My Cousin Hid My ‘Dead’ Wife For Four Years — The Confrontation At The Gala Destroyed Him

Part 2

The click of the deadbolt echoed like a gunshot in the narrow space.

Craig turned the handle from the outside.

It didn’t yield.

Through the frosted glass panel, I saw his shadow hesitate before he rapped his knuckles against the wood.

He called my name, his tone drenched in that polished, wounded affection he always used when cameras were around.

I didn’t answer him.

I kept my eyes locked on Megan.

She pulled the child on her hip tighter against her chest.

I lowered myself to a crouch on the marble floor so that my eyes were perfectly level with the grave, dark-haired boy standing guard in front of her.

He watched me with Megan’s suspicion and my own stubborn jaw.

I asked him his name.

He lifted his chin.

He told me he was Tyler, and he declared he was not afraid of me.

My throat tightened.

I told him it was a very good name, and that I could see he wasn’t afraid.

I didn’t say the rest out loud.

I didn’t tell him I had chosen that name myself once, in a sunny garden with a laughing girl who was now this frightened woman.

I looked up at Megan.

I did not trouble to hide what was in my face.

I swore to her that whatever it cost, whatever it took, I would prove to her that I did not send her away.

Craig pounded on the door again, demanding I open it before I caused a scandal.

I rose to my feet.

I unlatched the lock and pulled the door open just wide enough to let him step inside.

He walked in with his champagne glass still in his hand and his easy smile still fixed in place.

His gaze swept over the woman, the children, and then back to me.

A swift, calculating flicker moved behind his eyes.

I had seen that look a hundred times and never once understood it until this exact moment.

He was my heir.

So long as I had no son, everything I owned passed to him.

And he had known about the baby.

I told him I knew exactly what he did.

He tried to play it off as madness, waving his free hand as if to dismiss the accusation.

But his voice had gone dangerously thin.

Megan was the one who broke him.

She stepped forward, her voice trembling but clear.

She told him she still had the forged letters he sent her, the ones he signed in my name.

She said they were sewn into the lining of a trunk in a boarding house, the hard proof of her abandonment.

Craig’s charm completely collapsed.

What was left underneath was small, mean, and utterly terrified.

I ordered him to write a full confession right then and there.

I told him he would resign from the company, take whatever small sum I chose to give him, and vanish from the country.

If he refused, I would hand the forged letters to the police and let him rot in a cell.

They took him away a few minutes later.

The corridor finally went quiet.

I turned back to face the family I had lost and found in the space of a single waltz.

My fury was entirely spent.

How was I supposed to convince a woman who had spent four years running from me that I would cross the world for her?