He would have unpacked his suitcase, and canceled the divorce, and returned to the marriage, and she would have gotten to keep her husband.

But she would never have known what she had.

She would never have known whether the man beside her was staying for her, for their partnership, for their life together, or only for the heir he had wanted badly enough to leave her over.

She would have spent the rest of her life with a husband and a permanent doubt, wondering, every day, whether he had chosen her or only the child.

And Elena decided, in that instant, that she would rather know the painful truth than live inside a comfortable uncertainty.