Page 130 of Broken Destiny

I should not give up either.

That was not who I was.

I had fought too hard to become the woman I was today. I had rebuilt my life from nothing—escaping Jeremy, supporting Cole, raising my children, growing the restaurant, opening the cafés, and building the construction business step by step.

I had survived worse than heartbreak.

I was not going to break now.

My muscles tightened with readiness as a new thought formed in my mind.

Something was not right.

I looked at the letter again, this time with sharper focus.

My eyes narrowed as I studied the handwriting more closely.

The way the lettersyandmwere written was different.

Someone had switched the letters—that was evidence number one.

Caleb had not noticed it, but I had.

The pictures and recordings Alex and I had gathered would be evidence number two.

Realization dawned on me that second.

If this letter was false, then maybe the pictures of Caroline and Caleb together had also been staged. Maybe Caroline being in his bed had been part of a calculated plan.

And there was only one person capable of orchestrating something like that.

One person who had hated me from the very beginning.

One person who never wanted me anywhere near her family.

One person whose life I had saved.

His mother.

Eleanor.

All of these misunderstandings had been created because of her. That woman had altered the letter and planted the lie that I had taken the money. She had manipulated Caleb into believing exactly what she wanted him to believe.

Her voice echoed in my memory.

My son only listens to me.

She had been right.

More right than I had ever imagined.

I had saved her life, and now I found myself wondering why.

Eleanor had been playing us against each other all along.

This was what Caleb had believed about me for years. His bitterness suddenly made horrifying sense.

Could I blame him?