Chapter 4

“Isn’t that Vance?”

Sophia’s voice floated down from the spectators’ seats, bright with sudden interest. “Who’s that woman with him?”

Chloe had already risen from her seat, craning her neck with the alertness of a cat that had spotted movement across the room. A second later, curiosity gave way to recognition, and then to the sort of smile that made every private matter feel like something laid out for public entertainment.

“Oh,” she said, drawing the word out. “That’s Catherine, isn’t it? The one Vance used to…”

Sophia understood at once.

Her gaze shifted toward Rebecca, and the sympathy that appeared on her face was so exaggerated it became cruel.

“Wait,” Sophia said, lowering her voice without bothering to make it truly quiet. “You didn’t follow Vance here, did you? God, Rebecca. That’s actually sad.”

Chloe covered her mouth, laughing softly. “Imagine chasing your own husband to his date.”

Rebecca heard them.

She also heard what they had not yet said aloud: that her husband and his first love had come here together, in daylight, without apology, as if there were nothing strange about it at all.

No one seemed especially concerned by that.

Rebecca rested one hand against the tiled edge of the pool and kept her face turned toward the lane rope in front of her. The water moved gently against her shoulders, cool and steady. She could pretend she had not heard. She had become good at that inside the Bradford family.

At the entrance, Vance Bradford stood in a dark grey lightweight sweater, the sleeves pushed up to his forearms. In one hand, he carried a woman’s handbag and a thermos; with the other, he hovered near Catherine’s waist, not quite touching her, yet the shape of his body around hers was more intimate than any open embrace would have been.

Catherine wore a cream-coloured tennis dress and flat ballet shoes. Her hair was gathered loosely at the back of her head, soft tendrils framing a face made delicate by careful paleness. Everything about her suggested fragility without disorder, as if even weakness had been arranged to flatter her. Her stomach was still flat beneath the dress, with no visible sign of pregnancy, but every few steps her right hand drifted lightly over it, a gesture small enough to seem unconscious and precise enough to be noticed.

Rebecca felt Vance look at her.

She knew his gaze too well, not because he looked at her often, but because he rarely did. In three years of marriage, she had learned to catch those brief moments the way one caught light on glass—quickly, before it vanished.

This time, it lasted no more than two seconds.

Then he looked away.

“Careful,” he said to Catherine, his voice low and close. “The floor’s wet.”

Catherine smiled up at him, and Vance adjusted his step to match hers. He did not come over. He did not ask why Rebecca was there. He did not offer even the ordinary surprise a husband might show upon finding his wife alone at a swimming pool the morning after he had failed to come home.

He simply guided Catherine toward the warm-up pool.

Catherine held lightly to his arm as she crossed the anti-slip mats. She did not enter the water; instead, she lowered herself onto a lounge chair near the poolside, the tips of her shoes resting a careful distance from the splash zone. Vance set the thermos within her reach, took a clean towel from a nearby rack, and spread it across her knees with the unthinking ease of a man accustomed to doing such things for her.

The gesture was not grand.

That made it worse.

Grand gestures could be explained away. This was habit.

Catherine lifted her eyes in Rebecca’s direction. There was something difficult to name in her expression. Not triumph exactly, and not guilt either. It was softer than both, wrapped in a gentleness that allowed no one to accuse her of cruelty.

She touched the back of Vance’s hand and said quietly, “Should you go and say something to your wife? She’s there alone.”

The sentence was perfectly phrased. Considerate, even. Anyone overhearing it would have thought Catherine kind.

Rebecca’s fingers tightened against the tile.

Vance did not move. He unscrewed the lid of the thermos, poured warm water into the cup, and handed it to Catherine before answering.

“No. She’s here to train. She won’t want to be disturbed.”

Rebecca lowered her eyes to the pool water.

So he did know.

He knew why she was here, or at least enough to make an excuse out of it. He had seen her, understood her presence, and chosen not to cross the few yards between them.

She pushed away from the wall and swam another lap.

The movement was not as smooth as it used to be. Her shoulders resisted. Her breath caught too early. By the time she reached the end of the lane, her arms trembled beneath the water, but she turned anyway and kept going, because stopping would mean standing still under their eyes.

When she finally climbed out, water streamed from her body and left a trail of dark footprints across the tile. She took the towel she had left over the rail and wrapped it around her shoulders, keeping her head slightly lowered as she made her way toward the changing room.

There was no route that did not pass the warm-up pool.

Sophia and Chloe had moved down from the spectators’ seats and were now sitting near Catherine as if the three of them had arranged to meet there all along. Chloe held up her phone, angling it for photographs. Sophia leaned close to Catherine with the bright, confidential air of a girl who loved being near a scandal as long as she was not the subject of it.

Vance stood beside Catherine’s chair.

When Chloe said, “Move closer, Vance, or you’ll look like some random man in the background,” he did not refuse. He merely shifted, placing himself partly between Catherine and the pool, shielding her from the spray as a training group moved past in the next lane.

Catherine laughed and pushed lightly at his shoulder.

It was the kind of push that expected him not to move away.

He did not.

As Rebecca passed, Catherine looked up again. Their eyes met for the space of a breath. Then Catherine turned her face slightly toward Vance and spoke in a voice so low it could almost have belonged to the pool’s echo.

“She really doesn’t resent me, does she? That’s good. I was worried she might feel uncomfortable.”

Rebecca’s steps slowed before she could stop them.

The changing-room door was just ahead. She could have kept walking. She should have kept walking. But Catherine’s voice followed, soft and sincere, each word placed with care.

“After all, she saved your life. Sometimes I think, if it hadn’t been for her, you wouldn’t be here now, and neither would this baby.” Catherine paused, and when she spoke again, the guilt in her tone was delicate enough to be admired. “I should be grateful to her. Do you think there’s anything I could do for her?”

Vance was half bent beside her chair, one hand braced on the back of it, the other holding his phone as he showed her something on the screen. From a distance, they looked like a couple discussing private plans, heads inclined close together, their bodies arranged around each other with a familiarity that did not need explanation.

“You don’t need to do anything for her,” Vance said. His voice was gentle, a little tired. “She doesn’t need it.”

Catherine saw Rebecca first.

A faint change passed over her face, so quick that anyone else might have missed it. Then she smiled, warm and apologetic, with just enough hesitation to make the invitation seem generous rather than pointed.

“Rebecca,” she called softly. “Would you like to sit with us for a while?”

Sophia and Chloe turned at once.

Vance lifted his head only after them.

Catherine’s smile did not falter. “It’s warmer over here by the pool. You must be cold after swimming.” Her hand smoothed the towel across her knees, a modest little movement that drew attention to it without appearing to. “Vance got me a dry towel. I’m sure there’s another one nearby.”

Rebecca stood a few steps from them, her own towel clutched around her shoulders, wet hair dark against her neck. For a moment, she simply looked at Catherine.

There was no accusation in Catherine’s face. That was what made it so difficult to answer. She had offered kindness in the exact shape of humiliation, and to reject it openly would only make Rebecca appear bitter.

So Rebecca did not answer.

She turned toward the changing room.

Behind her, the small silence that followed was more awkward than any refusal. Catherine’s smile had been left hanging in the air, too public to be withdrawn gracefully.

Vance finally spoke.

“Finished swimming?” he asked.

His tone was neutral, almost courteous, as if they had met at a business function and not in the middle of a life he had divided so neatly between wife and lover.

Rebecca paused with one hand on the towel at her shoulder.

“Yes.”

She gave him nothing more. Not because she felt strong, but because anything else would have shaken when it came out.

Vance looked at her for another moment. His grey-blue eyes held no panic, no shame, only that familiar distance he wore so well. Then his gaze moved back to Catherine, as naturally as if Rebecca had been no more than someone passing through.

Rebecca continued toward the changing room.

Sophia’s voice came from behind her, lowered but still clear. “Why did she just leave? She didn’t even say anything to Vance.”

“What would she say?” Chloe murmured. “She looks like a ghost.”

Catherine sighed, the sound soft enough to pass for kindness. “Don’t say that. It can’t be easy for her.”