<b>Chapter </b>56
(Jasper’s POV)
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Three hourster, I sit in my office, staring at the man folder on my desk. Sarah left it exactly where I asked her to, but now I can’t bring myself to open it.
I already know everything I need to know–Lily is my daughter, and Scarlett is the woman I love. The woman I’m going to win back.
But something about Sarah’s tone when she called me earlier keeps nagging at me. The careful neutrality in her voice, like she was trying not to react to whatever she’d found.
My hands shake slightly as I flip open the folder.
The first page is a timeline of Scarlett’s life in Nashville. Apartment lease dated six months after she left. Enrollment in culinary school 3 weeks before she left. Everything looks normal.
Then I see the financial records.
My blood chills as I scan the documents. Tuition payments made by D. Cross. Rent payments from the same ount. Living expenses, all covered by Dorian Cross for the past four years.
Four years.
This means he was supporting her long before she left me? Months before she filed for
divorce?
The papers blur as I flip through them with shaking hands. Lease agreements showing them living together. Credit card statements with his name as an authorized user on her ounts. Even a joint savings ount opened two years ago.
This isn’t some new rtionship. This isn’t some rebound romance that started after she moved on.
This is a life they built together. A partnership that began long before she left.
The <i>room </i>spins around me. I grip the edge of my desk, trying to breathe through the crushing weight on my chest.
How long had she been nning this? How long had she been in contact with Dorian while we were still married?
The question forms before I can stop it, poisonous and insistent.
< Chapter 56
Was she cheating on me?
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I flip back to the beginning of the timeline, looking for any mention of Dorian before she left. And there it is, buried in a credit report–a cash advance from D. Cross dated three weeks before she disappeared.
Three weeks before I left her on the highway.
She was already nning her escape. Already had another man lined up to take care of her.
The betrayal hits me like a physical blow. All those years I thought she loved me, thought she was fighting for our marriage–she was nning her exit strategy.
She didn’t leave because I hurt her. She left because she’d already found someone better.
Someone who could give her the life she wanted. Someone who wouldn’t make her fight for
attention orpete with another woman.
My hands shake as I pull out my phone. The urge to call her, to confront her, to demand answers burns in my throat. <fn0e9e> This update is avable on find(?)ovel</fn0e9e>
But what would I say? What could she possibly tell me that would make this betrayal hurt
less?
Instead, I dial another number. One I haven’t called in months.
“Virginia?” My voicees out rough, broken. “Are you awake?”
“Jasper? What’s wrong? You sound-”
“Can youe to my office? I need…” I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t admit that I needfort from the woman Scarlett always saw as a threat.
“I’ll be right there.”
The line goes dead, and I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
Four years. Four years I’ve been torturing myself, believing I drove away the woman I loved. Four years I’ve been searching, hoping, working on how I’d fix our marriage.
Four
years, and she was with him the whole time.
Building a life with him. Letting him raise my daughter.
My daughter. Does Lily call Dorian daddy? I hope not. If so, I don’t know what I’ll do to
Scarlett.
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The documents scatter as I sweep them off my desk in a rage that burns through me like wildfire. Papers float to the floor like snow, carrying the evidence of Scarlett’s ultimate betrayal.
She yed me, made me believe I was the viin while she was the victim.
Made me believe she loved me when she was already nning a future with someone else.
The office door opens, and Virginia’s worried face appears.
“Jasper? Oh my God, what happened?”
I look at her–this woman I’ve known since childhood, who’s never lied to me, never betrayed me–and realize she was right about Scarlett all along.
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