Page 25 of Open Secrets (Infidelity #5)

Maria — Present

Googling how to take a blackmailing bitch down didn’t exactly yield the results I was hoping for—unless you count about twenty porn sites that I now have to clear from my search history.

“Hm,” I mutter, scrolling. Okay, new plan. I decide to open ChatGPT. Debra is always going on and on about how she hates the site because, apparently, it has a habit of telling patients with minor issues like a cavity that they probably had cancer. Whatever.

I open it, making sure I’m logged out. Why would I log in? “Alright,” I whisper to myself as I type. How to take a woman who is blackmailing my husband by lying and saying the kid is his down. Yes. Much better. I hit send.

What comes back is… promising, if a little annoying.

First tip: Don’t confront her.

“Whatever,” I mutter. Sure, let’s just sit back while some psycho waddles around with a baby bump, threatening to tank my husband’s career. Might as well tell me not to breathe.

Don’t confront her. Yeah, because the last time I took that advice, Bethany lied to my mother-in-law and stole five years from us.

Five years. Just gone. Because I kept my head down, because I thought, well, it’ll blow over, no need to make a scene.

Spoiler: it didn’t blow over. It calcified.

Bethany whispered one poisoned sentence, and suddenly I was the villain, cut out of holidays, birthdays, hospital So, no, AI, don’t tell me, “don’t confront her. ” I’ve lived that mistake already.

And now? Now I can’t believe I have to deal with her too.

It’s not enough that I agreed—against every screaming nerve in my body—to be Anna’s maid of honour. How the hell am I supposed to go dress shopping with that bitch hovering in the background?

I can already see it: Anna twirling in front of a mirror in some overpriced boutique, her mom crying into a tissue, and Bethany lounging in the corner like she belongs there.

And me? Standing there, holding a clutch of sequined fabric and pretending I don’t want to hurl it at her face.

God. The woman is nearly forty and still acting like the same spoiled thirteen-year-old who once batted her lashes and giggled at her best friend’s older brother.

And Lyle—

I stop myself. No. Not the time. Not when my brain is already half a second from spiralling into a full-blown panic attack inside a car. I focus back on my phone.

Second tip: Gather evidence.

I perk up. “Hey, Lyle—did she send you any texts or emails about this whole thing?”

He shakes his head as he pulls the car into a space.

I sigh and go back to reading.

Third: Get a paternity test.

“Useless,” I mutter. We’re trying to avoid insinuating there’s a possibility.

Fourth: Talk to a lawyer.

“Hey, Lyle,” I start, only to look up and realize the driver’s seat is empty.

“Yes,” he says from right outside my door, making me jump.

“Jesus,” I huff, pressing a hand to my chest.

He just smirks, opening my door wider. “Come on.”

Reluctantly, I close the tab as he guides me out.

“We could ask Anna to file a cease-and-desist,” I offer as he steers me toward the restaurant.

“You really wanna tell Anna about this?” he asks.

I pause, grimacing. “…Good point. She’ll tell Bethany, and then we’ll have two bitches on our ass.”

He chuckles under his breath, but I can tell he’s not laughing that hard.

The last tip on the screen flashes in my mind: Protect your family.

I mutter under my breath as we step inside the restaurant. “What the hell do you think I’m trying to do, AI?”

“You know,” I say, swirling my straw through the ice, “we could try to find the father. I mean, she’s had to have stolen the essence of some poor man.”

Lyle raises an eyebrow. “Essence?”

I smirk. “What? You want me to say jizz in a family restaurant with chicken nuggets on the menu?”

He groans, dragging a hand down his face. “God, woman.”

I lean in, grin widening. “Fine. Semen. Happy?”

His glare just makes me laugh harder. “Point is—we could hire a PI. Track her down, figure out who she was actually with.”

He squints at me. “Up until yesterday, we didn’t have money for therapy. According to you.”

“Well…” I shrug, taking a sip of water like I’m innocent. “I can put off Tuscany if it means you get to keep your medals.”

That pulls a startled smile out of him. He reaches across the table, taking my hand in his. His thumb rubs against my knuckles, warm and steady. “I don’t deserve you.”

I take a deep breath, letting it out slow, and tilt my chin up with a little smirk. “I know.”

He bursts into laughter. I can’t help grinning too.

“I love you,” I say, quieter now. “Even if I get mad about the past sometimes.”

He squeezes my hand. “It’s okay. I had to keep from murdering too.”

That makes me snort into my drink, water nearly going up my nose.

Once our food arrives, the smell of fries and grilled chicken filling the booth, I stab at my plate and ask, “Who would she even go to? Like if we don’t pay her, who’s the person she tattles to?”

Lyle thinks for a second, chewing slow. “Since she said ‘commander,’ I’m guessing she means Collins. He’s my battalion commander.”

I make a face. “That old bastard.”

Lyle nods grimly. “The man was passed over for promotion because of my dad. If she goes to him, I’m dead. He’d have me discharged so fast your head would spin.”

I mutter into my fork, “There goes that plan.”

“What plan?” Lyle asks, wary now.

I shrug, twirling a fry through ketchup. “I thought we could go to whoever she’d complain to… and complain first. Like, stake our bitch flag in the ground before she does.”

He just stares at me, blinking once, twice, like he’s trying to decide if I’m a genius or clinically insane.

“Stake your… bitch flag?” he repeats finally.

I grin, shoving the fry into my mouth. “Exactly.”

His laugh bursts out, loud enough to make the waiter glance over. But under it, I can still see the worry lingering in his eyes.

I look at a mom with a toddler near the back. She’s clearly exhausted, and every time her kid drops something to the floor, she looks embarrassed. The staff, instead of annoyed, quietly clean it up. I smile, remembering those days.

Remi was one when I got pregnant with Taylor.

I wanted kids close in age, thought it would be sweet—siblings who’d grow up side by side, playmates instead of strangers.

It seemed possible until Remi hit the terrible twos early.

That kid gave me so many white hairs before his second birthday I should’ve bought stock in hair dye.

I can still picture myself on the kitchen floor, trying to wrangle him as he hurled peas against the wall, both of us crying, him louder but me breaking in a way he couldn’t see.

And Lyle missed it. Not just the tantrums but the tiny victories too.

Remi’s first steps, his first words, the first time he held Taylor’s hand without me asking.

They all lived in shaky little videos I’d email across the ocean, my voice chirpy in the background like I wasn’t breaking down the second I hit send.

I swirl my straw through the ice, thinking about how many meals Lyle’s missed over the years—deployments, training, all the times it was just me and the kids at the table pretending it was fine.

Even birthdays with an empty chair at the table.

And now here we are, finally face-to-face over fries, and we’re still fighting ghosts.

I lean back in the booth, wiping my hands on the napkin. “Hey,” I say, softer now. “Even if we lose the pension, we’ll survive. It’s not like it’s a lot anyway. And I can get insurance through my business. It’ll suck to lose commissary access, but…” I shrug. “We’ll survive.”

Lyle sets down his fork, his jaw tightening. “It’s not just that, Maria.”

I frown. “Then what is it?”

He stares at the table, his voice low but sharp. “I gave twenty-five years to the Army. Twenty-five years. And now what—I just walk away with regret?”

The words sit heavy between us, heavier than the plates on the table. His hand curls into a fist against the wood, and for once, he looks less like my husband and more like one of those soldiers who doesn’t know how to put his weapon down, even when the war’s already over.

I reach across the booth, laying my hand over his fist until I feel his fingers slowly loosen. “You won’t walk away with regret,” I tell him. “Not if you come home to us. Not if you let yourself actually live outside of that uniform.”

He glances up at me, eyes dark, searching.

I force a small smile. “Besides, you’ll have me around to nag you every time you look too wistful at the flag.”

That earns me the tiniest huff of a laugh, but I can tell—he’s not all the way convinced.

I try to take his mind off it, but I don’t think I succeed. We spend the rest of the drive trying to come up with ways to deal with the drama, but honestly, we have nada. Nothing.

The next three days are spent in limbo. He won’t talk to me, won’t even really look at me. It’s like living with a ghost in army-issue sweats. So I decide to unleash it somewhere else.

That Thursday, I walk into Dr. Nina’s office and collapse on the couch. I don’t even bother with pleasantries. I just start talking.

“…and now he won’t even talk about it!” I throw my hands up. “Like somehow I’m the problem here. Like he’s the one being blackmailed and I’m the drama.”

Dr. Nina just blinks at me calmly. “That must be frustrating.”

I give her a look. A full-on duh face.

She doesn’t flinch. She never does. “Let’s go back a step,” she says gently. “This woman—Cece. Was she a relationship?”

I shrug, picking at a loose thread on the cushion. “Friends with benefits.”

Her eyes stay steady on me. “You’re very unbothered about that.”

Another shrug. “What can I do? It’s not like he cheated. And besides, it’s in the past. I promised not to get mad about it anymore.”

Dr. Nina tilts her head. “It’s not in the past anymore, is it? It’s in the present now. And it’s threatening your future.”

I freeze, the words sinking like stones.