Chapter 15 - The Fracture of 2018
When David walked through the front door an hour later, he didn't even drop his briefcase. He took one look at the security team stationed in the foyer, one look at my pale, rigid face, and dropped everything to the floor.
“Where is Eleanor?” he demanded, his face devoid of color.
“She’s upstairs with Mrs. Gable, reading,” I replied, my voice dangerously steady. “Come into the library, David.”
He followed me without a word. On the central mahogany table lay the silver box, the card, and the framed photograph with the lipstick inscription.
David stopped dead in his tracks. When his eyes locked onto the photograph, his entire body seized. A look of gut-wrenching horror and shame washed across his features—a look I had never seen on his face in ten years of knowing him.
“Claire...” His voice broke. It was a sound of sheer agony.
“Lake Geneva. Summer of 2018,” I said, standing behind the table, my arms crossed over my chest. The jade pebble felt like a burning ember against my skin. “When we took that six-month break because your father was pressuring you to marry within the old Chicago social register. You told me you spent that summer in isolation at your family cabin, clearing your head.”
David sank onto the sofa, burying his face in his trembling hands. His broad shoulders shook.
“I didn't lie about being alone for most of it, Claire,” he whispered, his voice muffled by his palms. “I swear to you on Eleanor’s life. But she... Victoria found out where I was. She showed up during the third week of July. She brought two cases of wine. She stayed for three days.”
The room went deathly still. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner sounded like sledgehammers against concrete.
“Did you sleep with her, David?” I asked.
The question hung between us, heavy and lethal. Everything—our marriage, the river sanctuary, the empire we had defended together—balanced on the edge of a razor.
David looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, swimming with tears of absolute torment, but he met my gaze without flinching.
“No. Claire, on my soul, *no*.” He stood up, closing the distance between us until he was inches away, though he didn't dare touch me without permission. “She tried. She slipped into my bed naked on the second night. I got up, took my keys, and slept in my truck by the marina. The next morning, I told her to leave. When she refused, I packed my things and left her there alone. That photograph was taken on the first evening, when she insisted on taking a picture to send to a friend.”
He reached out, his hand hovering near my cheek, trembling with raw desperation. “I never told you because it was the most humiliating, pathetic weekend of my life. I was miserable without you. I realized that weekend that nobody else on this earth could ever fill your space. Two weeks later, I came back to your apartment in Lincoln Park and begged you to marry me.”
“And you kept that secret for six years,” I said, my voice quiet, though the ice in my chest began to thaw under the unmistakable truth in his eyes.
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“Because I was a coward,” David choked out. “Because I was afraid that if you knew she had even breathed the same air as me while we were apart, you would look at me the way you looked at her at the Oakridge Club. Like I was contaminated.”
***
