And beneath the photograph was a message:
You deserve to know what your husband has been doing behind your back.
At first, I refused to believe it.
Then I investigated.
The apartment belonged to Chloe.
The hotel reservations were under Julian’s business account.
And the most painful discovery was hidden inside our financial records.
Julian had been transferring money to her every month.
Not hundreds.
Thousands.
For almost a year.
I had printed everything.
I had copied the bank statements.
I had saved the photographs in three different places.
And I had made one more discovery.
Chloe wasn’t simply his mistress.
She was pregnant too.
I learned that three days before our train journey.
She was almost four months pregnant.
Julian had been telling everyone that the baby was mine.
I understood why.
He wanted to keep me quiet until the child was born.
Then he planned to leave me.
I had even found an email between him and a divorce attorney.
The subject line said:
Post-birth separation strategy.
I had read it twice before I finally understood.
Julian wasn’t planning to divorce me immediately.
He wanted to wait until our baby was born.
He intended to use my pregnancy against me.
That was when I stopped crying.
I started preparing.
The airport was crowded because of the holiday season, but I didn’t care.
I bought the earliest available ticket.
Then I called someone I hadn’t spoken to in almost six years.
