The thought of his innocent face, waiting for his father to come back, shatters me all over again. Tears slip down my cheeks.
By the time the plane lands, I’m barely holding myself together.
The moment I step out of the terminal, my mother with my son Liam rushes toward me. One look at me, and she knows. She pulls me into her arms, her warmth the only thing keeping me from collapsing completely.
"He was never mine," I whisper brokenly. "Ethan… he’s someone else’s husband."
My mother stiffens, her grip tightening around me. She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t say, I told you so.
***
Two weeks.
Two weeks of drowning in my own misery.
Two weeks of holding my son close, pretending everything is fine, while inside, I am nothing but a hollowed-out corpse of the woman I used to be.
Then, on a stormy evening, the devil returns.
A sleek black car pulls into the driveway, its headlights cutting through the darkness like a warning.
I freeze on the porch, my grip tightening around the mug in my hands. My mother steps out behind me, already sensing the storm brewing.
The car door opens. And there he is. Ethan Caldwell. The man who destroyed me.