“Completely fake.”
Caroline studied both of us.
“I need to ask directly. Have either of you ever had a romantic relationship?”
“No,” I said.
“Absolutely not,” Elliot said.
Caroline nodded.
“That was my assumption.”
I looked at her.
“You believe us?”
“I believe evidence should be verified before conclusions are made.”
The words hit harder than she intended.
My own husband had not done the same.
Caroline continued.
“Our IT team already noticed formatting inconsistencies in the screenshots.”
Elliot frowned.
“What kind?”
“The timestamps don’t match the phone interface shown. One screenshot uses a format that application stopped displaying months before the date shown.”
I leaned back.
For the first time, I had something concrete.
Not a suspicion.
Not a theory.
Proof that at least some of the evidence was fabricated.
Caroline looked at me.
“Is there someone who may want to create problems for you?”
I hesitated.
Then told her about Talia.
Not everything.
Enough.
When I finished, Caroline’s face had changed.
“We’re preserving the complaint and attachments.”
“Can you determine who sent it?”
“We can try to identify what information is available through proper channels.”
I nodded.
Elliot waited until we left Caroline’s office.
Then he stopped me in the hall.
“Maren.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“You got pulled into this.”
“You didn’t send the complaint.”
“No.”
“Then stop apologizing.”
I looked at him.
He lowered his voice.
“My wife knows, by the way.”
My stomach dropped.
“Elliot—”
“She laughed.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“When I showed her the screenshots, she asked why my fake messages sounded like they were written by someone who had never heard me text before.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Elliot did too.
Then his expression became serious.
“If whoever is doing this is willing to contact your workplace, be careful.”
“I am.”
“No.”
He glanced back toward Caroline’s office.
“Be more careful than you think you need to be.”
That afternoon, Rebecca received copies of the anonymous complaint.
She called me immediately.
“This matters.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it matters beyond work.”
“Because the screenshots are fake.”
“Yes.”
“If Grant received the same ones—”
“Then we may know exactly how someone created doubt.”
I looked out the window.
“But Grant still chose to believe them.”
Rebecca was quiet.
“Yes.”
That distinction would become the center of everything.
Talia had manipulated him.
But she had not forced him to humiliate me.
She had not forced him to change the locks.
She had not forced him to question our baby while I stood in the driveway.
Those choices belonged to Grant.
Two nights later, Delaney called while I was getting ready for bed.
“I found something.”
“What?”
“Remember the Richmond charity dinner where Grant introduced you to Talia?”
“Yes.”
“There was a photographer.”
I sat down.
“And?”
“The event organization still has the gallery online.”
My heart started beating faster.
“What did you find?”
“I’m sending you a link.”
I opened it.
There were hundreds of photographs.
Guests arriving.
Tables.
Speakers.
Auction items.
I scrolled to the time Grant and I arrived.
There we were near the entrance.
I wore a dark green maternity dress.
Grant’s hand rested lightly at my back.
Behind us, several people stood near the registration table.
One of them was Talia.
She was looking directly at me.
Not casually.
Not accidentally.
She was staring.
The photograph had been taken twenty-three minutes before Grant supposedly introduced us for the first time.
I clicked the next image.
Talia had moved closer.
She was speaking with someone while still watching me.
Next image.
She stood near Grant.
Next.
Grant was laughing at something she said.
I called Delaney.
“She planned that introduction.”
“That’s what I think.”
“She already knew exactly who I was.”
“Yes.”
I kept scrolling.
Then I stopped.
There was a photograph from later in the evening.
Grant stood near the bar speaking with a group of clients.
Talia was beside him.
In the background, I was talking with Elliot.
Elliot’s wife, Jenna, stood beside us.
But because Jenna was mostly hidden behind another guest, the angle made it look as though Elliot and I were standing close together.
Talia was looking over her shoulder at us.
I enlarged the image.
She wasn’t looking at Grant.
She was watching me.
The next photograph showed her holding her phone.
Pointed in our direction.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“She took pictures that night.”
Delaney went silent.
I forwarded everything to Rebecca.
Three days later, Grant’s attorney sent a proposed temporary arrangement regarding finances and the house.
Buried among the documents was a declaration Grant had prepared about the breakdown of our marriage.
Rebecca called me into her office.
“You need to read this.”
I did.
According to Grant, his suspicions began when an unnamed acquaintance told him she had seen me behaving “inappropriately” with Elliot at the Richmond charity event.
Then he received photographs.
Then screenshots.
Then information suggesting Elliot and I had spent time alone at a hotel during a work trip.
The work trip was the client presentation.
The hotel was the conference venue.
We had been there with six coworkers.
Talia had taken a completely ordinary business event and turned it into a story.
I kept reading.
Grant wrote that he confronted me several times but felt I became “defensive.”
I remembered those conversations.
Working late again?
Elliot there?
Were you and Elliot ever more than coworkers?
He had never shown me evidence.
Never told me someone was feeding him information.
He asked vague questions, and when I reacted with confusion or irritation, he treated my reaction as proof.
Then came the sentence that made my hands tremble.
Based on information provided to me, I developed legitimate questions concerning whether I am the biological father of the unborn child.
I looked at Rebecca.
“What information?”
“That’s what we’re requesting.”
“He accused me because Talia told him something.”
“It appears likely.”
I pushed the paper away.
“I’ll do a paternity test.”
Rebecca studied me.
“You don’t need to decide that this second.”
“I’ve decided.”
“Maren.”
“I want the question gone.”
“A test won’t repair what he did.”
“I know.”
“It may not change his behavior.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
I looked down at my stomach.
“Because one day my child might hear that her father questioned whether she was his.”
Rebecca’s expression softened.
“I want there to be no ambiguity.”
We agreed that any testing would be arranged appropriately and documented through counsel rather than handled privately.
Grant agreed.
That surprised me.
Then something even more surprising happened.
He asked to see me.
I almost refused.
Rebecca recommended that any conversation happen in a neutral place.
So we met in a conference room at her office.
Grant looked exhausted.
For the first time since the driveway, I saw uncertainty in his face.
He sat across from me.
Neither of us spoke for several seconds.
Finally, he said, “You filed something with your company.”
“I didn’t.”
“The complaint.”
“Someone filed it against me.”
He looked down.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“My lawyer showed me the analysis.”
I waited.
Grant rubbed one hand over his face.
“The screenshots they sent your company are the same ones I received.”
I already suspected it.
Hearing him say it still hurt.
“Who sent them to you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Grant.”
“Talia.”
There it was.
I had prepared myself.
It still felt like something dropping through the center of me.
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
