Unless…
No…No way…
My mind replays every conversation I’ve ever had with the nanny, searching for clues, trying to make sense of it all.
Past the deafening white noise playing inside my head, I hear the front door open and bang shut again. I hear Callie giggling as she runs through the house, calling for me. I hear Jessa laughing right along with her, telling her to take off her raincoat so she doesn’t trail a wet mess across the now-dry floor.
I can’t move.
The rage that’s building inside me is all too familiar. Once again, I’ve been betrayed. Betrayed by a woman I’m in love with. Betrayed by a woman who used my daughter to get close to me.
The words of Gramps’s favorite book blare in my head. To know who will betray you most devastatingly, look to the one you trust most ardently.
I cannot fucking move.
Footsteps sound in the hallway, drawing closer until they enter the bedroom. I remain crouched on the floor, clutching my intimate letters in two angry fists.
The moment she enters the room, I feel her in here. I’d feel her anywhere. I feel her watching me, and it takes every last bit of strength to lift my head and meet her eyes.
Her wide, beautiful, deceitful eyes.
Those eyes tell me everything I need to know.
52 Jessa
We get in from the rain, shivering and dripping wet. I suggest some hot cocoa and storybooks in front of the fireplace but Callie wants to surprise her father with a messy, wet bear hug first. It was all her idea. I agreed to go along with it since I’m a sucker for Eli’s big booming laugh and the way his eyes twinkle with mirth each time we pull a prank on him. I’m in love with the playful energy around the house. It’s just happy. It feels like a home.
I know he’s running late for work, dealing with some leaky spots throughout the house. I’d wanted to stay inside and help him clean up the mess, but he said it would be a bigger help to get Callie outdoors, so he could get finished and off to work faster.
He wasn't in the living room or the kitchen when we burst through the front door, so Callie and I decided to split up to tag team against him. Divide and conquer. She’s searching for him in the basement while I head off toward the bedrooms.
Several man-sized wet footprints lead a path down the hallway. The door to my room is standing wide open.
I pause just outside. I know that Callie was hoping to be the one to locate her daddy first but I can’t resist my anticipation to catch Eli, to hold him in my own soggy embrace and feel his body heat radiating through my damp clothes. Sorry, Cal.
The sky is dense with heavy clouds, hiding the sun and darkening the bedroom. Only my twinkling string lights offer illumination in the cozy space. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust and focus on Eli. There he is. My pulse quickens. A grin teases my lips, but it falls just as quickly when I take in exactly what is happening.
Eli is crouched down on the floor next to my bed. Surrounded by paper. So much paper. Trial transcripts. Court judgments. Police reports.
My letters.
My private letters clutched in his hands.
No, no, no.
The pit of my belly drops to the floor. My chest is burning when I force myself to meet his gaze. His expression scorches me like acid, especially knowing that my actions caused the sting of betrayal I see on his face.
The optimistic part of me makes a quick appearance, desperately searching for the silver lining. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe we can put the secrets behind us now. Maybe the truth will set us free of the lies that have been caging us both.
One look at those dark, stormy eyes, and I know there’s no silver lining here.
Only hellfire. Only fury. Only hate.
Feet glued to the floor, I curl my fingers into fists at my side. “Eli, w-what are you doing?”
His gaze skims over me, like he’s seeing me for the very first time, with fresh eyes. But it’s clear that he doesn’t like what he sees.
Slowly, he rises to his feet, the letters all balled up in his hands. “You’re…you’re Monica…?”
His words come out like a question but I don’t answer him. He already knows. No point in denying it. Nothing I could say could justify it.
I wish like hell it hadn’t come out like this. I’d wanted to tell him all along. Especially after we’d started getting closer. But it never felt like the right time. The walls between us had finally started crumbling down, and I didn’t want this truth to create a new one.
Like it’s doing now.
Shaking with a dozen different emotions, I start to cry. I press my lips into a thin line. “You have no right to just barge in here like this and go through my stuff. It’s an invasion of my privacy,” I bite. My words are spiked with anger but I’m no idiot. I know the only person I can be mad at is myself.
This isn’t how I wanted to tell him. Sopping wet and cold. Dripping on the floor like a drowned rat. Knowing I betrayed him and that I don’t have a chance in hell of convincing him otherwise.
His head rears back. “An invasion of your privacy?” He takes wide angry strides toward me until he’s towering over me. “You’re holding onto a stack of my letters. Letters, where I spilled my entire fucking soul to a woman I trusted. And you’re trying to lecture me about invading your privacy?!”
Blinking through my tears, I’m trying to figure out the right words to say to the man I’m
