I turned toward him slowly. His voice cracked.
“I can explain.”
The officer handed me his card.
“I’ll give you both a moment. Mrs. Patterson, call me when you’re ready.”
When the door closed behind him, the house became painfully quiet. Not peaceful. Just quiet enough for the truth to stand between us.
“How long?” I asked.
Trevor pressed his hands together like a man praying inside a church he had already burned.
“Simone—”
“How long have you been with her?”
His face collapsed.
“Fourteen months.”
Fourteen months. More than a year. While I worked sixty-hour weeks at the marketing firm to help pay our mortgage. While I planned our anniversary trip and sat across from him at dinner asking if we should start trying for a baby soon. I laughed, but it did not sound like me.
“And you gave her my car.”
“She needed to get somewhere,” he said weakly. “I didn’t think you’d be home until Friday.”
“She needed my Mercedes?”
His silence answered. Something inside me went still. Not broken. Not hysterical. Still. Trevor had not only betrayed our marriage. He had handed another woman the keys to something I had built for myself, then expected me to swallow the damage quietly. But he forgot one thing. The car was in my name. The insurance was in my name. And the woman he let drive it had no permission from me.
So while Trevor begged me not to make things worse, I picked up the officer’s card and reached for my phone. Candace Thompson had totaled my Mercedes. But Trevor was about to learn I was done letting people wreck my life and walk away with the keys.
