“I made choices I’m not proud of.”
“You slept with an engaged woman.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t need to know me to know that was wrong.”
“I know.”
Darius took a breath.
“Then why are you calling?”
Devon became quiet.
“Because she lied to both of us.”
Darius waited.
“She told me last month she was moving out after canceling the wedding.”
Darius remembered the venue email.
“She told me we were going to try being together publicly.”
Darius felt sick.
“And yesterday?”
“She called me crying.”
“What did she say?”
“That you saw the message.”
Darius laughed humorlessly.
“Pizza Hut.”
Devon sounded embarrassed.
“That was her idea.”
Darius stared toward the sky.
“She said you never paid attention to food notifications.”
That sentence hurt.
Not because it was sophisticated.
Because Simone had studied his trust and turned it into camouflage.
Darius asked, “Did you send that message Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She said you were going to a fitting.”
Darius froze.
His suit fitting.
Simone had told Devon when Darius would leave.
“Were you coming to my house?”
“No.”
Darius waited.
“I swear.”
“Why ask if I was gone?”
“I wanted to FaceTime her.”
Darius did not know whether to believe him.
Maybe it no longer mattered.
“Are you in love with her?”
Devon hesitated.
“I thought I was.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know who I was in love with.”
That sentence sounded painfully familiar.
Darius understood it.
For the first time, the two men had something in common.
Neither liked it.
Devon said, “She told me you were controlling.”
Darius’s expression changed.
“What?”
“She said you checked her phone.”
Darius almost laughed.
“I didn’t even know her password.”
“She said you tracked where she went.”
“I’ve never tracked that woman one day in my life.”
Devon became silent.
“What else?”
“That you controlled the money.”
Darius stared at the building across the street.
Simone earned nearly ninety thousand dollars a year.
She maintained her own bank account.
Darius paid the mortgage because the house was his.
They split utilities.
Wedding expenses came from a joint account both had funded.
“She has her own money.”
“I know that now too.”
Darius’s anger shifted.
Simone had not only hidden Devon from him.
She had created another version of Darius for Devon.
A villain who made the affair easier to justify.
He suddenly understood something.
“How many times did you tell her to leave me?”
Devon answered carefully.
“A lot.”
“And what did she say?”
“That she needed time.”
“Why?”
“She said she was afraid of what you’d do.”
Darius’s hand tightened around the phone.
Nia watched through the glass door.
She could tell something had changed.
Darius said quietly, “I have never laid a hand on Simone.”
“I’m not saying you did.”
“I have never threatened her.”
“I believe you.”
“Why?”
“Because yesterday she told me something different.”
Darius waited.
“She said the real reason she didn’t leave was because she wasn’t sure she wanted to lose the life you two built.”
There it was.
Not fear.
Not control.
Comfort.
Darius looked down.
“She wanted both.”
Devon exhaled.
“Yeah.”
Neither man spoke.