On Our Fourth Anniversary, My Husband Posed for Maternity Photos with Another Woman novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Photographer

The corner of every photo carried a small gray watermark, and I had not noticed it until I looked at them on my laptop screen.

It said PENDELTON, and under it, Brady Street.

The photography studio was next door to my office.

I had walked past its window for six years, past the black-and-white wedding portraits and the framed newborns in knitted hats.

I finished my last patient at five and walked the twenty feet.

The door chimed when I opened it.

A man stood at a long counter at the back with a broom in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.

He was tall and rangy, in a canvas jacket with flour on both cuffs, and his dark blond hair needed cutting.

He looked at me for a second, and then he put down the broom.

"You're Leah," he said.

"You sent me those photos."

"Yes." He didn't look away. "I'm Rowan Pendelton. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. I didn't know any other way to do it."

I had practiced a speech on the drive. It did not survive the way he said sorry, flat and plain, with nothing wrapped around it.

"How did you get my number?"

"Your husband left his phone charging on my counter during the session. It lit up with a name and a heart." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Then a reminder. Anniversary dinner, seven o'clock. I wrote the number down."

"That's a terrible thing to do."

"Yes," Rowan said. "I know."

I was angry, and I wanted to stay angry, but the studio smelled of strong coffee and burned sugar, and my stomach turned over.

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