Chapter 2

Blake traveled for work.

That was what we called the weeks he wasn't home. Conferences. Clients. Problems only he could solve.

Three families. One calendar.

Jules recognized him fully when she bent to look at another photograph. I shook my head, and she understood.

“I'm going to kill him,” she whispered.

“Stand here. Listen.”

People loved my husband. He remembered anniversaries, carried grocery bags, and told his mother to be kind to me. Our friends joked that I had him trained.

Apparently I had only been given the version of him that lived at my address.

The other woman introduced herself while demanding answers: Candace Roth. She called herself Mrs. Kincaid and began asking how much Brielle had taken from her household.

Someone in the crowd told her to get a lawyer.

“Find out where the money went,” the woman advised. “Fighting her won't tell you what he's hidden.”

Candace seized on that.

“How much has he spent on you?”

Brielle lifted her chin.

“My boys have houses held for them. Trust accounts. Private school. You think he gives that to somebody who doesn't matter?”

Candace's mouth tightened.

“Money doesn't make you his wife.”

“Neither does saying it louder.”

Jules started to speak. I gripped her wrist again.

I wanted to hear everything they knew before either realized I had a reason to know it, too.

The handbags. The jewelry. The cars they described. All the things Blake said we didn't need.

There was no answer in how either woman looked. Betrayal wasn't a beauty contest. He hadn't betrayed me because somebody else had won.

He had simply decided I didn't need to know what kind of game he was playing.