Chapter 7 - The Marriage They Used as Bait
Alex stared at the document for nearly a minute.
Then he placed it on the table.
“Nancy, explain this.”
She folded her hands.
“It's just paperwork.”
“My signature is on paperwork I never signed.”
“Maybe you forgot.”
He looked at her in disbelief.
“Don't insult me.”
Sean interrupted.
“Everybody needs to calm down.”
Alex turned toward him.
“No. You don't get to tell me to calm down while I'm looking at a forged document.”
I watched Alex's hands.
They were trembling.
Not with rage.
With the terrible realization that someone he loved had treated his trust as something she could exploit.
Nancy finally spoke.
“You agreed to the arrangement.”
“I agreed to discuss it,” Alex replied. “Because you told me Rachel had suggested it.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Nancy had told him the same lie Sean had told me, only in reverse.
Each of us was supposed to believe the other person wanted this.
Neither of us was meant to ask too many questions.
“Alex,” I said gently, “I never suggested swapping spouses.”
He looked at me.
“I believe you now.”
Nancy's face hardened.
“Both of you are acting like children. Plenty of couples try unconventional arrangements.”
“Then why lie about it?” Alex asked.
She didn't answer.
Lena turned another page.
“The consent document wasn't intended to make the property transfer legally valid. It was designed to support a story Sean and Nancy could use if their arrangement was questioned.”
I frowned.
“What story?”
Lena looked at Sean.
“That both marriages were already unstable and that everyone had willingly agreed to live separately.”
Sean crossed his arms.
“That's ridiculous.”
“Is it?” I asked.
He looked at me.
I continued.
“You wanted Alex here while you went off with Nancy. You wanted people to believe I had agreed to everything.”
“Because you did agree.”
“After you and Nancy lied to both of us.”
His jaw tightened.
Then Alex asked the question I had been avoiding.
“How long have you two been involved?”
Nancy's eyes filled with tears.
“Alex—”
“How long?”
She looked at Sean.
It was a small movement.
But it answered more than a thousand words could have.
Sean stared at the carpet.
I felt the room tilt beneath me.
“Just tell us,” I whispered.
Finally, Sean spoke.
“Eight months.”
The words struck me harder than I expected.
Eight months.
Eight months of lies.
Eight months of private messages.
Eight months of my best friend smiling across my dinner table while secretly sharing a relationship with my husband.
Alex sank into his chair.
Nancy began crying.
“Alex, it wasn't supposed to happen.”
He gave a bitter laugh.
“For eight months?”
“We were both unhappy.”
“Then you should have talked to me.”
I looked at Sean.
“Did you ever plan to tell me?”
He didn't answer.
I knew what that meant.
Lena quietly removed several business-expense records.
“These hotel charges were submitted through Bennett Renovations as travel expenses.”
Sean closed his eyes.
I recognized the dates.
One was our wedding anniversary.
He had told me he was meeting a supplier in Richmond.
I had eaten dinner alone that evening.
Another was the weekend of my birthday.
He had sent flowers and apologized for being out of town.
Now I knew where he had been.
And with whom.
I looked at Nancy.
“On my birthday?”
She covered her mouth.
“Rachel, I'm sorry.”
I shook my head.
“No. You're sorry I found out.”
Sean suddenly stood.
“Enough. I'm not sitting here being interrogated.”
He grabbed his suitcase handle.
I stepped toward the front door.
“You're free to leave, Sean. But those papers aren't going anywhere.”
He glared at me.
“You think you can destroy my business over a misunderstanding?”
“I'm not the one who forged documents.”
Lena gathered the pages.
“And I'm not the one who submitted them.”
Alex turned to Nancy.
“I'm going to stay with my sister tonight.”
Nancy reached for him.
“Alex, please don't leave me.”
He gently pulled his hand away.
“I need time to understand what you've done.”
Then he looked at me.
“Rachel, I'm sorry I didn't speak to you directly before agreeing to any of this.”
For the first time that evening, someone's apology sounded genuine.
I nodded.
“Thank you.”
Sean opened the front door.
Nancy followed him, still crying.
But before stepping outside, she turned back toward Lena.
“You had no right to bring those records here.”
Lena's expression remained steady.
“I had every right to tell Rachel the truth about documents you asked me to approve.”
Nancy's eyes flashed.
Then she made the mistake that exposed just how deliberate their scheme had been.
“You weren't supposed to find out before Monday!”
She froze.
Sean slowly turned toward her.
And I looked at both of them.
Because those words confirmed something even worse than the affair.
May you like
They had never intended to give us a week to decide anything.
They had intended to finish their secret business before we discovered what they were doing.
