The Woman At The Door, Daniel Hurst [world best books to read TXT] 📗

‘But I haven’t done anything wrong, and you just need to believe me!’

‘That would make things easier for you, wouldn’t it? If I just believed you. If I just pretended like a woman hadn’t told me about you and her and if I hadn’t just seen you walking into a bar with some office floozy while my heart was breaking into a million pieces!’

‘It was just a drink! Nothing happened!’

‘I’ll have to take your word for that because I left before you came out. Just like I took your word all the times you told me that you loved me and that I was the only one for you.’

Sam suddenly gets up off his sofa and comes towards me and I’m not exactly sure what he is planning on doing. But then he drops to his knees and grabs my hands before looking me straight in the eye.

‘You want to leave me? Fine. We can get a divorce. I’ll sign whatever you want me to sign, and you can tell people whatever you want to tell them about me and what I have supposedly done. If that is going to happen then that is what will happen, and there is nothing I can do about it.’

I’m relieved that Sam has finally grasped the severity of our situation now, but there is something in the tone of his voice that makes me wait to see what he has to say next.

‘But if there is one part of you, one tiny part that still thinks there might be a chance for us then you have to give me the opportunity to fight for us, and the only way I can do that is by proving that I am innocent and that woman is guilty.’

‘Sam, I...’

‘-Wait, I’m not done,’ my husband tells me, and he keeps a firm grip on my hands with his face only a few inches away from mine as he kneels before me. ‘If I have done this and I have cheated then the PI won’t be able to find anything, will she? All of this will be an expensive waste of my time and you can divorce me then because I won’t have any way of explaining what has happened.’

Sam nods at me as if to let me know that he is speaking sense, and I have to agree that he is.

‘But let’s just say for one second that I am telling the truth here. Then the investigator will get something, and that will show that I have done nothing wrong. Isn’t that chance worth fighting for? If you’re going to divorce me anyway then what have you got to lose? Just give me another day or two to try and find something on this woman. We already have her name. Now we just need to find out why she is targeting us.’

I can see tears in my husband’s eyes, and his impassioned speech has clearly stirred up his emotions. It could all just be another act, of course, but I really hope it isn’t and not just for the sake of our marriage. It’s because if he is still lying to me now then he is damn good at it, and it means I know him even less than I thought I did. Telling fake stories is one thing, but shedding fake tears is another. That requires a different level of acting, and it’s not a level that I care to even think about.

‘Just another day or two. I’m telling the investigator to do whatever it takes, and I’m certain she will prove my innocence then. Just give me this last chance. You don’t have to let me back home but hold off on the divorce until you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am guilty.’

I have tears in my eyes as well now, and I feel one of them running down my cheek as Sam holds onto my hands and pleads with me to give him a little time.

‘Fine. A couple of days. That’s it. Then I’m divorcing you.’

It sounds crazy but Sam actually seems happy with what I have just told him, and he thanks me before getting back to his feet and heading for the door. Either he’s extremely deluded, or he really is innocent and is expecting to have the evidence to prove it soon.

I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Either my husband is a cheating liar, or he is the victim of some sick woman’s game.

I think it’s the first, but I hope to be proven wrong by it being the second. But what would that say about the state of the world if it is the second? What would it mean if there is somebody out there going around ruining people’s marriages by spreading a web of lies?

It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Then again, neither does divorce either.

39

SAM

After the shock of going to my house and seeing my clothes in suitcases on the driveway, I have managed to regroup and buy myself a little more time before Rebecca can forge ahead and file for divorce. But that’s all it is. Just a little more time. Without some hard evidence and tangible facts to prove my innocence, there is no doubt that Rebecca and I are finished.

That is why I’m now on the phone to Erica to get another update from her.

The last time I spoke to her was this morning when I had given her full authority to do whatever she had to do to get me the truth about Alexandra. Recording devices. Cameras. Phone hacking. Whatever it took, and whatever it cost, I wanted my PI to know that nothing was off-limits anymore.

‘Hi, how’s it going?’

My first words to Erica sound like the words of a man greeting a friend after having not seen them for a few days. Casual. Open-ended. Carefree. But that’s not what my words mean at all in this case. In this case, I want to know how things are going