Once, about a month ago, I was coming home early and decided to surprise Peter at the office, to take him to lunch. When I entered the reception area, the secretary told me that he was in a meeting. However, the door to his office was slightly ajar. I looked over instinctively. Peter and Lilia were standing close to each other over some drawings spread out on the table. She said something, he laughed. Then she raised her hand and gently brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. The gesture was so intimate, so natural, that my heart sank. I quietly backed away and left, without him knowing I had been there.
Was this all connected? Was Lilia just a colleague? Or was it something more? Were some of the secrets that Peter was hiding connected to her? Suddenly, a cold, sticky suspicion came over me. What if this folder, this dirty business war, was just a cover? What if there was another, hidden life in Peter's life that I had no idea about?
This new doubt made my decision even more complicated. If I was fighting to save my husband, who was I really saving? The man I married, or a stranger who was leading a double life?
“You can’t sleep, can you?” Maria whispered from her corner, interrupting my thoughts.
“No. My head is going to explode.”
She came closer and sat on the edge of the couch.
“I know it’s terrible. But you have to be strong. For all of us.
” “I don’t know if I can, Maria. I don’t know who to trust. Not even your brother. ”
She was silent for a moment, as if choosing her words.
“My brother is not a bad person,” she said finally. “He’s ambitious. And sometimes ambition blinds him. He wanted to succeed at all costs, to provide our family with a life that our father never could. But he got caught up in it. He started with small compromises, then bigger ones. And now he’s in a quagmire he doesn’t know how to get out of. I believe that deep down he loves you and wants to protect you. He just chose a terrible way to do it.
“Do you know anything about him and Lilia?” I asked directly, unable to hold back the question any longer.
Maria looked at me in surprise, then lowered her eyes.
“Lilia is… a complicated subject. She’s a partner in the firm. Very smart, very unscrupulous. She pushes him into many of his risky decisions. I don’t know if there’s anything personal between them. But I know she’s part of the problem, not the solution.”
Her words confirmed my worst fears. Things were deeper and dirtier than I had imagined. This wasn't just a battle between Peter and Ivaylo. It was a battle for my husband's soul. And I had unwittingly found myself on the front lines, armed with only a folder full of poisonous secrets.
Chapter 7
