Claimed By Rival

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Harriet's POV

"Your husband is sleeping with my fiancée.

"My glass cup slipped. Water went everywhere, the tablecloth, my lap, and I didn't even reach for a napkin. I kept looking at Adrian Vale and waiting for the corner of his mouth to twitch so I could laugh with relief, but his face stayed exactly as it was.

"Mr. Vale, that’s not funny." It came out thin, and I pressed my hands between my knees to stop them shaking.

"I wish it were a joke. Three weeks ago I walked into Wilbert's office and found them, and I stood there telling myself the same thing."

I could hear my pulse in my ears. The sensible part of me said to get up and leave before he went any further, but I stayed in the chair."Found them where?"

"On his desk. The door was open a few inches and they never noticed me."

He did not look away, even when I flinched. "Claire was on her back and your husband was inside her."

I laughed. It didn't sound like me. My mouth was dry and my chest had gone tight, and still I waited for him to take it back."No. Wilbert loves me. He would never do that to me."

"That is what I thought about Claire, then I found out it had been going on for two years."

Two years. The room tilted. I held onto the table . Adrian took out his phone and turned it toward me. The photo showed Wilbert and Claire in a dark corner of some club, her hand on his face and his mouth against her neck, and the date under it was only last week.

I pushed the phone back across the table. Around us waiters were carrying plates and couples were laughing over their wine. Nobody looked at me. My whole life was falling apart and the waiters just kept walking.

"Wilbert was away on business last week," I said. "He called me every night.

"I could still hear those calls, his voice tired and warm as he asked about my day and told me he missed me.

"He is very careful," Adrian said. "Just like Claire.

"I sat there trying to get air into my lungs. Claire was my sister, and Wilbert was the man who brought me flowers every Friday and kissed my forehead every morning before he left for work.

Then little things I had ignored for months began falling into place. There were the late nights at the office and the sudden trips, and the way Claire always knew exactly what Wilbert liked to eat and laughed a little too easily whenever he was near. At Sunday dinners in her house she always sat beside him and touched his arm when she laughed, and I’d called it sisterly. I actually said that to myself, Sisterly. Now the memory made me feel sick.

"I did not come here to hurt you." For the first time his voice cracked, and I noticed the bags under his eyes and the tie he had not bothered to straighten. He looked like a man who had not slept in weeks. "I came because I could not stand knowing you were the only one still sitting in the dark."

"I need to go home." It was barely a whisper, but he heard it and nodded slowly.

"Then go, but hear this first. If you still do not believe me, meet me tomorrow at six and I will show you something that leaves no doubt."

"What could you possibly show me?"

"Something you would never find on your own. Come alone and tell no one."

I drove home gripping the wheel so hard that my fingers ached. At a red light I caught my face in the mirror and hardly recognised it. That morning I had hummed in the kitchen while I packed Wilbert's lunch, and now every memory of him felt like a set built to fool me. I thought about pulling over to call Claire and listen to the lie in her voice, but I knew I would not be able to get a word out.

By the time I turned onto our street I had planned a hundred ways to scream at him and could not choose one. When his car pulled into the driveway that evening I put a smile on my face and went downstairs to meet him.

He kissed both my cheeks and pulled me into a hug, and the smell of his cologne, the one I had bought him last Christmas, almost convinced me I had dreamed the whole afternoon.

"How was your day, baby?"

"Fine." The lie came out smoother than I expected, and I held him tighter so he could not see my face.

"How is Claire doing at the office?"

His body went rigid for half a second. If I had not been pressed against his chest I would have missed it. Then the perfect smile came back."She is fine. Working hard, as always. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. You just seem tired lately." I kept my voice light.

He kissed my forehead the way he always did, and my skin crawled under his lips. "I am exhausted. I have a big meeting with a client tomorrow, so I really need to rest, my love."

He went upstairs without looking back. I stayed in the hallway watching him go and wondering how a man could hold his wife so gently while he slept with her sister for two years.

That night I lay awake listening to his slow, steady breathing. His arm lay across the blanket a few inches from mine, heavy and foreign to me, and each time I closed my eyes I saw Claire's hand on his face. The ceiling above me stayed dark, and I counted the minutes by the clock on the nightstand until I lost track of them.

Years ago I had told Claire that the worst thing a person could do was lie to someone who trusted them, and she had squeezed my hand and agreed. Now I wanted to shake Wilbert awake and scream the truth into his face, but Adrian's words kept coming back to me, come alone and tell no one, so I stayed silent and lay still.

Somewhere past midnight his phone lit up on the nightstand. I told myself not to look, and then I looked anyway, because some part of me already knew.

The message came from a contact saved only as C, and the preview was one short line.

Is she asleep yet?

Not even my name. Just “she”.

Then the screen went dark, and beside me the breathing that had been slow and steady a moment ago stopped completely.

"I know you are awake, Harriet."