Chapter 3Her Lookalike Lover My Secret Daughter

I was Valerie’s white whale. Her ultimate prize.

She chased me for years. It took a long time before I finally let my guard down and agreed to marry her.

After the wedding, she treated me like royalty. She would have given me the moon if I asked for it.

At least, for the first year, that's what everyone told me, and that's what I believed.

But three months into our marriage, I was taking her blazer to the dry cleaners and found a Polaroid tucked into the inner breast pocket.

It was a picture of a boy. Early twenties, wearing a crisp white linen shirt, smiling brilliantly under a large oak tree.

That face paralyzed me for several seconds.

He looked exactly like me.

The shape of his eyes, the slope of his nose. The way his smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. It was a mirror image of a younger me.

I put the photo back. I didn't say a word.

But I started paying attention.

I noticed how Valerie always put her phone face down.

I noticed that when she was in the shower, her phone would buzz with texts from a contact saved simply as "Cam."

Cameron.

I finally met him six months into our marriage, at a dinner party.

He arrived trailing behind some of Valerie’s friends, slipping into a corner seat, quiet and unassuming.

Someone introduced him. "This is Cameron."

He stood up to greet everyone. When his eyes landed on me, he paused just a fraction of a second.

Then he smiled. A bright, meticulously polite smile. "Hi, Nate."

In that exact moment, I understood why that Polaroid was hidden in her suit pocket.

He was younger than me. Softer than me. And he knew exactly how to look at Valerie with big, tear-filled eyes.

And Valerie? From the second he walked through the door, she hadn't looked at me once.