PART 2: A Stranger Let Me Sleep on His Shoulder—Then My Ex-Husband Found Me Before the Plane Even Landed -035

Daniel returned.

“It doesn’t appear mechanically unusual. We can open it downstairs if you’d prefer.”

I looked at the envelope.

Then at Lily.

Then at the emails glowing on my laptop screen.

Northbridge.

Caroline Prescott.

Samuel Baines.

Three years of secrets.

“I want to see it.”

Daniel hesitated.

Then carefully opened the envelope.

Inside was a single photograph.

He stared at it.

His expression changed.

“What?” I asked.

He did not answer immediately.

“Daniel.”

He turned the photograph toward me.

It had been taken years ago.

Adrian stood outside what looked like a hospital entrance.

He was younger.

Beside him was a woman I instantly knew had to be Caroline.

Same eyes.

Same dark hair.

She looked thin but cheerful, one hand lifted toward the camera.

There were two other people in the photograph.

One was Samuel Baines.

And the other—

My knees nearly gave way.

I grabbed the doorframe.

Because standing beside Adrian Prescott in a photograph taken almost three years before I met him was my husband.

Ethan.

I stared at the phone in my hand.

“Ethan?”

He did not answer.

“Why are you in a picture with Adrian?”

Nothing.

My pulse thundered.

“You told me you didn’t know him.”

Finally, Ethan spoke.

Very quietly.

“I told you I’d never met him.”

I looked again at the photograph.

“You’re standing five feet away from him.”

“That doesn’t mean we met.”

“What does that even mean?”

Daniel turned the photograph over.

There was writing on the back.

Only one sentence.

He read it silently.

Then handed it to me.

The handwriting was neat.

Almost elegant.

I read the message once.

Then again.

Ethan is not the reason you were brought to Houston. Ask Adrian who was supposed to be sitting in seat 14B.

My eyes lifted slowly.

Seat 14B.