Page 29 of Too Good to Be True

“Oh, right.” He must have thought she was losing her mind, which was a real possibility. Some might attribute it to aging, but in this case, there was the added element called Nick.

How had this happened? She’d just made plans with her student, aka Fran’s nephew, the man she was supposed to keep at arm’s length.

“Well, we should probably get going and let someone else sit here,” Nick said as he gathered up their trash.

So polite. Plus, he liked McDonald’s and donuts but didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. He was too good to be true.

Now there was an angle she hadn’t considered. Maybe he really was too good to be true. Maybe she’d raised him up in her mind because she’d been comparing him to Cole this whole time. Just about any man would seem like a dreamboat next to Cole, especially after what he’d done.

Surely, Nick had flaws just like the next guy—flaws that would reveal themselves in time. He must have some obnoxious habits or skeletons in his closet, although he hadn’t been around long enough to accumulate too many skeletons. Still, you never knew about people. He could have been a drug dealer in Florida, and he’d moved here to escape the law. Or he might be an FBI agent working undercover. Right, and part of his cover is eating donuts and helping you with yardwork!

They walked out of the restaurant and paused on the sidewalk.

“See you tomorrow,” she said.

“Yep. See you then.”

Ohmigod! He’d just said the title of the book she was reading. It was the same phrase Jason used whenever he said goodbye to Samantha. That cinched it. Nick was just like a book boyfriend—too good to be true!

Eight

The first thing Stacy did when she got home was strip her bed. She found it cathartic, which was why she’d done it so often since the divorce. Still, the bed reminded her of everything that had gone wrong in her marriage. It was there that she’d discovered Cole’s affair and confronted him for the first time. She remembered that night as if it were yesterday…

Cole had fallen asleep before her and was snoring when she heard his phone ping. He didn’t usually bring his phone into the bedroom at night, so she’d been surprised to hear it. The sound had been muffled, and when it pinged again, she realized it was coming from his closet.

He must have left the phone in his pants pocket when he’d changed for bed. While she could have ignored it, she didn’t want to be continually disrupted by notifications throughout the night. When the phone pinged a third time, she decided to get up and silence it. Then she’d take it downstairs and set it next to his wallet on the kitchen counter.

She quietly climbed out of bed, though his snoring had increased, and he slept like the dead. She opened the door to his closet and saw his discarded work clothes on the floor. Soon after marrying him, she’d discovered how different they were in many ways, this being one of them. While her closet was neatly organized (she’d considered color-coding her clothes but decided that might be going overboard), his was a disaster. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and she wondered how he ever found things, jammed together like they were, if they made it onto hangers at all.

When she picked up his dress pants, the phone buzzed again. It was then that she felt a warning tingle down her spine. At first, she thought something might be wrong with one of his family members, but they probably would have called instead of texted. Then she considered it might be his younger brother sending him funny memes like he often did. It was after ten o’clock, though, and Cole and his brother usually texted each other earlier in the evening.

She decided it must be work-related since Cole was a financial advisor and his clients contacted him at all hours of the day and night. She wasn’t much for numbers, nor did she understand everything he did, but he seemed to love his job. Maybe one of his clients was panicking over some stock options.

In any case, she felt compelled to glance at the screen to discern whether the messages were important enough to wake him. She hesitated, though, thinking the messages might be something else, something she wasn’t ready to admit to herself.

Lately, something had been off with her husband. He’d seemed more distracted than usual, edgier, and hard to reach. He’d come home from work, eat dinner, watch some TV, and then head off to bed with or without her. When she’d questioned him about it, he’d blamed it on being stressed at work. His answer seemed reasonable, so she’d decided to let it go, but their relationship had become increasingly strained.

That was why she hesitated to look at the phone. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see what was there, afraid of what he might be hiding. When the phone pinged again, she pulled it out of his pants pocket and peered at the screen.

She read the text message in the dark, the letters glowing and burning into her retinas.

I can’t stop thinking about you. I miss you and can’t wait to see you tomorrow. XXX

The sender was identified only by the capital letter D.

Who was D? Had she sent this message to Cole by mistake? If Stacy could see the previous messages, she might have her answer, but she could only see the most recent one. Amidst the swirl of emotions, she remembered Cole had recently upgraded his phone and might have chosen a new password.

They used to share everything, including passwords to their laptops and cell phones, but he hadn’t said a word about it this time. To test her theory, she swiped up on the screen and entered his old password on the number pad.

Incorrect password. Please try again.

Since her hands were shaking, she slowly reentered the same passcode and received the same error message. He’d changed the code and hadn’t told her.

Taking a deep breath, she stared at the screen and waited for D to send another message, something that might reveal her identity. However, the screen went black and silent, unlike the pounding in her head.

Stacy was known for her calm, level-headed demeanor, but right then, she felt exactly the opposite. Still clutching his phone, she stalked over to Cole’s side of the bed and jabbed his shoulder with her elbow. She must have done it harder than she’d intended because he sat straight up and shouted, “Ow! What the hell!”

“You tell me.”