Fresh off my wedding high, I moved into my husband’s family home — a place that seemed straight out of a fairy tale. It boasted high ceilings, arches, fountains, and flowers everywhere.

George had wanted me to move in and settle down before we left for our honeymoon in the South of France.

But not everything was as it seemed. From day one, the maid, Valerie, gave me a look that screamed, “You don’t belong here.” I tried to shake it off; I was here to stay. Valerie was going to have to deal with that.

A few days into settling in, I decided to make breakfast for my new family. The house was huge, and George’s younger brother and sister still lived at home, so I prepared for a large spread.

Valerie stood in the kitchen with me, eyeing every move I made, while she wiped the countertops. She made me nervous. When I reached across the table to look for my phone — to look up different ways of making eggs — it wasn’t there.

“Have you seen my phone?” I asked Valerie, certain it had been on the table in front of her.

Valerie shook her head, barely glancing my way.

“I’d hurry up with the breakfast if I were you,” she said coldly. “The family expects it on the table before they come downstairs.”

I took her advice and finished the breakfast, while Valerie left the kitchen.

I eventually found my phone, left on the seat Valerie had just vacated. But it was the message on the screen that turned my world upside down:

Check your husband’s drawer. The top left one, specifically. Then RUN!

My heart pounding, I made my way to our bedroom, the warning playing on repeat in my head. In my absence, Valerie had made the bed and folded the clothes we had discarded on the floor the night before.

I hesitated before opening the drawer, a sense of dread washing over me. I didn’t know what would happen the moment I opened it. I didn’t know what secrets George had, waiting for me to find.

Inside, I found a stack of letters tied with a faded ribbon and an old key. The letters, written by my husband, were to someone named Elena.

I sat on our bed and read through them all — each letter spoke of a love and future that George had promised another person.

With each word, my heart broke a little more. The last letter was a goodbye; according to the date, it was just before George proposed to me — three days before, to be precise.

And the key?

“Do you know what this key is for?” I asked Ivy, George’s younger sister, when I found it didn’t fit anything in our room.

“Oh, I think it’s for the attic,” she said, inspecting the key. “It has to be; that was George’s favorite room. I don’t know why; it’s always been so dark and drafty to me. I haven’t been there in years.”

I found my way to the attic, and it was just as dark and drafty as Ivy had said.

But once I turned on the light, my blood ran cold.

The walls of the room were covered in photographs of my husband and a woman — Elena, I assumed. In each photograph, their love was clear, bouncing off the paper.

It mocked me. It mocked our marriage. It mocked all the feelings I had for George.

I sat in the only armchair in the room, taking in the surroundings before my knees could give way. That’s when my eyes found their way to an ultrasound, stuck onto the wall beneath a photograph of George and Elena dancing in a courtyard.

George and Elena were going to have a baby. Of course, they were.

I couldn’t understand how he could have kept it hidden from me for so long.

The truth about Elena was one thing, but to keep a baby hidden from me? That was inconceivable.

I was looking through each photograph, wondering how George could have left Elena when she was pregnant with his child.

“Freya?” a soft voice came from the doorway.

“Valerie,” I said, suddenly wary that I was in a place I shouldn’t have been.

“You weren’t supposed to find out this way,” she said, her voice a whisper of sympathy.

“You knew about this?” I asked, unsure how to approach her.

She nodded slowly.

“Elena is my sister. She thought you deserved to know the truth. She gave me the letters, and I put them in George’s drawer this morning when I was cleaning up.”

“And the baby?” I asked, my voice wavering.

Valerie leaned against the wall and told me about Elena. When the family was planning their annual Christmas party two years ago, Valerie asked Elena to help with the cleaning.

“They hit it off immediately. And then they fell in love. But when Elena found out about the baby and his condition, George wanted nothing to do with her.”

Valerie said that George was prepared to marry Elena out of love, but when he found out the baby had Down syndrome, he saw them as a burden.

“He told Elena he would fight for her with his family and make them understand she was more than a maid. But things changed.”

Together, we went into the living room, where the family was lounging around — George nowhere to be seen. I told his parents about the letters and the attic covered in photographs.

Valerie told them about Elena and her baby.

When we were done, George walked into the living room — his face a clear tell of someone who had overheard the conversation.

“Is this true?” his father demanded, his gaze fixed on my husband.

George had no words; his silence was a damning admission.

The family fallout was quick. George was cut off, his inheritance now redirected to support Elena and her soon-to-be-born child.

And me?

I was granted a divorce — George didn’t even try to fight it; he was broken from the loss of his money. My in-laws gave me a fresh start with assets meant for George.

I sold off some of them — ensuring that the real victory was the foundation I started for Elena’s baby. A foundation for children with disabilities. Now, Valerie manages it, with input from myself and George’s mother— who disowned her son the moment she found out about the baby.