Emily looked up.
“Who is she?”
Ryan didn’t answer.
Natalie did.
“Her name is Beth.”
Emily looked at Ryan.
“Who is Beth?”
He sat down heavily.
“Someone I knew before you.”
“Knew?”
“Emily, please.”
She held up the photograph.
“Why was someone you knew before me wearing a ring with both your initials inside it eight months ago?”
Ryan stared at the grass.
Natalie answered.
“Because Ryan bought it for her.”
Emily made a small sound.
I caught her elbow.
Ryan stood.
“It wasn’t what you’re making it sound like.”
Natalie laughed once.
“Then tell her what it was.”
Beth had been Ryan’s girlfriend years earlier.
They had once planned to marry.
Ryan ended the relationship before he met Emily, and he had always claimed that chapter of his life was finished.
Eight months earlier, Beth contacted him.
She was engaged to someone else and had found a box of old belongings while preparing to move.
Among them was the engagement ring Ryan had once given her.
Ryan told Emily he was traveling to Chicago for a work conference.
There was no conference.
He met Beth instead.
Emily’s voice trembled.
“For an entire weekend?”
Ryan shook his head.
“Not like that.”
“Then like what?”
“She was having doubts about getting married.”
Emily stared at him.
“And she called my husband?”
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Ryan looked toward Natalie.
Natalie already knew part of the truth because Ryan had asked her to cover for him.
He told Emily he might meet his sister for dinner while he was supposedly away.
If Emily called Natalie, Ryan wanted their stories to match.
Natalie refused.
At first, however, she said nothing to Emily.
“I thought he was meeting Beth once,” Natalie admitted. “He told me he needed closure.”
Emily laughed without humor.
“Closure.”
Ryan stepped closer.
“That’s what it was.”
Natalie shook her head.
“Stop.”
“Emily, nothing happened,” Ryan said.
“Then why does Natalie have the ring?”
That finally cornered him.
Beth had brought the old engagement ring when she met Ryan.
She planned to return it and close that chapter for good.
Instead, Ryan began talking as though his marriage might not survive.
Beth later discovered Emily was pregnant.
Ryan hadn’t told her.
Beth ended contact.
She then reached out to Natalie because she wanted someone in Ryan’s family to know what had happened.
She gave Natalie the ring, along with copies of messages and photographs.
Ryan had told Beth that he and Emily were “having problems” and living more like roommates than husband and wife.
My daughter looked physically sick.
“We were trying to have this baby.”
Ryan’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“You told another woman our marriage was falling apart while we were trying to have a child?”
“I didn’t say it was over.”
Natalie pulled out her phone.
“Don’t lie again.”
Emily held out her hand.
Ryan moved toward her.
“Emily, don’t.”
She stared at him.
“Why are you more afraid of me reading them than you are of what you did?”
He had no answer.
Natalie handed her the phone.
The messages confirmed that Beth had ended contact when she learned Emily was pregnant.
Ryan had told Beth he didn’t know whether his marriage would survive.
Yet, at home, he had been assembling a crib, attending doctor’s appointments, discussing baby names, and planning this gender reveal.
Emily handed the phone back.
“Did you sleep with her?”
Ryan looked directly at her.
“No.”
Natalie didn’t contradict him.
Neither did the messages.
That mattered, but it didn’t erase the lies.
Emily nodded slowly.
“So you didn’t sleep with her.”
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“No.”
“You only lied about a trip, spent a weekend with your former fiancée, hid the fact that I was pregnant, told her our marriage might fail, and met her again afterward.”
