Chapter 6 - They Knew Each Other Before the WeddingClaire stared at the corporate filing until the letters blurred.
Nathan Carter.
Authorized representative.
Eight years earlier.
Claire had met Nathan seven years ago.
At a charity auction in Chicago.
He had accidentally bumped her shoulder while reaching for champagne.
He apologized.
Made a joke about bidding on a painting neither of them understood.
By the end of the evening, he had her number.
Three months later, she introduced him to Diane.
Claire remembered that dinner.
Diane opened the front door.
Nathan stood beside Claire carrying flowers.
For one strange second, Diane didn’t speak.
Claire had laughed afterward.
“You shocked my mother speechless.”
Nathan said:
“I have that effect.”
Claire had believed Diane was nervous about meeting her daughter’s boyfriend.
Now the memory looked different.
Diane hadn’t been meeting him.
She had been recognizing him.
Claire called Nathan.
He answered immediately.
“Claire.”
“Did you know my mother before you knew me?”
Silence.
Claire’s body went cold.
“Nathan.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“That isn’t no.”
“It’s complicated.”
She almost screamed.
Instead she whispered:
“How did you know her?”
Nathan breathed into the phone.
“Claire, I should tell you in person.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“You will answer now.”
Another silence.
“We met once.”
“When?”
“Before you and I met.”
“How long before?”
“A year maybe.”
“Where?”
“A consulting project.”
Claire looked at Mercer Advisory Services on her laptop.
“What consulting project?”
Nathan’s breathing changed.
“She was helping me with business paperwork.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No.”
Claire waited.
Nathan repeated:
“No.”
Too controlled.
“Did you kiss her?”
He said nothing.
Claire closed her eyes.
“Oh my God.”
“It was years before you.”
“You kissed my mother before you dated me.”
“Yes.”
The word came out reluctantly.
“Once?”
Nathan hesitated.
Claire laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“It was brief.”
“How brief?”
“A couple weeks.”
“You dated?”
“No.”
“What do you call kissing someone for weeks?”
“We were both in bad places.”
Claire gripped the phone.
“My father had just died.”
“Yes.”
“You were comforting my grieving mother.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Stop saying that.”
Nathan went quiet.
Claire asked:
“Did you know she had a daughter named Claire?”
“No.”
“Did she know you later met me?”
“Not at first.”
“But when I brought you to dinner?”
“Yes.”
“And both of you pretended you’d never met.”
“We didn’t want to hurt you.”
Claire laughed.
“You built our relationship on a lie to avoid hurting me.”
“It was over.”
“Apparently not.”
Nathan’s voice cracked.
“I fell in love with you.”
“Did she tell you about Dad’s trust before we met?”
“No.”
“Before we married?”
“Claire—”
“Yes or no?”
“I knew your father had left property.”
Claire felt sick.
“How?”
“Diane mentioned it years earlier.”
There it was.
Before Claire.
Before the marriage.
Nathan had known Diane.
Known Claire existed eventually.
Known her father had assets.
“When you met me at the auction…”
“It was a coincidence.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Swear on Sophie.”
Nathan went silent.
Claire felt something die.
“Nathan.”
“I’m not swearing on our daughter to satisfy some interrogation.”
“You won’t because you’re lying.”
“I met you because I liked you.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“Claire.”
“Did you know I would be at that auction?”
His silence became answer enough.
Claire ended the call.
She sat motionless.
Erin came downstairs.
“What happened?”
“He knew her.”
“How long?”
“Before me.”
Erin’s face changed.
“What?”
Claire explained.
Mercer Advisory Services.
Nathan’s role.
The kiss.
The charity auction.
Erin sat opposite her.
“Do you think Diane introduced you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would a mother do that?”
“I don’t know anything about her anymore.”
Claire called Diane.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Claire drove to her mother’s townhome.
Diane’s car was there.
Claire used the key she had carried for years.
“Mom?”
No answer.
She walked upstairs.
Diane stood in her bedroom packing a suitcase.
For one sickening second, the object itself made Claire think of yesterday’s closet.
“Going somewhere?”
Diane jumped.
“Claire.”
“Were you planning to run?”
“No.”
“Then unpack.”
Diane stared.
Claire closed the bedroom door.
“How did you know Nathan?”
Her mother’s face changed.
Claire nodded.
“He told me.”
Diane sat on the bed.
“Not everything.”
“Then this is your chance.”
Diane looked suddenly exhausted.
“I met him after your father died.”
“Through Mercer Advisory.”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He helped me organize a property investment.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
Diane shut her eyes.
Claire’s stomach twisted.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
One word.
Claire staggered backward.
Nathan had lied again.
“How long?”
“Three months.”
Claire stared.
“You slept with Nathan for three months before I ever met him.”
“It ended.”
“That is not the point.”
“I was lonely.”
“My father had been dead six months.”
“I know.”
“You were sleeping with a man almost my age.”
Diane flinched.
“I know how it looks.”
Claire laughed.
“You keep talking about how things look.”
Diane’s eyes filled.
“It was real to me.”
Claire stopped.
That sentence hurt differently.
“What?”
“I thought I loved him.”
Claire stared.
“And then he met me.”
“Yes.”
“By coincidence?”
Diane’s silence stretched.
Claire moved closer.
“Did you send him to that charity auction?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him I’d be there?”
Diane looked away.
Claire felt nausea rise.
“Mom.”
“He asked about you.”
“When?”
“After I mentioned you were volunteering.”
Claire whispered:
“You told your former lover where your daughter would be.”
“I didn’t think—”
“And then he showed up.”
“I didn’t know he would.”
“But when I brought him home three months later, you knew exactly who he was.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I thought it was over.”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
Diane reached for her.
Claire stepped back.
“No.”
“I was afraid you would leave him.”
“You should have wanted me to.”
“You were happy.”
“I was happy because I didn’t know the truth.”
Diane began crying.
“He was different with you.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wanted a family.”
“With your daughter.”
“I thought maybe…”
Diane stopped.
Claire stared.
“You thought what?”
Her mother whispered:
“Maybe something good had come out of something ugly.”
Claire could barely breathe.
“You let me marry a man you had slept with.”
Diane covered her face.
“I told myself it didn’t matter anymore.”
“And then you started sleeping with him again.”
Diane sobbed.
Claire felt nothing.
“How long has the new affair been happening?”
Her mother lowered her hands.
“Eleven months.”
Nathan had said months.
Then six.
The doorbell showed nine.
Diane said eleven.
Claire whispered:
“Anything else?”
Diane looked frightened.
Claire noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Mom.”
Diane stood.
“I’ve told you enough for one day.”
Claire almost laughed.
“You don’t decide how much truth I can handle anymore.”
Diane looked away.
Claire followed her gaze.
Toward the nightstand.
A drawer was slightly open.
Inside was an old photograph.
Claire pulled it out.
Nathan.
Younger.
Standing beside Diane.
His arm around her waist.
Diane smiling at him.
The date on the back was eight years earlier.
But another photograph lay underneath.
Claire lifted it.
Nathan and Diane at a restaurant.
Seven years ago.
The month Claire and Nathan started dating.
Claire looked at her mother.
“You said it was over before he met me.”
Diane’s face went white.
Claire held up the photograph.
“You were still seeing him.”
May you like
And suddenly Claire no longer knew whether Nathan had cheated on her with her mother.
Or whether she had unknowingly married her mother’s boyfriend.
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