Derek Harding's first love, Kitty Simmons, came home. Broke enough that even her family's old estate was up for foreclosure.
I asked him if he still loved her. He frowned and told me not to be ridiculous, that he wasn't that fickle.
I believed him.
Until his phone lit up in the middle of the night. A bank withdrawal. Eight million dollars——and I knew that exact figure. It was the opening bid on the Simmons family estate.
He hadn't cheated on me.
He'd only used our joint marital funds to buy back another woman's home.
I gripped his phone, waiting for him to wake up, and saw a post Kitty had just put on her social media feed:
"Some people say goodbye to your face, but quietly hold up your whole sky behind your back."
The photo was of the estate's courtyard.
And just like that, I remembered what Derek said the day he proposed:
"A man like me only loves once in his life."
Turns out he meant every word.
——
Derek's phone lit up again.
Kitty had posted a second time, a photo of a carved wooden door, captioned: "Home at last."
I stared at that door.
Last year Derek had taken me to see that old estate. Passed down through generations of the Simmons family, a historic mansion, the garden alone running three acres.
He'd said the house had history. A shame the Simmons family had fallen on hard times.
I hadn't thought much of it then.
Now I understood why he knew it so well.
The living room was dark, the glow of the phone screen casting light across my face.
I scrolled through the transfer record. Eight million dollars, even. Payee: an auction house. And the memo on the transfer, spelled out plain as day: "Final payment, Kitty's House."
Kitty's House.
He'd never put this much care into buying a place for us.
A sound came from the bedroom, sheets shifting. Derek was awake. He padded out in his slippers, saw me sitting on the couch, and froze.
"Why aren't you asleep?"
I turned the phone toward him.
Derek went still. He stepped closer to take it; I pulled my hand back.
"Kitty Simmons's old estate. You bought it?"
He said nothing.
"I asked you a question."
"Yes, I bought it." His voice was low. "Her place was about to be foreclosed. I helped her buy it back. Don't worry, I'll make the money up from somewhere else. It won't affect the household."
A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it. The household? We'd been married three years. His money and mine had long since stopped being two separate things. Now he said it "wouldn't affect the household," as if this were something the two of us shared? Eight million dollars, taken on a whim, and not once did he ask me.
"When did you decide this?"
"Just… recently."
"Recently?" I glanced at the transfer date again. "Ten days ago. For ten days you've eaten with me, slept beside me, and not said a single word."
Derek frowned. "I didn't want you reading into it."
"Reading into what?"
He looked at me a moment, then sighed. "Ruby Henson, Kitty and I are in the past. She's in trouble now, and I gave her a hand. That's all there is to it. Don't overthink it."
That's all there is to it.
Then why write "Kitty's House" in the transfer memo? Why was he the first to like her post? Why, the moment she got back into the country, did he already know her family's estate was going up for auction?
None of that happens unless you've been paying close attention.
I said none of it. I only said, "I don't have a problem with you helping her. But taking our shared money to do it, without so much as a word to me? You think that's right?"
Derek's expression turned uneasy. He sat down across from me, hands folded over his knees, voice softening. "I was wrong. I should have talked to you first. At the time I just wanted to secure it before someone else snatched it up. That house means a lot to her family."
"It means a lot to you too, doesn't it?"
