“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re about to say.”
Claire looked between them.
“Nathaniel?”
He did not want to be the person who told a woman recovering from emergency surgery that her husband might also be unfaithful.
But Damon had already lied to her face.
“I saw them together tonight,” Nathaniel said.
Damon laughed once.
“At a business event.
Brilliant detective work.”
Nathaniel ignored him.
“They went into the private corridor together.
When Damon came back, she didn’t.”
Claire’s face went still.
Damon pointed toward the door.
“Get out.”
Nathaniel left.
He had offered what he knew and nothing more.
The rest exposed itself.
The next afternoon, Damon’s assistant came to Mercy Harbor carrying a garment bag and a folder Damon had ordered her to deliver.
She walked into Claire’s room expecting Damon to be there.
He wasn’t.
Claire was.
The woman froze.
Claire noticed the hotel key sleeve protruding from the side pocket of the folder.
Fairmont Chicago.
One room number.
Claire’s eyes lifted.
“Were you staying there last night?”
The assistant went pale.
“Mrs.
Westbrook—”
“Answer me.”
The woman’s mouth trembled.
“Damon said you knew.”
Claire felt colder than she had during the ambulance ride.
“Knew what?”
The assistant stared toward the floor.
That was the answer.
Claire asked one more question.
“How long?”
“Almost a year.”
Seven months and three weeks pregnant.
Almost a year.
Claire turned her face toward the window.
The assistant began crying and insisted Damon had told her the marriage existed only for appearances, that Claire and he had privately separated, that after the twins were born he would make everything official.
None of it was true.
When Damon arrived, Claire had the hotel sleeve on the table beside her.
Nathaniel happened to be outside the NICU with Amelia when Damon’s voice rose down the hallway.
“You searched through my employee’s belongings?”
Claire answered without raising hers.
“She told me.”
Silence followed.
Then Damon made the mistake that ended the marriage.
He didn’t apologize.
He blamed her.
