How long has she been here?
The question slammed into Clara so violently she almost spoke it aloud.
Instead she looked at Michael.
“How long?”
Neither of them answered fast enough.
Clara’s stomach dropped.
“How long?” she repeated.
Michael rubbed both hands over his face.
“Three weeks.”
Three weeks.
Three entire weeks.
Clara stepped backward again as though the room itself had tilted beneath her feet.
“You brought her here while I was gone?”
“We didn’t know what else to do.”
“No,” Clara said softly. “You decided you didn’t care what I wanted.”
“That’s not fair.”
Clara looked at him in disbelief.
Not fair.
The phrase scraped across years of buried hurt.
Fair would have been growing up without fear of footsteps outside her bedroom door.
Fair would have been a mother who protected her instead of turning away whenever men raised their voices.
Fair would have been not spending half her adult life trying to forget what kind of woman Elena Varga truly was.
“You should have called me.”
Michael hesitated.
That hesitation told her everything.
“He asked you not to,” Clara said, looking at Daniel.
Her son lowered his eyes.
The betrayal landed quietly.
That was somehow worse.
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