All Chapters of My husband's three guests: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Claire stared at the empty space where the marriage certificate should have been, her fingers tightening around the edge of the wooden desk as though holding onto it could somehow keep the room from tilting beneath her. There was no record, no certificate, no official entry bearing her name beside Adrian Doyle's, nothing that proved the marriage she had spent three years living inside had ever happened.For a woman who had spent most of her life trusting documents, signatures, medical records and carefully recorded facts, the absence of one piece of paper felt more frightening than finding it would have been. At least a certificate could have been forged, altered or manipulated, but an empty record left too many possibilities hanging in the air.The clerk had apologized several times, explaining that she had only recently started working at the courthouse and had no knowledge of the old records beyond what was already entered into the system. Claire had asked questions anyway, each on

Victor Hale.The name followed Claire throughout the entire morning, sitting at the back of her mind like a question that refused to be ignored, appearing whenever she tried to focus on anything else and disappearing whenever she thought she was finally close to an answer. It was the only thing she had managed to get from the courthouse, a rusty name etched around an empty marriage certificate, and somehow that tiny piece of information felt more important than anything else she had discovered since beginning her investigation.She sat at the desk in her room with her laptop open, staring at the screen while the cursor blinked impatiently in the search bar.Victor Hale.She typed the name again.The results appeared almost instantly.There were dozens of them.Victor Hales from different states, different professions, different ages and different lives that had nothing to do with her. One was a real estate agent, another was a retired professor, another was a financial consultant and

The wedding continued around Claire as though she were standing in the middle of a moving river, people flowing past her in expensive suits and glittering gowns, champagne glasses raised in celebration while the orchestra played softly beneath the enormous chandeliers, yet none of it seemed to reach her anymore. She smiled when someone spoke to her, nodded when Adrian introduced her to another important guest and allowed herself to be guided from one conversation to another, but her mind remained somewhere else, somewhere between the courthouse, Victor Hale's empty stare and the three men from her past who had somehow appeared together at the same wedding.Adrian barely left her side.His hand remained gently pressed against the small of her back as he moved her through the social hierarchy of the room, introducing her to executives, investors and people whose names carried enough influence to change the direction of entire companies. To everyone watching, they looked like the perfect

The door creaked open.Claire froze for a moment, her hand still wrapped around the handle as she listened for any movement inside the study. Nothing. Only the faint hum of the air conditioning and the distant ticking of the grandfather clock somewhere in the hallway.She pushed the door farther.The room looked almost ordinary.That surprised her.After everything she had imagined, Claire had expected something darker, something that would immediately scream secrets and betrayal. Instead, Adrian's study reminded her of her father's old study, the one she used to sneak into when she was younger, back when she had been more interested in climbing onto shelves and stealing books than understanding the things written inside them.There was a large wooden desk in the center of the room, surrounded by leather chairs. Tall bookshelves covered most of the walls, filled with books of different sizes and ages. Some looked untouched for years, their covers covered with a thin layer of dust.Cla

The address led Claire to an office building she hadn't expected. She had imagined a private law firm tucked somewhere in the business district, perhaps a polished glass building with a receptionist who knew every visitor by name, but the address on the internet had led her instead to the state court. The words DA Lucy Wellings had been boldly written beneath the address, and Claire had stared at them for several seconds before saving the location to her phone. She still wasn't entirely sure she had found the right woman, but at this point, certainty had become a luxury she could no longer afford.She stepped out of the car and looked up at the courthouse. The building had the solemn appearance of a place designed to remind people that consequences existed. Tall stone columns stretched toward the roof, supporting the massive structure, while flags stood on either side of the wide staircase, moving gently in the morning breeze. People in suits hurried through the entrance, some clutchi