Page 94 of Insidious

Chloe’s breath hitches.

“I’m so glad I walked in that day,” he continues, voice turning to steel now, “and found you in bed with him.”

She shakes her head frantically. “It wasn’t like that—”

“You were out to ruin my life.” He states it like the fact it is.

“No!” she says quickly. “No, I wasn’t. I loved you. I just—”

“There’s nothing in you,” he cuts in, “that looks like love.”

Chloe’s lips tremble. “Isaac … Please …”

Chapter 25

Isaac

I am mesmerised by my Luna wiping the floor with Chloe. If I didn’t know with absolute surety that if I just slam the door on the wicked witch’s face and try to kiss her, I would end up with a knee to the balls, I would try it.

For weeks after the birth, it felt like someone had switched Luna with a stranger. And instead of addressing the issues we had, I told myself she only needed time to come back to me.

Seeing her on the bathroom floor that day was a wakeup call like no other.

Listening to her now, it feels like my Luna is back. Over the last few weeks, I have done everything I mapped out for when Amelie was born, but never did. And the way my wife has opened up in response to what I should have done all along just breaks my heart.

Luna can fight her own battles, but she needs to know that I always have her back.

I stare at Chloe, and not for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m looking at a stranger.

She is not the little girl next door with scraped knees and crooked pigtails, trailing after me and the boys during summer holidays.

She is not the awkward teenager Mum kept pushing towards me with a pointed look after her, Isaac. She is just like Sophie.

Not the crying girl wrapped in my blanket that morning at uni while guilt tore a chunk out of me.

That girl—the innocent one, the vulnerable one, the one I thought I had failed—starts peeling away right in front of me. And underneath it, all I can see is selfishness.

Calculation.

Greed.

Taking and taking until there’s nothing left of the people who care about her. In a moment of clarity, I know the only reason she wants me is because I have no interest in her like that.

An uncontrollable rage settles over me.

I don’t realise I am doing it until I am already in front of Luna. I don’t trust Chloe near my wife at all.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Fae next door has completely abandoned the pretence of gardening. She is frozen beside the same rosebush she’s been hovering over for the last ten minutes.

Across the road, Will’s kitchen window is wide open despite the cold. Usually, that would bother me. Today, I couldn’t care less.

Chloe takes a shaky breath. “Can we please talk inside?”

“No.”

The word is instant.

Her eyes widen at my tone.