Page 24 of The Liar's Wife

I saw red, my vision blurry with rage as I fought back bile and tried to rein in my fury.

I wanted to kill her.

I wanted to kill him.

I looked at Ben, who, to my relief, looked concerned.

“Oh, I don’t know if you should…”

“It’s fine, Ben,” she said, smiling down as my son struggled to latch onto her breast. “See, he’s hungry. It’s calming him.”

“I don’t want to confuse him, Kat. I have some milk in the bag I can warm up for him,” he said. “Just wait a second.” He stood and darted in the house, leaving just the three of us there. Just me, Kat, and Gray. I wanted to jump down, to grab Gray from her arms and run for the hills, but I couldn’t. I was angry enough that I could do something stupid if Iwasn’t careful. I was trespassing. This could all be misconstrued. I could be arrested, I could lose Gray anyway. I had to be smart. I had to, no matter how high the bile rose in my throat or how much I trembled with pure rage.

Gray wasn’t latching on. She wasn’t me. He struggled to attach to her, and she didn’t know how to place him right. Even if she would’ve done everything perfectly, there was no milk in her breasts like there was in mine. No nourishment for the child in her arms. She wasn’t his mother.

“Come on, sweet boy,” she said, pushing his head against her body a bit more firmly. I chewed my lip, my options getting fewer and fewer by the moment. I was going to have to intervene. I was going to end up going to jail over this.

No sooner had I accepted my decision than the back door opened again and Ben appeared with a bottle, half-full of my milk. “Here we go,” he said. I expected Kat to argue, and from the look on her face, I believed she wanted to, but after a moment, she lowered Gray from her chest, pulling her shirt up over her bare breast—not before giving my husband an eyeful—and reaching her hand out for the bottle. She rested Gray in one arm and held the bottle to his lips, and his fussing stopped almost instantly.

He was calmed byme. By something my body produced. It was the only thing keeping me still in a moment where I was sure I’d come unglued. I watched him sucking the milk down and breathed in heavily, out slowly. I felt the hairs on my arms stand up, my body tense. I was nearing a panic attack, but I couldn’t let it happen here.

I had to breathe.

That was all.

I just had to keep breathing.

No.An angry thought hit me at once. I’d missed mychance. I should’ve taken a picture of what was happening. Of her attempting to nurse my son while my husband allowed it. Surely that would’ve helped my case. But it was too late. The moment had passed, and I’d been too distracted by fury to catch it.

I sank to the floor in a state of panic as the adrenaline I’d felt began to calm down. I tried to keep my breathing steady, to keep myself quiet as I felt the sobs beating against my chest, begging to be released. The hair on my arms stood on end as I pressed my hand to my lips so hard, my teeth hurt.

Just breathe, Palmer.

Just breathe.

Chapter Fifteen

Iwent back to work without thinking about it. It was the last thing I wanted to do, and yet I also didn’t want to go home. I sat in the parking lot for an hour, crying and snotting and fuming.

How had it come to this?

How had so much gone so wrong this quickly?

How had I fallen from perfect wife, loving mother to wife betrayed in a matter of days? It didn’t seem possible. And yet, here I was. Again. Why was I so easy to cheat on? Why was I so easy to lose?

I wiped away my tears, lowering the sun visor and opening the mirror to look over my makeup. My hair had frizzed from the humidity, most of my makeup melting away, and I had tear stains on the makeup that had fought to remain.

I couldn’t go into my building like this, but I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t face the conversation that I needed to have. Ty had advised that I wait until I had proof, but there wasabsolutely no way I could face Ben without telling him what I knew, what I’d seen, and how I felt.

He left Kat’s house just before I did, so he should’ve been home by now. I pulled out my phone and typed up a quick, emotionless text.

Hey. What are you up to?

He’d lie and pretend he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Pretend he and Gray had spent the morning at home, as usual. He’d lie like he always had. Because I was the kind of woman who men lied to. I was the kind of woman they cheated on. The kind who was easily replaced. The kind you traded in for a new model after a while.

Two completely different men in two completely different scenarios had cheated on me. The only common denominator was me. I had to believe that meant something.

I ran a hand over my belly, several pounds of extra fluff still lingering since I’d had Gray. I knew some women who lost the baby weight almost instantly, but I still carried at least twenty pounds extra. My breasts were swollen and sore, and they belonged solely to Gray now. I wore thick, diaper-like pads in my hinged nursing bra to keep the milk from leaking through my clothes. I had several more weeks of bleeding before Ben and I could be intimate again. Not that he’d want to. I was no longer the sexy, enchanting woman he had met a year ago. Could I really blame him for falling in love with someone else? We’d been together such a short time before I’d fallen pregnant and he’d proposed. Maybe he felt like I’d trapped him. Maybe I had.