Page 35 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

And now Valeria comes back and looks at me like I betrayed our vows.

Like she still has the right to expect anything from me.

“What do you think, Dante?”

Bianca’s voice pulls me back to the present.

Curled beside me on the couch with her legs tucked beneath her, her head resting against my shoulder, she watches me with that soft patience that always seems to define her.

“Sorry. I was somewhere else.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “You’re thinking about her.”

It isn’t an accusation.

Just an observation.

“So am I,” she adds after a pause. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since she came back. Did she explain why she disappeared?”

“No. Nothing.”

She sighs.

There’s something in the sound that resembles sadness and confusion.

“How could she do this to us? Let us grieve her, mourn her, rebuild our lives… while she was alive the entire time.” She shakes her head faintly. “I can’t understand it.”

She pauses before adding more softly,

“I feel like I never really knew her at all.”

I don’t know if it’s her tone or her words, but suddenly I can’t stand hearing Bianca talk about Valeria anymore.

Once, these moments with Bianca were exactly what I needed.

Now they grate against my nerves.

For the first time, I hear the criticism beneath the apparent kindness.

Bianca is jealous of Valeria.

Is that new? Or was it always there?

Doubt creeps back in.

What if Valeria had been there? What if she had been injured in the fire?

But then why wouldn’t she have contacted me?

The inspector in charge of the case said no one could’ve survived.

And yet she’s here.

Alive.

A memory surfaces—sharp and painful, like a shard of glass still lodged beneath the skin.

It was shortly before she disappeared.