“This is my glass,” I said. “My towel. My patio. My pool. My house.”

Ethan swallowed. “Claire, please. Let’s go inside.”

“No,” I said. “You liked doing this outside. We’ll discuss it outside.”

Sienna clutched the towel tighter. “You put something in the water.”

“I treated my pool,” I said. “You swam in it without permission.”

Her face flushed darker. “I could sue you.”

“Please do.” I tilted my head. “I would love to explain to a judge why you entered my property through a side gate to swim with my husband while I was at work.”

Her confidence flickered.

Ethan reached for my arm. “Claire, enough.”

I looked at his hand until he withdrew it.

“No,” I said softly. “Not enough. Not even close.”

He lowered his voice. “You don’t understand what’s happening.”

That made me smile again.

“Oh, I understand perfectly. You brought your mistress into the home I paid for. You let her use my pool, my towels, my bed—”

“We were never in your bed,” Sienna snapped.

Ethan went still.

Too still.

I turned toward him.

“That’s an oddly specific thing for her to deny.”

His face drained of color.

Sienna saw it too. Her fury faltered, replaced by confusion.

“Ethan?” she said.

He closed his eyes. “Sienna, don’t.”

That was when I realized something was wrong.

Not with me.

With them.

Sienna stepped back. “What haven’t you told me?”

I looked between them, the mistress and the husband, and for the first time, I noticed she was frightened in a way that had nothing to do with the pool. Her anger was real, but beneath it was something else.

Betrayal.

Fresh betrayal.

I folded my arms. “This should be interesting.”

Ethan wiped his face with both hands. “Claire, I was going to tell you.”

“When?” I asked. “After the next swim?”

He stared at the water.

Sienna’s voice sharpened. “Tell her what?”

Ethan did not answer.

So I did what betrayed wives do best.

I used the silence.

“Sienna,” I said, “how long have you been sleeping with my husband?”

She lifted her chin. “Eight months.”

Ethan flinched.

I nodded. “And did he tell you he was divorcing me?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you the house was his?”

She glanced at him.

I smiled.

“There it is.”

Sienna’s face changed.

“He said…” She looked at the patio, the house, the pool, suddenly seeing them differently. “He said you refused to leave. He said this was his family property.”

I laughed, but it hurt coming out.

“My father bought this home for me after my mother died. Ethan’s name is not on the deed.”

Sienna turned on him. “You told me she was unstable.”

My blood cooled.

“What?”

Ethan’s jaw tightened. “Sienna.”

“No,” she said, stepping away from him. “You said she was paranoid. You said she imagined things. You said if we got footage of her acting crazy, your lawyer could prove she was dangerous.”

The patio seemed to tilt.

For months, I had thought the affair was the wound.

But it was only the doorway.

I looked at my husband—the man I had slept beside, cooked for, comforted, defended—and saw a stranger wearing his face.

“You were trying to make me look insane,” I said.

He said nothing.

Sienna’s eyes filled with horror. “He told me you’d already threatened him. He told me you might hurt yourself or him. He said the cameras were because of your breakdown.”

A strange calm came over me.

Not peace.

Something harder.

“Ethan,” I said, “what did you need me declared unstable for?”

His silence answered before his mouth did.

Sienna whispered, “The inheritance.”