A woman stood beside him, and I immediately recognized her as Alyssa.
The moment I noticed the thick folder of documents in her hands, I understood that our past held secrets I had never known existed.
For illustration purposes only
I released the safety chain and opened the door only a few inches. “Why are you here at this hour?”
Lucas looked deeply uncomfortable in the narrow hallway, while Alyssa stepped forward carrying a beige folder. “Nora, we truly need to speak with you.”
Every muscle in my body tightened at the sound of her voice. “I will not have this conversation in front of my child.”
Mason suddenly appeared directly behind me in the entryway. “Mom, it is okay, I am right here.”
The moment Lucas saw him, he stepped backward, looking almost afraid that his presence might cause more damage. “I am so sorry, Nora, I should not have shown up unannounced like this.”
“Then please leave right now,” I demanded firmly.
Before I could shut the door, Alyssa quickly interrupted. “Nora, I was the one who asked him to bring me here.”
I stared at her in disbelief, unable to understand why the woman who had haunted my marriage was now standing outside my home.
“You have two minutes to explain yourselves,” I said, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind me.
Alyssa opened the beige folder, revealing printed emails, financial records, and text messages from nearly ten years earlier. “When I returned from London years ago, Lucas foolishly assumed I wanted to restart our past romance.”
Lucas lowered his head silently while she continued.
“That was never my intention,” Alyssa continued honestly. “My father was critically ill, and I only returned because I desperately needed help managing our family enterprise.”
A confusing mixture of old anger and disbelief moved through me. “He walked away from our marriage to rush to the airport for you.”
“I know he did,” Alyssa acknowledged sorrowfully. “I am not going to pretend I was completely innocent back then, because I was selfish and enjoyed his support while I was scared.”
I kept watching her as she turned to another page in the folder.
“However, when I realized he had actually finalized a divorce, I asked him for the real truth,” she explained. “Three weeks after your separation, Lucas confessed he wanted to try building a future with me, but I refused him immediately.”
She handed me a printed email dated several months after I had left.
I read the short paragraph in which Alyssa clearly told Lucas their old feelings were dead and that he should never have destroyed his marriage over a memory.
“Why are you bringing all these old records to me today?” I asked, lifting my gaze from the page.
“Because Lucas called me in complete panic after the school ceremony today,” Alyssa explained softly. “He was beside himself after discovering he had a nine-year-old son, so I brought him these records to remind him of what really happened.”
She removed a printed transcript of a message Lucas’s mother, Victoria Albright, had sent only four days after our divorce.
The message showed his mother urging him to move forward with someone from a wealthy family and warning him not to respond if I ever returned asking for more money.
Beneath it was Lucas’s brief reply: It is completely over, and I do not want to hear her name ever again.
