He admitted tonight the Chicago apartment was supposed to be for him and Vanessa. He says they planned to tell us after the relocation package cleared.
One sentence.
One confirmation.
Suddenly, Logan’s congratulations meant more than a promotion.
He had finally received the thing Vanessa had been waiting for.
The door to their planned life.
I looked at her.
“You’re going to Chicago.”
Vanessa stared.
“No.”
“Caroline says otherwise.”
“You contacted his wife?”
“She contacted me first.”
“Why would she know your name?”
“I imagine Logan had to explain some things.”
Vanessa walked into the living room.
Her purse remained on her shoulder.
She looked as though she had entered someone else’s house by mistake.
“You had no right to involve her.”
I almost laughed.
“No right?”
“That was one of our boundaries.”
“Our boundaries?”
“Yes.”
“You mean the arrangement you created after you were already sleeping with him?”
Her eyes widened.
Silence.
That silence told me Caroline’s screenshots were accurate before Vanessa said anything else.
I stood.
“How long?”
She looked away.
“Ethan.”
“How long before you asked me?”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“That usually means the simple answer is bad.”
She pulled the purse from her shoulder and dropped it onto a chair.
“We were close before.”
“How close?”
“We talked.”
“How close?”
Vanessa exhaled.
“Things happened.”
“When?”
She did not answer.
“May?”
Her face changed.
The first screenshot was dated May fourth.
Our kitchen conversation had happened in July.
I nodded.
“May.”
Vanessa sat down.
“You already know.”
“I know enough.”
She looked toward my phone.
“What did Caroline send you?”
“Things you wrote.”
“Those were private.”
“Apparently so was our marriage.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No?”
“You agreed.”
“To Fridays beginning in July.”
She flinched.
“I did not agree to May.”
“Ethan—”
“I asked you if there was someone.”
“I was scared.”
“You said no.”
“I didn’t know what Logan and I were yet.”
“You knew enough to sleep with him.”
She said nothing.
“You knew enough to tell him you could ‘get Ethan there eventually.’”
Vanessa’s head snapped up.
Caroline had shown me that line.
For the first time, fear replaced defensiveness.
“You read everything?”
“Not everything.”
“How much?”
“Enough to understand that the conversation at this kitchen island was theater.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You had already decided what you wanted.”
“I was trying to find a way not to destroy our marriage.”
“You had already started destroying it.”
“That’s not what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
She stood suddenly.