“I know.”
“What if he used it to build a life with another woman?”
Tessa went silent again.
Finally she said, “Then we find out before you give him the chance to explain it away.”
For twelve days, I behaved like a woman who trusted her husband.
Every morning, Marcus kissed me goodbye.
Every evening, he came home, asked about my day, helped Sophie with homework, and talked about our honeymoon plans.
I studied him constantly.
Was he checking his phone more often?
Had he started dressing differently?
Did he smell like someone else’s perfume?
The problem was that once suspicion enters a marriage, everything begins to look like evidence.
Meanwhile, Tessa and I searched public business records.
C. Rowan Property Holdings led us to a recently purchased property about forty-five minutes outside Asheville.
Eleven acres.
Original farmhouse.
Detached barn.
A creek along the eastern boundary.
The sale had closed less than two months earlier.
The ownership structure was buried behind an LLC.
I stared at the property listing until my vision blurred.
Eleven acres.
A farmhouse.
A barn.
It looked disturbingly close to the dream I had spent ten years saving for.
Except I wasn’t part of it.
That Saturday morning, Marcus put on jeans and a charcoal jacket.
“Supplier meeting?” I asked casually.
“Something like that.”
Something like that.
He kissed my cheek.
Then he looked at Sophie.
