Page 64 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

I feel stunned.

“But why?” Andrea asks.

“That’s not the question,” Stephen says. “The real question is: who benefits from Valeria’s death?”

A pause.

“And be prepared to accept the answers.”

The silence that follows is heavy with unspoken truths.

This is no longer confusion. It’s a horrifying reality settling into place.

Someone tried to kill my wife. And maybe someone still wants her dead.

“Why didn’t she contact me?”

My voice sounds so altered I barely recognize it myself.

Then a thought brushes against me, ice-cold.

“Unless she thought I was involved.”

“No, it wasn’t that,” Stephen replies, his voice now stripped of hostility. “The truth is more complicated. She lost consciousness right after saying someone had tried to kill her. The doctors discovered internal bleeding and placed her in a medically induced coma to operate and help her recover for several weeks.”

My heart stops.

Even after grieving her, the thought is unbearable.

“And when she woke up, her body was extremely weakened and her memories confused. She suffered from vomiting, severe exhaustion, migraines, and memory gaps—to the point where she sometimes struggled to speak.”

With every revelation, my heart sinks a little further.

She went through hell. Without me.

“Her memory came back gradually. But the exact memory of that night only returned three months ago. The trigger was—”

“That’s enough,” Valeria cuts in.

None of us noticed her approach.

She stands in the doorway, pale and sharp as a blade, her gaze locked onto Stephen’s in a silent duel.

“He deserves to know,” Stephen says without backing down.

“No.”

Her voice doesn’t shake.

“It’s none of his business,” she continues.

I shoot to my feet so fast my chair scrapes violently across the floor.

How can she say that?

“What am I not supposed to know? What are you hiding from me?”

She turns toward me. Her face is completely closed off.