The camera flash struck first—white, sharp, disorienting—but Julia didn’t blink. She stood on her own porch, rain misting her hair, a dozen phones aimed at her like weapons. The reporter closest to her pushed forward, breath clouding in the cold.
“Is it true your husband has another family abroad? A woman. A child. Valencia, Spain. Care to comment, Mrs. Bailey-Hughes?”
Julia’s pulse roared in her ears, but her face remained still. Calm. Controlled. A mask she’d learned from watching men who never wanted her to rise. She lifted her chin. “Ask him when you see him.”
Gasps murmured through the cluster. She didn’t elaborate. Her voice held the same steel she used when patching Brandon back together on nights when the world had tried to devour him. She stepped down the porch steps, refusing
