Chapter 45
Malcolm blinked, stunned. “Wait… you’re telling me you and Margaret were never actually together?”
Terrence exhaled, his grip tightening around the glass in his hand. “Not in the way everyone thought.”
Malcolm let out a low whistle. “Damn. That means Valerie left you… for a misunderstanding?”
Terrence didn’t respond, but his clenched jaw said enough.
All those years. All those rumors.
Valerie must have believed them too.
Malcolm leaned back against the railing, shaking his head. “So let me get this straight—you let the entire world think you were with Margaret. You never corrected Valerie, never gave her a reason to think otherwise, and now she’s married to another man because she thought she was a third party?”
Terrence’s stomach twisted. He had never thought about it like that.
Margaret had been sick, and he had vowed to protect her. That was all. But in his silence, in his refusal to explain, he had let Valerie suffer under the weight of a lie.
“She must have hated me,” he muttered, more to himself than to Malcolm.
Malcolm scoffed. “No, she loved you. That’s why it hurt her enough to leave.”
The words felt like a punch to the gut.
Love.
Valerie had loved him.
She had loved him enough to endure humiliation. Enough to chase after him even when he pushed her away.
But love had its limits.
And he had been too blind to see when she finally reached hers.
Terrence set his drink down, the clink of glass against wood echoing through the night. His expression hardened.
“She’s not staying married to Ricky,” he said.
Malcolm raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And how do you plan to stop her?”
Terrence’s eyes darkened, determination settling in his chest like steel.
“She was mine first,” he said simply. “And I don’t plan on letting her go.”
