“I mourned you, Derek,” Paul said quietly. “I grieved for you and your men. The bad intel… it haunts me every single day. It was my fault. I know that. But loving Clara… that’s the only thing I’ve done right in the last two years.”
I stood up, my legs shaking. “Both of you, get out.”
“Clara-” they both started at once.
“Out!” I yelled, pointing to the door. “I need to think. I can’t look at either of you right now.”
My father put a firm hand on each of their shoulders and guided them out of the room, leaving me alone with the ruins of my life.
The days that followed were a blur of numb disbelief. I cancelled the honeymoon, returned the gifts, and tried to explain an impossible situation to my family. How do you tell people your dead husband came back to life and the man you were about to marry was a government agent who lied about everything?
I sent Liam to stay with my parents, shielding him from the emotional shrapnel.
Derek was staying in a motel on the edge of town. He called once a day, every day. He didn’t push. He just let me know he was there. He sounded like a stranger.
Paul sent long, rambling emails full of apologies and explanations. He detailed the mission, the impossible choices, the regret. He loved me, he said. He loved Liam. He would disappear forever if that’s what I wanted.
I didn’t know what I wanted.
My heart was a battlefield. There was Derek, the love of my youth, the father of my child, a man who had literally walked through hell to come back to us. Our shared history was a powerful, binding force. But he was a ghost in worn-out combat boots, a man I no longer knew, a man shaped by horrors I couldn’t imagine.
Then there was Paul. The man who had patiently pieced me back together. He had taught Liam how to ride a bike. He had held me when I cried for Derek. He had made me laugh again. Our love was built on a lie, a terrible, unforgivable one, but the feelings had been real. The happiness he gave me was real.
