Chapter 6 - The Friend Who Sat Beside Me
Melinda looked at me then.
Not at Connor.
At me.
“Kirsten,” she whispered.
I almost looked away.
Because even after everything, seeing her broken still hurt.
That was the worst part of betrayal. It didn’t erase love cleanly. It left pieces behind in places you didn’t want to find them.
She had been my emergency contact.
My maid of honor.
The person who knew my mother died when I was twenty-one and that I hated sleeping in silent houses.
She had sat with me after my first failed fertility cycle and braided my hair on the bathroom floor because I had cried too hard to stand.
Now she was on another floor, in another kind of ruin, looking at me like I still owed her softness.
“I wanted to tell you,” she said.
I looked at Connor. “Before or after you moved into my house?”
Her face crumpled.
Connor snapped, “Don’t talk to her.”
That almost made me laugh.
Even now, he thought he was in charge of everyone’s pain.
Melinda wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “He told me you were cold. That you didn’t love him. That the marriage was already dead.”
I nodded slowly.
“And you believed him because believing him gave you permission.”
She flinched.
Good.
Some truths should hurt.
Kenneth closed the folder, but he did not leave. He stood like a wall beside me.
Connor turned to him. “Why are you even involved in this?”
Kenneth said, “Because Mr. Fleming filed a sealed motion last month to challenge remaining divorce settlement terms, alleging emotional abandonment and fraud related to fertility treatment expenses.”
I stared at Connor.
He looked away.
Kenneth continued. “In plain language, he tried to reopen the divorce to claim Dr. Sinclair concealed medical facts and caused financial damages.”
A nurse whispered, “Unbelievable.”
Connor’s face flushed.
“You were going to sue me?” I asked.
He straightened, desperate to recover dignity.
“You lied to me for years.”
I took one step toward him.
The security guard shifted, but I did not raise my voice.
“No,” I said. “You lied to me. Then you left me. Then you married my best friend. Then you brought a baby into my workplace to shame me. And while doing all that, you tried to sue me for the lie you created.”
His mouth opened.
May you like
No words came.
For the first time since I had known him, Connor Fleming had no performance left.
