medical record could be created.
A competency challenge.
Then my fake death if that failed.
David had built several paths toward the same result.
Control.
Ethan turned toward me.
His anger collapsed into horror.
“Sophia…”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
It was the first kindness I had given him since Kensington Hall.
And somehow it made him look more broken.
Marcus called a physician he trusted.
Blood tests showed traces of a sedative I had never been prescribed.
Not lethal.
But significant.
I sat in a private clinic wrapped in a blanket while Ethan stood across the room.
He had asked permission to come.
I said yes.
Not because I forgave him.
Because I was tired of having dangerous things hidden from me.
“You noticed I was sick,” I said.
He stared at the floor.
“Yes.”
“And what did you think?”
His throat moved.
“I thought you were depressed.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was selfish.”
I waited.
No defense came.
He continued.
“I wanted home to be easy because work was hard. When you weren’t easy anymore, I treated you like the problem.”
That answer hurt more than an excuse.
Because it was true.
“And Khloe?”
He closed his eyes.
“She made me feel admired.”
“And I didn’t?”
“You knew me.”
That surprised me.
He looked up.
“You knew when I was scared. You knew when I was pretending. You knew I wasn’t the genius everyone at work told me I was.”
“So you chose someone who only saw the performance.”
“Yes.”
I had spent eleven days wondering what Khloe possessed that I lacked.
Now I understood.
Ignorance.
She had loved the version of Ethan he wanted strangers to believe.
I had loved the man underneath.
He had punished me for seeing him clearly.
“Do you love her?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
He was quiet.
“I loved how I felt around her.”
I nodded.
“That might be worse.”
“I know.”
Marcus entered before either of us said more.
“We found the pharmacy connection.”
“Who?”
“David’s sister-in-law.”
Another link.
Another betrayal.
“But we also found something good.”
“What?”
“David made a mistake.”
He placed a bank statement in front of me.
The payments to Khloe had come from a shell company.
That company received money from an account belonging to Kensington Capital.
“We can prove theft.”
“Yes.”
“Enough to arrest him?”
“Almost.”
Almost.
I hated that word.
Then my phone rang.
My mother.
She lived mostly in Geneva and rarely called unexpectedly.
I answered.
“Mom?”
“Sophia.”
Her voice shook.
I stood immediately.
“What happened?”
“Someone came into the house.”
My blood froze.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes. Security is here.”
“What did they take?”
Silence.
“Mom?”
“Your father’s letters.”
My heart stopped.
“What letters?”
Another silence.
Then my mother said something that changed everything I knew about my marriage.
“Letters he wrote about Ethan.”
I looked toward my husband.
He was watching me.
“What about Ethan?”
May you like
My mother began crying.
“Sophia, your father knew Ethan before you ever met him.”
