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“I’m not a personal shopper.” Brie peered around Harrison’s arm to glare at me. “But maybe if you used one, Harry wouldn’t have gone looking for someone better.”
My smile held no humor. “Oops, your mistress shot that story down.”
“Mistress!” Brie shrieked, losing the sheet she had pressed to her chest when she tried to dive off the mattress, but Harrison yanked her back. “Harry loves me! As soon as he kicks you to the curb, we’re going to get married.”
The utter denial in Harrison’s eyes made me laugh so hard I cried. Whatever he’d told Brie to get her in bed, his reaction seemed like he hadn’t planned to leave me for his mistress. Too bad for him, part of that decision was now out of his hands because our marriage was over the moment I read the first text.
They apparently took my reaction to mean I was devastated.
“Please don’t cry, Celia,” Harrison murmured.
Brie wasn’t the tiniest bit embarrassed at being caught in bed with my husband. “Cry all you want. It isn’t going to make a difference. Harrison loves me, so your tears aren’t going to work. You can’t make him feel guilty enough to go running back to your boring bed.”
“Running back?” I echoed on a watery laugh. “I wouldn’t touch his dick with a ten-foot pole after he’s stuck it in you.”
Harrison had the nerve to look offended at that. “Celia—”
“Stop. Whatever you want to say doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll have my attorney call yours.” Then I shifted my attention back to his mistress. “Just remember, the way you catch them is how you lose them.”
Harrison went red in the face. “We don’t need to drag lawyers into this, Celia. Let’s just talk this through.”
“We’re not going to talk anything through while you’re naked in bed with her. Get dressed.” I turned and glanced at him over my shoulder. “Be quick. I need to get to the closet, and I’m not walking past you for it.”
Harrison still had the duvet in his fist. “Celia, if you would just—”
“I’m giving you privacy. Use it.”
I left them in the bedroom and went down the hall to my little office. Before I went digging for what I needed, I pulled my phone from my pocket and stopped recording. Once again, I emailed myself the video as a backup. Then I printed copies of the past year’s bank statements on any account where I was named, pulled my tax returns for the past six years to show the difference in what I was earning before I left my job and now, and shoved all the papers into a tote bag I found in the small closet.
Slinging it over my shoulder, I headed back to the primary bedroom for my clothes. I’d given them enough time to get dressed, and Harrison had used it to get Brie out of the house too. But before I walked in, I hit the record button on my phone and slid it into my pocket again.
The duvet had been dragged back over the mattress, and the window was cracked, as if airing out the room would make me forget what I saw. Harrison stood between me and the closet. His shirt was buttoned wrong, and he was holding his hands up, palms out. “Celia, please. It’s just the two of us now. Don’t go.”
“Your mistress might’ve left, but I can still smell her perfume in our bedroom, Harrison.” I walked around him. “I’m not staying.”
“Celia, stop.” He caught the closet door before I could open it. “You walked in on something ugly. I know that. Things got out of hand. But I didn’t bring her here to hurt you.”
I looked at his hand on the door, then at his face. “You brought her to our marital bed. In what world would that not hurt me?”
“I didn’t think you’d be…”
“Home?” I finished for him after his voice trailed off. “Get out of the way.”
He lowered his arm and let me pass him, but he stayed in the doorway. “It was a mistake. One time. I was going to end it.”
I pulled a large suitcase down from the shelf. “Don’t stand there and lie to me.”
“I’m telling the truth, Celia,” he insisted, taking a step closer.
“To your mistress or to me?” I started tossing clothes into the bag with surprisingly steady hands. “Because she said you love her and are planning to get married once we’re divorced.”
He grimaced. “I let it go too far, and that’s on me. She’s young and got more attached than I expected. I didn’t go looking for something serious with her.”
“Well, gee.” I rolled my eyes as I shoved more stuff into the suitcase. “Now that I know you weren’t out there trolling for a serious relationship, I guess I should just let bygones be bygones.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “I know this is bad, but being sarcastic while you’re packing to leave me is only going to make the situation worse.”
“Worse for who?”