Chapter 3 - RYAN ASKED ETHAN TO COME ALONERyan was already at the coffee shop when Ethan arrived.
No uniform.
Jeans.
Black jacket.
He looked younger outside the Carter home.
Less like an employee.
More like what he was.
A twenty-seven-year-old man sitting across from the husband of the woman he'd been hiding with.
Ethan sat.
Ryan didn't meet his eyes.
"Talk."
"I'm sorry."
"That's not talking."
Ryan swallowed.
"I know."
"Did you sleep with my wife?"
The waitress approached.
Neither moved.
She saw their expressions and quietly walked away.
Ryan stared at the table.
"Ethan—"
"Yes or no."
Ryan whispered:
"Yes."
Ethan had known.
Still, hearing it changed everything.
He felt heat move through his body.
His hands curled under the table.
He forced them open.
"How long?"
Ryan said nothing.
"How long?"
"Eight months."
Ethan stared.
Eight months.
Christmas.
Their anniversary.
Owen's birthday.
A family vacation to Hawaii.
Eight months of photographs where Amelia had smiled beside him knowing what she was doing every Monday.
"Where?"
"Your house."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"Only there?"
"No."
"Where else?"
"A hotel twice."
"Car?"
Ryan looked ashamed.
"Once."
Ethan looked out the window.
Traffic moved normally.
People bought coffee.
Someone laughed at a nearby table.
He hated them for having ordinary mornings.
"Did you sleep in my bed?"
Ryan went still.
Ethan already knew.
"Answer."
"Yes."
Ethan stood.
Ryan immediately moved backward.
For one second Ethan imagined grabbing him.
He didn't.
He sat again.
"Owen was in the house?"
"Sometimes."
That answer almost made Ethan lose control.
"You did this while my son was downstairs?"
"We never—"
"Don't."
Ryan stopped.
"Do not make it sound better."
Ethan lowered his voice.
"Why did you tell me Amelia would delete things?"
Ryan looked around.
"Because she already has."
"What?"
"Messages."
"Yours?"
"Ours."
"How do you know?"
"She told me."
Ethan leaned back.
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to stop."
That surprised him.
"When?"
"Three weeks ago."
"Why?"
Ryan stared at his coffee.
"This got bigger than what I agreed to."
Ethan almost laughed.
"You agreed to sleep with my wife in my house."
"I know."
"What's bigger?"
Ryan took out his phone.
He opened a photograph.
An older picture.
Amelia.
Younger.
Standing beside Ryan.
Ethan stared.
The date was seven years earlier.
Ryan looked barely twenty.
Amelia twenty-seven.
"Where was this taken?"
"San Diego."
Ethan looked at him.
"Seven years ago."
"Yes."
"Before you worked for us."
"Yes."
Ethan's stomach tightened.
"How did you know my wife?"
Ryan hesitated.
"We dated."
Silence.
Ethan almost couldn't process it.
"You dated Amelia."
"Not seriously."
"Define that."
"Three months."
"When?"
"Before she married you."
Ethan calculated.
He and Amelia had been together before that photograph.
Not married.
But engaged.
"You were with her while we were engaged."
Ryan looked ashamed.
"I didn't know about you at first."
Ethan stared.
"She cheated on me with you seven years ago."
"Yes."
Then another question arrived.
"How did you become our housekeeper?"
Ryan's expression changed.
That was the question he'd been waiting for.
"Amelia called me."
Ethan stopped.
"When?"
"Fourteen months ago."
"She told me the agency recommended you."
"That wasn't true."
Ethan felt his chest tighten.
Ryan continued.
"She found me online."
"What did she say?"
"That she needed someone she trusted."
"Trusted for what?"
"At first, work."
Ethan laughed without humor.
"You expect me to believe she secretly hired an old lover as our housekeeper for work?"
Ryan didn't argue.
"She said your marriage was bad."
Ethan looked at him.
"Was it?"
"She said you barely spoke. That you lived like roommates."
They had problems.
Work.
Parenting.
Routine.
But not what Ryan was describing.
They still slept together.
Still vacationed.
Still discussed another child.
"Did she tell you we were separating?"
"Yes."
"We weren't."
"I know that now."
Ethan leaned forward.
"When did you figure it out?"
"Your anniversary."
Three months earlier.
Ethan remembered.
He and Amelia had gone to Napa for four days.
Ryan watched Owen one evening with Amelia's sister.
"What happened?"
"She posted a picture."
Ryan smiled bitterly.
"Caption said eight years and forever to go."
Ethan closed his eyes.
Ryan continued.
"I confronted her."
"What did she say?"
"That social media meant nothing."
"And you kept sleeping with her."
Ryan nodded.
"Yes."
At least he didn't pretend innocence.
"Why stop three weeks ago?"
Ryan unlocked his phone again.
A screenshot.
A message from Amelia.
I need you to be patient until May. After that, Ethan can't keep Owen from me.
Ethan stared.
"What happens in May?"
"I don't know."
"Why would I keep Owen from her?"
Ryan looked at him.
"That's what scared me."
Another screenshot.
You may need to tell people Ethan was never home. You saw it yourself.
Ethan felt cold.
"What people?"
"She wouldn't say."
Ryan continued.
"Then she asked me if I'd ever seen you yell at Owen."
Ethan stared.
"Have you?"
"No."
"Did she ask anything else?"
"Whether you drank."
Ethan's pulse accelerated.
"Whether I drank?"
"Whether you got angry."
"Why?"
Ryan looked ashamed.
"I think she's preparing for a custody fight."
Ethan sat completely still.
An affair was one betrayal.
This was another.
"She told you to lie about me."
"Not directly."
"Yet."
Ryan nodded.
Ethan remembered Amelia's strange comment the night before.
He's my son too.
At the time, nothing unusual.
Now it sounded different.
"Why May?"
Ryan looked down.
"I don't know."
Ethan took out his phone.
"Send me everything."
Ryan hesitated.
"If Amelia knows—"
"Send it."
Ryan did.
Thirty-seven screenshots.
Three audio notes.
One photograph.
Then Ryan said:
"There's one more thing."
Ethan stared.
"Of course there is."
Ryan's voice became quiet.
"The first time I entered your house wasn't when I started working for you."
Ethan felt cold.
"When?"
"Two months earlier."
"Why?"
May you like
Ryan looked directly at him.
"Amelia gave me your alarm code."
Related Stories
