The Lock That Had My Husband’s Name And Hers Chapter 02

The stone steps down the ridge were steep, with barely enough room to plant your feet in some places.

Delaney moved lightly ahead of me, seemingly tireless. I walked beside her, every step feeling heavier than the last.

“So how long have you and your husband been married?” she asked, glancing back at me.

I kept my eyes on the stone path beneath my feet.

“Three years.”

Delaney looked surprised.

“Three years? So you’re already past the honeymoon phase?”

“My husband and I have only been together a little over a year. It still feels like the honeymoon every day.”

A little over a year.

I turned that number over silently in my head.

A little over a year ago, Thayer’s company had finally made it through its hardest stretch and secured its first major round of funding.

That night, he had come home drunk and wrapped his arms around me.

“Baby, we finally made it.”

So this was what he had rewarded himself with once he made it.

A young, lively girl.

“How did you two meet?” I asked, surprised by how calm I sounded.

Delaney smiled.

“It was kind of perfect timing, actually.”

“I was interning at his company, and the manager I reported to was really nice to me.”

“She thought Thayer and I would be good together, so she kept trying to set us up.”

I stopped walking, my heart skippinga beat.

“The manager who set you up?”

Delaney nodded.

“Yeah. Cambria Crowell.”

“She’s been so good to me. Honestly, she treats me like a little sister.”

“If she hadn’t kept telling me to go after what I wanted, I never would’ve had the nerve to tell Mr. Langford how I felt.”

Cambria Crowell.

The name sent a sharp jolt through me.

Cambria had been my best friend for ten years.

We had shared a dorm room in college, borrowed each other’s clothes, and split meals when money was tight. At my wedding, she had cried harder than I had.

She had pointed straight at Thayer and warned him that if he ever hurt me, she would kill him herself.

Delaney didn’t notice anything was wrong. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.

“Look. This is a picture of the three of us.”

She held the screen out to me.

The photo had been taken in a dimly lit upscale restaurant.

Thayer sat in the middle.

Delaney was on his left, holding a piece of cake toward his mouth. Cambria sat on his right, smiling brightly with a wineglass raised toward the camera.

There was a date stamp in the corner.

The fifteenth of last month.

My birthday.

That night, I had cooked an entire dinner and waited for Thayer until midnight.

When he finally came home, he smelled like alcohol and told me he had been entertaining an important client.

Cambria had posted online that same day saying she was sick in bed with a cold. She had wished me a happy birthday.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the cold, dry air of Stonecrest Ridge.

Then I pulled out my phone and opened my messages with Cambria.

[Cambria, what are you up to this long weekend?]

Less than ten seconds later, the typing indicator appeared.

Her reply came almost immediately.

Cambria: [Don’t even ask. My mom insisted on setting me up, so now I’m sitting in a coffee shop making awkward eye contact with some balding guy.]

Cambria: [Save me, Bly. I’m dying of boredom.]

She attached a generic photo of a coffee cup.

I stared at the messages as nausea twisted through my stomach.

Delaney leaned closer and glanced at my screen.

“Your friend’s on a blind date?”

I locked my phone at once.

“Yeah. A blind date.”

Delaney looked away and kept walking.

“Actually, Cambria came with us today too.”

“She didn’t want to feel like a third wheel, but my husband said it would be more fun with more people, so he invited her.”

“They’re probably both waiting for me down at Juniper Hollow Lodge right now.”

I followed behind her.

With every step, my knees ached.

My best friend of ten years. My husband of three.

The two of them had built an entire web of lies around me and kept me trapped in the middle, blind and deaf to all of it.

I could almost imagine what they said about me over dinner.

Cambria would probably say, “His pathetic wife is probably still sitting at home waiting for him to come back and eat birthday cake.”

And Thayer?

“Don’t worry about her. She’ll believe anything.”

I stopped and drew in several deep breaths.

Delaney turned around.

“Are you tired?”

“There’s an old stone lookout up ahead. We can take a break there.”

I lifted my head and looked at the innocent young woman in front of me.

She knew nothing.

She was just the perfect girlfriend Thayer had created with money and false devotion.

“Okay. Let’s take a break.”

My voice came out dry and rough.