“I knew this day might eventually come, but honestly, I never thought it would be under circumstances remotely like this.” He paused. “I’ve been having internal debates about whether I should reach out to you for a long time, but I didn’t want to invade your life. I felt like the last thing you deserved was any more heartache from me, so I decided it was best to try to keep the past in the past.”

“Why did you think reaching out would cause me more heartache? What could possibly be worse than what you did?” She couldn’t stop talking now, as her emotions simmered dangerously close to the surface. “We had plans to build a life together. To get married, have a family, the whole nine yards, and you just threw it all away on a one-night drunken hookup? That wasn’t the man I fell in love with, and I’ve questioned over and over in my mind how we could’ve ended up there. What did I do to push you away? I thought we had promised each other that we would build our relationship on trust, love, and our common faith.” Finally, she took a second to regroup and see how he would respond to her allegations.

“I deserve all of that and more. And I think you finally deserve the truth.” He took her hand and squeezed it.

Her pulse quickened. “What do you mean? I know the truth. I may not know every sordid detail, but you can spare me that.”

He hung his head.

“Hunter, is there something else you’re not telling me?”

His blue eyes met hers. “I lied to you, Layla.”

She pulled her hand back. “Was it more than just a onetime thing? Is that it?” She tried to move farther away from him, but he grabbed both her hands and held on tightly. “What?” It came out as a whisper, because the look in his eyes told her that something was really wrong.

“Layla, there was no blond undergrad. No drunken night at the bar.”

Her voice shook. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

He looked away again, and she feared that what he was going to tell her would be even worse than the lie she had believed all these years.

“Hunter?” This time she tightened her grip on him.

“That entire story was fabricated.”

“But why?” Her thoughts were jumbled, because none of what Hunter was saying made any sense at all.

“Do you remember what was going on in your life during all of that?”

How could she forget? It was one of the most defining moments of her life. “Of course. I was in the final stages of my interviews with the Agency.” She looked him in the eyes, and then a sick feeling formed deep within the pit of her stomach.

“I was interviewed about you for the background check, and that was all standard operating procedure.”