Page 197 of Homewrecker

My eyes burned. “No.”

He nodded slowly. “Why?”

I could’ve lied, but I didn’t.

“Because I wanted to believe him. I didn’t want anything to ruin the delusion that I lived in.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

“At the time, I told myself it was because it wasn’t my place. That their marriage was their business.”

I shook my head. “But looking back I didn’t ask because I was scared she’d tell me everything I didn’t want to hear.”

Nash stared at me. “And she did?”

“Yes, when we finally spoke.”

“What did she say?”

“That she didn’t know about me.”

His eyes closed. “She thought they were happily married?”

“Not happily the entire time, but she thought they’d worked through them.”

“Damn.”

“I know.”

Nash rubbed his jaw. “And you stayed for three years.”

“Yes.”

His eyes came back to mine. “Why?”

“I loved him, and I was delusional.”

My voice cracked. “Both things can be true.”

He nodded, just listening.

“The more time I invested, the harder it became to admit that I’d built my life around a lie.”

I wiped my face. “Every time something didn’t make sense, he had an explanation. And every explanation was easier to believe than admitting I had knowingly spent years helping someone hurt his wife.”

Nash was quiet.

“I lost friends. My reputation got fucked up. Clients stopped hiring me. Women didn’t want me around their husbands. People whispered when I walked into rooms.”

I laughed bitterly. “They called me everything, but the one that stuck was homewrecker. For years, that became my name before my actual fucking name.”

I looked down. “And the worst part was that I couldn’t even defend myself.”

“Why not?”

“Because what was I going to say?”

I looked at him. “He lied to me?”