Page 63 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

Remorse closes around my throat.

“Believe it or not, I really do care about her,” I say. “Do you honestly think this situation isn’t destroying me? One of us has to take a step toward the other. I’d like to do it, but I don’t know how. Because none of you are telling me anything.”

Stephen hesitates, draws a deep breath, then he says:

“Two years ago, Hugo Perez and his family pulled Valeria half-dead out of the Seine.”

The words hit me like a high-speed train.

“She jumped into the water when she realized both exits were blocked. One by the fire. The other locked from the outside.”

Andrea and I both jerk at his words.

“You heard that right,” Stephen says. “Someone locked her inside and set the place on fire.”

For a moment, I stop hearing anything at all.

Someone tried to kill my wife and I never knew.

If I hadn’t already been sitting down, my legs would’ve given out beneath me.

The scene comes rushing back in full, brutal.

The moment the fire alarm went off, panic spread through the guests. My first instinct was to look for her. Bianca told me she’d seen her on the other side of the reception hall. I searched everywhere, scanning every face, shoving people aside without apologizing, before doubling back and checking every room again.

I knew she wouldn’t leave among the first.

That wasn’t who she was.

She was the kind of person who stayed behind to make sure everyone else got out safely.

But as the boat emptied, as face after face passed by without ever being hers, panic started rising inside me—slowly at first, then until I could barely breathe.

Bianca was panicking beside me too.

“Where is she? Oh my God, where is she?”

Despite the smoke and flames, we got close to the burning kitchen, but there was no sign of her.

We kept searching until the firefighters and police arrived.

Andrea came. Then everyone started evacuating the docks.

Still no trace of her.

The divers arrived with floodlights and began searching the river.

That’s when I started understanding what it meant.

What I’d refused to admit until then.

They were looking for a body.

And by some miracle I still don’t understand, she didn’t die that night.

“Why didn’t they contact us?” Andrea asks, tension sharpening his voice. “Her face was everywhere.”

“She suffered a severe head injury and hypothermia,” Stephen explains. “They took her to their private clinic. Based on the few words she managed to say, they knew someone had tried to kill her.”