Chapter 13
Olivia
Olivia looked across the small desk at Claire and Sophie. The slice of Hannah’s favorite blueberry crumb pie sat between them, untouched. The warm, comforting ease that had filled the office just minutes ago was gone, replaced by a suffocating chill.
She understood exactly what James was doing.
He had reached her friends first, carefully selecting what to say and what to omit.
He was building a narrative. He was making her sound emotional and erratic.
He was making himself sound heartbroken and deeply reasonable.
Worst of all, James was turning the women she loved into messengers for his version of the truth.
"You don't know everything that happened," Olivia said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "Even I don't know everything yet."
Sophie leaned forward, her expression full of gentle, misplaced pity. "I know there are two sides to every story, Liv. But James told us Leo is actively trying to keep you from coming home to talk to him. You have to consider that Leo isn't exactly impartial in this situation."
Olivia froze. A cold prickle washed over the back of her neck. "What do you mean by that?"
Sophie and Claire exchanged a brief, loaded look. The glance hurt Olivia before either of them even opened their mouths.
"Liv," Sophie started softly, "it's kind of obvious that Leo still has feelings for you."
Olivia stared at them in absolute disbelief. "That sounds exactly like something James invented to deflect attention from what he actually did."
"No, that part isn't James's invention," Claire said gently. "We've noticed it for years, Olivia. Since college, really."
Sophie nodded in agreement. "It was always obvious. But because Leo never crossed a line, and because he always respected your marriage and stayed a good friend to both of us, we just never felt the need to bring it up beyond a passing comment in the past."
The revelation threw Olivia completely off balance.
The idea disrupted the one relationship she thought she understood perfectly.
Leo had always just been Leo. Her anchor.
Her safe place. The person who showed up, brought fresh herbs to her kitchen, made her laugh, and stayed constant.
The suggestion that everyone else saw a deeper, unspoken layer that she had been completely blind to unsettled her to her core.
But as the shock rippled through her, a fiercer, sharper instinct took over. She refused to let James turn the conversation away from his own actions.
"Even if that were true," Olivia said, her voice dropping into a hard, uncompromising tone, "it has nothing to do with what James did."
"We aren't excusing James," Claire said quickly.
"We just want you to be careful," Sophie added.
"James wants you to focus on Leo," Olivia countered, looking them both in the eyes, "because Leo is a lot easier to question than a folder full of proof."
The line landed heavily in the small office. Sophie and Claire fell silent.
Olivia took a deep, shuddering breath. She was hurt, but she refused to be cold to them.
"I cannot tell you everything yet, but because I am still trying to understand the full extent of the damage myself.
But I know what James tried to convince me to ignore.
I did not leave my home because Leo told me to.
I left because James broke something I do not know how to fix. "
She looked at the two women who had stood by her through so much of her life.
"I need you to trust me. I am not acting rashly.
I am not being manipulated by Leo. I am not punishing James over a simple misunderstanding.
" She paused, letting the weight of her next words sink in.
"I need you to trust that I know the difference between being upset and being unsafe in my own marriage. "
That stopped them. Sophie’s shoulders slumped, and Claire looked down at her hands.
"I'm sorry, Liv," Sophie murmured, though the apology felt tangled in lingering confusion. "We didn't mean to hurt you. James just sounded worried. We wanted to make sure you weren't isolating yourself."
Olivia’s heart ached. She realized how masterfully James had framed it. He hadn't gone to them saying, I need help controlling Olivia. He had gone to them saying, I am worried Olivia is being isolated. The insidious nature of the lie made him feel vastly more dangerous in her mind.
The atmosphere in the office remained strained.
Claire tried to change the subject, asking a quiet question about the bakery, and Sophie made a weak comment about saving the pie for later.
But the ease was irreparably bruised. They were still her friends, but Olivia realized with a heavy heart that she could not rely on them to understand until she was ready to lay the physical proof on the table.
They did not stay much longer. When they left, they pulled Olivia into tight hugs.
"I love you," Sophie whispered into her hair.
"Call us if you need anything at all," Claire added.
"I will," Olivia promised, though she didn't know if she meant it.
After the front door chimed shut, Olivia stood alone near the back counter, trying to breathe through the deep, throbbing ache in her chest.
Her hurt quickly hardened into resolve. James was moving pieces behind the scenes while she was simply trying to survive the fallout.
He had gone to her friends. He had questioned Leo’s motives.
He had made her sound unstable to protect his own image.
He wasn't waiting for her to come back; he was actively building the story that would make people doubt her if she didn't.
She was done letting him speak for her.
She wanted to go to him and lay down the law. She wanted him to know, to his face, that he did not get to use her friends, her newfound confusion about Leo, or her fear of being judged as tools to pull her back under his thumb.
Her first instinct was to reach for her phone and text Leo. But her hand stopped halfway to her apron pocket.
She could already hear James’s smug accusation echoing in her head: Leo is influencing you. Leo is keeping you away. Leo is telling you what to do.
Olivia pulled her hand back. She needed to do this herself. It was risky, and the thought of facing James alone made her stomach twist with anxiety, but she needed to reclaim her own agency. She decided she would go to the house, pick up more of her clothes, and face him if he happened to be there.
She did not expect him to be home. He hadn't been home before nine o'clock in months. That was exactly why she chose to go now. She could get in, gather her things, wait for him in the living room, and prepare herself for one final, clear conversation.
Not a conversation where he told her what she was feeling, or where he explained what she had misunderstood. A real conversation, where she told him exactly what she knew and exactly what she would never accept again.
Olivia walked into the kitchen and untied her apron.
"I need to leave early," she told Maria, grabbing her purse.
Maria wiped her hands on a towel, her brow furrowing as she took in Olivia's tense posture. "Is everything okay? Do you want me to call Leo?"
"No," Olivia said, a little too fast.
Maria noticed the sharp edge in her voice, but she didn't push. She just gave a firm nod. "Be careful, Liv."
"I promise I will."
Before walking out the back door, Olivia checked her phone.
There were two missed calls from James and a text from Leo asking if she needed a ride home later.
She locked the screen without answering.
She wasn't shutting Leo out; she just desperately needed one decision that belonged only to her.
She was choosing herself over the feeling that every man in her life was trying to dictate what happened next.
***
The drive to her neighborhood was agonizingly tense. Every familiar street sign felt like a mocking reminder of the life she thought she had. She thought about the woman she was just a week ago—the woman who used to drive this exact route believing she understood her marriage.
When she pulled onto her street and approached the house, her foot hit the brake.
James’s car was parked in the driveway.
Olivia stared at it through the windshield.
Her pulse drummed loudly in her ears. He hadn't been home this early in months.
Not once. There was always a late meeting, a client dinner, or a corporate emergency that kept him away until long after she had stopped waiting up.
Seeing the sleek silver car sitting there in the late afternoon sun felt inherently wrong.
For a second, her hands gripped the steering wheel, and she wondered if she should put the car in reverse and leave.
Then she forced herself to exhale. Maybe this was better. She didn't have to sit on the sofa and wait for the dread to build. She could get this over with right now.
She turned off the engine, grabbed her purse, and walked up the front steps.
She pulled her keys from her bag. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, her thumb tracing the familiar grooves of the metal. This used to be her haven. Now, sliding the key into the deadbolt felt like trespassing.
The lock clicked. Olivia pushed the door open and stepped into the foyer.
At first glance, the house looked painfully ordinary.
The sunlight slanted through the living room windows, illuminating the dust motes in the air.
The framed photos from their vacations still sat perfectly aligned on the console table.
Nothing about the quiet, immaculate space announced that her life had been ripped apart.
Then, she heard it.
A muffled sound echoing from the second floor.
At first, her mind simply refused to process it. She stood frozen by the front door, listening.
It came again. The heavy, rhythmic thud of the headboard hitting the drywall.
A woman's breathless moan.
Olivia went completely still at the foot of the stairs. For one impossible, agonizing second, her body locked up. Her hand stayed wrapped in a white-knuckle grip around the strap of her purse. Her brain scrambled to reject what her ears were picking up.
No. Not here. Not in our house. Not in our bed.
But the sounds did not stop. They grew louder. Another high, hitching moan.
Then, a man's low, rough groan.
James's voice.
That was what finally made her move. She didn't run.
She didn't march up with righteous fury.
Her feet climbed the carpeted stairs mechanically, driven by some terrible, self-destructive part of her soul that needed to see the absolute truth with her own eyes before James could ever try to turn it into another lie.
Each step felt detached from reality. The air in the hallway felt too thin to breathe.
She reached the top of the landing.
The master bedroom door was wide open.
Olivia stopped in the doorway. Inside the room she had meticulously decorated, on the sheets she had washed, in the bed she had shared with her husband for five years, Olivia saw the scene that destroyed the final, fragile sliver of hope she hadn't even realized she was still holding onto.
Olivia stood paralyzed in the doorway, the sound of her own heartbeat deafening in her ears, finally understanding that the forged signature and the stolen money were not the only things her husband had betrayed.