Chapter 7 - The Double Life
The woman in the black coat completely froze. Her perfectly manicured fingers tightened around her designer handbag. She looked at Sarah’s beige wool coat, then back at Ben’s unconscious face, completely horrified.
"Wife?" the woman stammered, the color draining from her cheeks. "Ben... Ben told me he was divorced. He told me his ex-wife moved to California two years ago."
Sarah felt the room spin violently. The tragic, heartbreaking narrative of a selfless husband protecting his wife from his terminal cancer was suddenly rotting right in front of her eyes.
"He told you he was divorced?" Sarah asked, her voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register.
The woman nodded frantically, tears welling in her eyes. "My name is Chloe. We've been dating for eight months. We met when he was getting his first round of chemo. I'm an oncology nurse on the third floor. I've been taking care of him this whole time. He told me I was the only family he had left."
Sarah stopped breathing. Eight months.
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Ben hadn't hidden his cancer to protect Sarah's feelings. He had hidden his cancer because he was using his "grueling hospital shifts" as the perfect alibi to live an entirely separate life with another woman. He had manipulated an innocent nurse into caring for him through his terminal illness while keeping his comfortable, wealthy marriage completely intact at home.
👉 What devastating piece of evidence is Sarah about to find hidden in Ben's hospital room?
