From Best Friend To Fiancé (Savannah and Roman) novel Chapter 204

**Chapter 204: I Wasn’t The Killer**

“Penelope.” I pivoted to face her, a surge of anger simmering just beneath the surface. “That’s enough. You need to stop speaking about Savannah like that. Keep her out of your madness.”

“No, it’s far from enough!” she shot back, her voice sharp and unwavering. “You owe her the truth. You owe me the truth. What happened that morning? Why did my sister leave that house? Why was she driving alone when she was terrified of the highway?”

Her questions hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. I found myself staring at her, the weight of her words making it hard to breathe for a moment.

“You think I know?” I replied, my voice barely above a whisper, the tremor of disbelief lacing my tone. “You think I haven’t asked myself that a thousand times? She wasn’t supposed to be behind the wheel that morning. I didn’t even realize she had left. I was at work!”

“Convenient,” she spat, bitterness dripping from her words. “The husband doesn’t know. The family doesn’t ask. And somehow, the brakes just… fail. Must be a miracle.”

A bitter laugh escaped my lips, though there was nothing humorous about the situation. “You’re searching for a villain, aren’t you? Someone to pin your grief on. And I’m the easiest target.”

“You were her husband,” she insisted, her voice trembling with the weight of her accusation.

“I was also the man she deceived.” The words slipped from my mouth before I could rein them in. “The man she betrayed.”

Penelope’s mouth opened in shock, then closed again, her anger wavering for the first time. “She didn’t betray you.”

“She did.” My tone had hardened, but inside, the crack in my chest widened, a painful reminder of all that had been lost. “You think I didn’t notice when things shifted? When her gaze began to drift away from me in the middle of our conversations? I sensed she was hiding something. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

I turned away, pacing back and forth, my restlessness a reflection of my turmoil.

“I kept telling myself she was just tired, or distant, or lost in her thoughts,” I murmured, the weight of my memories pressing down on me. “But then the calls began. The late-night messages. She’d slip out to the balcony, whispering into her phone, pretending it was her sister or a friend. She thought I was asleep.”

Penelope shook her head violently, disbelief etched across her features. “You’re lying.”

“I wish I were.”

“Maybe I did,” I admitted, my voice softening, the weight of her accusation settling in my chest. “Maybe that’s my punishment. But don’t you dare tell me I didn’t love her. I cherished that woman with everything I had!”

She inhaled sharply, the tension between us palpable. “Then why erase her? Why pretend she never existed? You hide her pictures, her name, everything. You buried her twice—once in the ground and once in your heart.”

Her words struck me like arrows, piercing through the defenses I had built around myself. I pressed a hand to my forehead, feeling the pressure build behind my eyes, the truth of her statement undeniable.

“Because I couldn’t breathe,” I whispered, the admission escaping me like a confession. “Because every room she touched felt haunted. Every time I saw her name, I remembered the way her hand slipped out of mine the night before. The way she looked at me like she wanted to say something that morning before I left but didn’t. And then she was gone. I couldn’t carry that weight. So yes, I buried her memory. Because I had to survive.”

For a fleeting moment, Penelope’s eyes softened, a flicker of understanding passing between us. But just as quickly, her resolve hardened again. “And what about Naomi?”

I hesitated, the question hanging in the air like a storm cloud. “What about her?”

“She was the last piece of Dahlia left in this world. And you couldn’t even look at her.”