Carissa turned fully toward her. “You rehearsed my memories in my living room.”
Nikki flinched.
Carissa kept going.
“You repeated the story of my proposal. My first anniversary dinner. My first trip with him. You took pieces of my life and tried them on like dresses. So forgive me if I don’t believe this was accidental.”
No one in the circle said a word.
It was one of the most intoxicating silences Carissa had ever heard.
Not because people agreed with her.
Because for once they were not interrupting the truth to make room for comfort.
The man in burgundy blazer looked at Damen with open disgust now. “Dude,” he said.
Sometimes a whole reputation can be punctured with one syllable.
Damen rounded on him. “Stay out of it.”
Then Nikki did something spectacularly foolish.
Maybe panic made her do it. Maybe ego. Maybe she truly believed if she attacked first she could still control the angle of the damage.
“He told me you didn’t even want him anymore,” she said to Carissa. “He said you were cold and obsessed with work and made him feel like a failure every day of his life.”
The room seemed to contract around them.
Carissa turned her head slowly toward Damen.
He didn’t deny it.
There was the smallest flash of regret across his face—not for the affair, not for the lie, but for being dragged into a room where the ugly parts had to stand upright.
“Did you?” Carissa asked.
Damen swallowed. “Things were complicated.”
“You told my sister your wife was the reason you were cheating.”
“No, I—”
“You told her I didn’t want you.”
He rubbed one hand over his mouth. “Carissa—”
The name sounded exhausted.
As if he were the one being asked to carry too much.
Carissa opened her clutch and took out the envelope.
Everything about that moment felt slow.
The crackle of the paper.
The way a woman near the bar leaned forward.
The way Nikki seemed to realize a half-second too late that this was not merely exposure. It was a handoff.
Carissa held the envelope out to Damen.
“What is this?” he asked.
“You’ve spent ten years pretending I wasn’t your wife,” she said.
THE END
