It wasn’t a common name, but I needed that extra hundredth of a percent of certainty, and I needed it now. No way I could keep reading from the beginning and wait until I got to that point. So I flipped frantically until I found the section I remembered.

Dear Diary,

Today I became a mother.

A mother.

I had to write that again because I still can’t believe it. The birth was all the gruesome stories of pain I’d heard, and then some. But the moment they laid my little girl in my arms, I forgot all about the agony of delivery. She’s perfect in absolutely every way.

At 2:42 today, my life changed. I took one look in my baby’s eyes and knew in my heart of hearts that I needed to be a better person. A stronger person. A more selfless person. An honest person. I’m so proud to be my sweet girl’s mother, and today I make the promise to become a person she can be proud of someday, too.

Welcome to the world, Laken Charlotte.

~A

I dropped the book to my lap and closed my eyes.

Hudson’s ex-wife was Laken Charlotte’s mother—Charlie’s mother. But unfortunately, that was all I could say for sure. Because according to other entries in her diary, that was all Alexandria could say for sure. She’d kept a secret from her husband—a big one.

This time, I couldn’t hold back my nausea. I ran to the bathroom and unloaded the contents of my stomach into the toilet.

CHAPTER 29

Stella

Fifteen months ago

“You smell like perfume, Aiden.” I took a step away from him after our hug.

He sighed. “Not this again. You have samples all over both of our apartments, of course some of it gets caught in my clothes.”

He turned and walked to his bedroom. I followed.

“You smell like jasmine. I don’t have that here or at your place.”

“Well, then it’s probably a combination of the shit you have laying around. You, of all people, know that when you combine a lot of smells, you make a new one. Whatever my wool coat picked up must be doing the combining.”

“Where were you tonight?”

“Grading midterms in my office. Would you like me to get a note from the security guard I pass on my way out from now on? The better question is, where were you? You still have your shoes on, and your cheeks are red from the cold. So I take it you worked late yourself.”

“I was at the lab working on the algorithm.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “The algorithm…right. I thought we’d put that to bed. We’re buying a house with that money.”

“Just because I agreed we could use our savings to buy a house doesn’t mean I need to stop working on my product.”

“No, but how do I know you were really there?”

“You don’t. But I’m not the one who smells like perfume and has hotel charges on my credit card.”

“I’m not doing this shit again, Stella.” Aiden put his hands on his hips. “The hotel was a reservation for my parents who were coming to town. I made it a long time ago and forgot to cancel it after they canceled their trip to New York. It had completely slipped my mind when you asked me. A week later I remembered, so I paid the bill. I didn’t think I needed to report back to you.”

The story he’d told me did make sense, only he’d never mentioned that his parents were coming to town, and when they had in the past, they’d always stayed at a hotel near his apartment—not on the other side of town.

Lately it was always the same thing. He had an explanation for everything—the hotel charge, smelling like perfume, when my friend from work saw him at a restaurant with a brunette woman looking pretty cozy, a suspicious text. It wasn’t one thing, but a bunch of small things that added up.

“Look.” Aiden walked over and put his hands on my shoulders. “Those dumb diaries are planting shit in your head.”

I wanted so badly to believe him. But I couldn’t let go of all the similarities between the way Alexandria was treating her husband and things between Aiden and me lately. Alexandria would come home and go right to the shower to wash off her lover’s smell—just like Aiden had started doing the last few months if I was at his apartment when he got home. Alexandria was super cautious with her phone. Aiden even took his into the bathroom when he showered now—except for that one time he was in the shower when I arrived at his place. I’d found his cell charging on his nightstand and tried to sneak a peek at his text messages while the water was still running, only to find he’d changed his password from the one he’d been using forever.

I looked into Aiden’s eyes. “Do you promise me? Promise me there is nothing going on with anyone else. I just can’t shake the feeling, Aiden.”

He leaned closer and spoke directly into my eyes. “You need to trust me.”

I nodded, though I didn’t feel settled.

That night, we went to sleep like we had most nights lately—with a quick peck on the lips and no sex. That was yet another thing that had changed over the last six months and only added to my suspicions.

***

The following week everything had mostly returned to normal—until Fisher called one morning while I was making toast.

“Hey. You told me Aiden was going out of town tonight, right? That’s one of the reasons you moved our monthly movie night from Sunday to Friday.”

“Yeah. He’s going to a conference upstate on incorporating new technology into college lectures. Why?”

“I ran into that weird guy Simon he works with—the one who parts his hair down the middle and brushes it straight down on the sides. I got stuck talking to him at your Christmas party a few years back, and he spent half an hour explaining how the helium balloons are bad for our marine environment.”

“I remember Simon. What about him?”

“Well, we go to the same gym. I see him every once in a while and try to avoid him. But this morning, the only treadmill open was next to him. So I had to run beside the guy. He noticed my water bottle and started lecturing me about the effects of plastic on Mother Earth. I tried to change the subject, so I asked him if he was going to the conference.”

“Okay…”

“He said it was last weekend.”

“What?” I stopped with the butter knife mid-spread, my toast forgotten. “Maybe they have it over a few weekends?”

“That’s what I figured. I know you’ve been having a hard time with trusting Aiden lately, so I wasn’t going to mention it to you, but it was bugging me. So I Googled the conference. It was last weekend—only last weekend, Stell.”

After I didn’t say anything for a long time, I heard the worry in Fisher’s voice.

“Are you okay?”

Oddly, I felt sort of numb, not frantic and freaked out like I’d been when I first started to suspect something. Maybe deep down I’d known the truth all along. But I was positive Aiden was never going to admit anything.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Do you think you can borrow your friend’s car again?”

“Probably. Why?”