Chapter 6
The number was printed beneath Tiffany’s signature.
I found it on the agreement in Grace’s envelope, beside the line where Tiffany had written her name in blue ink. Outside the hotel window, London traffic hissed over wet pavement. Connor was reading on the bed, one ear tuned to Madison, who was arranging colored pencils into a very serious rainbow.
I stepped into the narrow hall and dialed before I could turn the number into another reason to wait.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Tiffany? My name is Sarah. I’m Bradley’s ex-wife.”
Silence. Then a breath that caught halfway in.
“I know who you are.”
“I imagine you do.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, too quickly. “I didn’t know he was going to—”
“Please don’t apologize for something you haven’t told me yet.”
The words came out sharper than I intended. I lowered my voice, though no one was close enough to hear.
“I found the transfers. Some of the money went toward your condo. Bradley told me we didn’t have money for Connor’s soccer equipment or Madison’s dental treatment.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Did you know where the money came from?”
“No.” The answer came with no hesitation, but that didn’t make it proof. “He told me he had personal investments. He said the condo was a good opportunity and that he could afford to help me with it.”
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
The honesty didn’t soften anything. It only gave the hurt a place to land.
“He told me the money was his,” she continued. “I thought it was money he’d set aside, not something taken from your family.”
“Did you ask why he had to move it through another account?”
A pause.
“No.”
I looked at the agreement. The corner of the page curled beneath my thumb.
“You knew the dates you gave people weren’t true.”
Her breath changed. “Who told you that?”
“The dates are on the paperwork. Bradley told his family you started seeing each other later than you did.”
“He said it would be easier if people thought we’d met after you separated.”
“We weren’t separated when he began seeing you.”
“I know.”
The admission was small, but it altered the air between us. Tiffany wasn’t an innocent bystander. She had accepted a cleaner story because it made room for the life Bradley was offering her. She had also, from what she was saying, believed his money was his to spend.
I hated how badly I wanted one of those facts to cancel the other.
“Why did you agree to it?” I asked.
“I was pregnant. I wanted his family to accept me. I wanted to believe he was going to make a real life with me.” Her voice tightened. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking you to say it does.”
Beyond the door, Madison laughed at something Connor said. The sound was brief and bright, like a match struck in a dark room. I held still until it faded.
“I’m not calling to threaten you,” I said. “I need to understand what you signed. The agreement is here, but I don’t know what the language means to you. Would you read the part about when your relationship became public?”
Tiffany went quiet.
“If you don’t want to, say no.”
“I can read it.”
Paper rustled. I imagined her standing somewhere with the agreement in hand, holding it the way I had held it on the plane: as if the ink might change if she stared long enough.
“Under the section about public disclosure,” she said, then stopped.
“What does it say?”
“It says we’ll describe the relationship as beginning after Bradley’s separation from you. That neither of us will correct that account unless—”
Her voice broke off.
“Unless what?”
“I can’t read the rest.”
“Because you don’t remember it?”
“Because I can hear myself saying it, and I don’t want to.”
I closed my eyes. “Tiffany, I’m not asking you to pretend you didn’t make that choice.”
“I know.”
“You made it. And I need you to understand what that choice did. It let them tell a version where I was already gone before Bradley started building a life with you.”
“I know,” she said again, and this time the words were quieter. “I’m not proud of it.”
The admission didn’t make us allies. It did make her more than the flat silhouette I’d carried in my mind—the woman in the photographs, the name attached to an apartment, the reason Bradley had said no when our children needed ordinary things.
“What else does the agreement say?” I asked.
“I can’t—”
A new sound came through the line: a door opening, then a low murmur I couldn’t make out.
Tiffany’s breathing changed.
“Is he there?”
“He just got here.”
“Then we can stop.”
“No.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I need to tell you—”
“Don’t do anything because you feel trapped into proving something to me.”
“I’m not.”
“Then decide when you’re alone.”
A beat of silence. Somewhere in my room, Connor turned a page.
“I didn’t know about the children’s expenses,” Tiffany said. “I swear I didn’t.”
I believed that she might be telling the truth. It was not the same as knowing she had told all of it.
“Thank you for telling me what you did.”
Her exhale sounded almost like relief. “I should have told you sooner.”
“You didn’t know I was going to call.”
“No. I mean—I should have asked him. I should have questioned the story.”
“Maybe.” I didn’t want to hand her absolution just because she had finally looked at the choice she’d made. “But that’s yours to reckon with.”
Another rustle. Then Bradley’s voice, unmistakable even through the phone, close enough to make my fingers go cold.
“Tiffany, hang up.”
She didn’t answer him.
May you like
“Tiffany. Now.”
I heard a click, a brief burst of static, and then nothing.
