Chapter 5 - THE FORTY-EIGHT HOURS.
Ryan did not deny it.
“I asked for two days.”
Emily stood across from him in their living room for the first time since the mall. Her shopping bags still sat unopened near the entry table where her sister had returned them.
“Why?”
“I wanted a lawyer to tell me whether our marriage was affected before I terrified you.”
“You keep saying you were protecting me.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds like you were protecting yourself.”
Ryan looked down.
That was the first answer that reached him.
“Yes.”
Emily had expected an argument.
Instead, he sat.
“I was terrified you would think I had knowingly married you while still married to Natalie.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
The evidence supported him.
That mattered, even while she was furious.
Ryan continued.
“When the notice came, I called Natalie. She was angry because the same problem could affect her engagement. We agreed to collect everything before telling anyone.”
“Anyone?”
“You.”
Emily swallowed.
“So your first loyalty was to solving the embarrassment.”
“Yes.”
“Not to telling your pregnant wife.”
Ryan’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The admission hurt more because he stopped defending it.
Emily removed her wedding ring from her pocket and placed it on the coffee table.
“I don’t know what this ring legally means right now.”
Ryan looked at it but did not touch it.
“Neither do I.”
“Good. Then don’t tell me everything is fine.”
“I won’t.”
Emily’s attorney recommended that all three adults keep the issues separate.
First: determine the status of the old marriage.
Second: determine the legal effect on Emily and Ryan’s marriage.
Third: decide what the personal betrayal meant regardless of paperwork.
The process would not be instant.
That created real consequences.
Emily needed updated emergency-contact documents before delivery. Hospital forms listed Ryan as spouse. Insurance records used their marriage certificate. Estate documents assumed their legal status was uncomplicated.
Ryan immediately offered to handle everything.
Emily refused.
“We handle our own documents separately until I decide what I want.”
He nodded.
Then his phone vibrated.
Natalie had sent a photograph of another document found in the old law file.
It was a letter addressed to Ryan seven years earlier.
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Across the top, someone had handwritten:
CLIENT NEVER NOTIFIED.
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