Damen laughed too hard. “Exactly.”
Carissa folded her hands in her lap to hide the trembling. “Good to know.”
She didn’t confront them then.
She had spent too many years in litigation to waste a cross-examination on unprepared witnesses.
Nikki left around seven-thirty, brushing past Carissa with a nervousness she tried to disguise as irritation. Damen showered and then moved toward the bedroom like the day had ended in his favor.
Carissa stood in the doorway and blocked him.
“No,” she said.
He blinked at her. “Move.”
“No.”
He looked genuinely startled. That told her how often she had made herself easier to handle.
“I’m not doing this,” he said.
“We are absolutely doing this.”
He sighed, the sigh of a man exhausted by consequences arriving on time. “Carissa, you’re taking this somewhere insane.”
“Then stop me with the truth.”
“We told you the truth.”
“Then say it cleanly,” she said. “Why did you touch my sister’s face like that?”
He crossed his arms. “Because we were practicing.”
“Why did you both jump apart?”
“Because you walked in looking like a prosecutor.”
“You still haven’t denied that something is going on.”
His jaw tightened. “Because there is nothing going on.”
“Look me in the eye and say you are not sleeping with Nikki.”
He looked at her. He looked away.
That was enough.
Carissa felt the realization arrive the way a doctor might deliver a terminal result—calmly, with nowhere left to mishear.
“You are,” she said.
He dragged a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ.”
“You are.”
“This is exactly why I can’t talk to you!” he snapped. “Everything becomes a courtroom. Everything becomes an accusation.”
“What would you prefer?” she asked. “A thank-you note?”
Damen stepped closer. “You know what this is really about? Control. You cannot stand that there is one room in this world you don’t control. At work, everyone listens to you. At home, you think you get to manage my feelings the same way you manage contracts.”
Carissa held his gaze. “I am asking whether you are having an affair with my sister.”
“And I am telling you that your obsession with interrogating me is why this marriage is dead.”
Carissa went still.
There it was.
Not denial.
Not remorse.
Not even an attempt at believable innocence.
Just blame dressed up as insight.