Chương 8
His voice dropped.
“You shouldn’t be alone today.”
“I’m not alone.”
“Your sister isn’t here yet.”
“She will be.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
He leaned forward.
“I came here because I love you.”
The sentence should have mattered more.
Once, it would have mattered enough to erase almost anything.
Now it simply sat between us with the roses.
“You loved me yesterday too.”
He flinched.
“I made one unforgivable mistake.”
I looked at him.
He heard himself.
“One,” I repeated.
“That came out wrong.”
“No, I think it came out exactly right.”
“Alex.”
“How many mistakes am I allowed to count?”
He sat back.
“Whatever that means.”
“It means you’re only counting the slap because it’s the part everyone saw.”
His expression hardened slightly.
“There has never been anything between Laura and me.”
“I didn’t say her name.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I almost laughed.
“You came here to apologize and somehow we’re already defending Laura.”
“I’m defending myself.”
“From what?”
“From an accusation you’ve been making for months.”
“I asked you questions.”
“You accused me of sleeping with my employee.”
“Because you were behaving like a man sleeping with his employee.”
His voice sharpened.
“That is exactly the kind of statement that led to last night.”
The diner seemed to contract around us.
A fork clattered somewhere behind me.
I stopped moving.
Elijah realized what he had said.
His face changed.
“Jesus.”
He looked down.
“I didn’t mean that.”
“But you said it.”
“I know.”
“You still think I caused it.”
“No.”
“You do.”
“No, I think we have been trapped in the same argument for months and I let it get inside my head.”
“You hit me.”
“I know.”
“You hit me because you thought I embarrassed you.”
His hands closed into fists on the tabletop and then opened again.
“I know.”
“And right now, less than twelve hours later, you’re already explaining the circumstances.”
He swallowed.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
That was the first thing he said that sounded helpless instead of strategic.
I believed him.
It did not comfort me.
“Neither do I.”
He looked toward the window.
Traffic moved along the wet street.
A delivery truck idled at the curb.
Someone inside the kitchen shouted that an order was ready.
“I booked us a room at the Four Seasons.”
“Cancel mine.”
“We don’t have to talk.”
“I don’t want to sleep beside you.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“Okay.”
The word came quietly.
I looked at him more closely.
There was a bruise-colored exhaustion beneath his eyes.
For five years, my instinct would have been to ask whether he had eaten.
I hated that the instinct still existed.
He reached for my hand.
I moved it away.
His fingers stopped on the table.
“Can I at least come to the funeral home?”
“I haven’t decided what we’re doing yet.”
“When you do.”
“I’ll tell you.”
His gaze dropped to my cheek again.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his thumb against the edge of the table.
“I keep seeing it.”
“Good.”
The answer surprised both of us.
I looked away.
“No, that was cruel.”
“Maybe I deserve cruel.”
“I don’t want to become cruel.”
My mother’s final warning moved through me.
Elijah studied my face as if trying to understand a conversation he had not heard.
I pushed the cold pancakes away.
“There’s something I need to ask you.”
He straightened.
“Anything.”
“Who is Leonard Mason?”
The effect was small.
If I had not known him so intimately, I might have missed it.
His left shoulder became still.
His eyes did not.
That was Elijah under pressure.
He controlled the obvious thing and forgot the smaller one.
“Where did you hear that name?”
I felt something cold settle behind my ribs.
“You know him.”
“I know of him.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“He runs a consulting firm we used during the West Coast expansion.”
“LM Strategic Consulting.”
“Yes.”
His answer came faster now.
Too smooth.
“How do you know the company?”
I ignored that.
“Why did nine hundred thousand dollars leave our investment account and go to his company?”
The color drained from his face.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I looked at the statements on the plane.”
He pulled out his phone.
I watched him unlock it.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“Don’t call anyone yet.”
“Alex, if money left our account without authorization—”
“Did you authorize it?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
I believed that he believed it.
That was not the same as believing it was true.
“Who can?”
“The family office.”
“Margaret said that.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“My mother talked to you about this?”
“Yes.”
His mouth flattened.
“Of course she did.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she has been circling me for a week because of that ridiculous audit complaint.”
“So there is an audit.”
His head jerked slightly.
“What exactly did she tell you?”
“Answer my questions first.”
“This isn’t some game where you get to interrogate me.”
I leaned back.
“No.”
I looked at the bruise on my wrist where my clutch strap had dug into the skin while I left the ballroom.
“It’s a marriage where I apparently know nothing.”
He exhaled and forced his voice lower.
“Yes, there is an internal review.”
“Of you?”
“Of vendor authorization processes tied to my office.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Not legally, not operationally, and not if you understand how corporate governance works.”
“There you are.”
“What?”
“The chairman.”
His expression tightened.
“You asked.”
“I asked my husband.”
“I am both.”
“That has been the problem for a long time.”
He stared at me.
Then he looked toward the roses.
“Leonard Mason’s firm was vetted.”
“By whom?”
“Procurement.”
“Margaret says invoices were approved before you claim you met Laura.”
Silence.
This time, there was no small shoulder movement.
Everything in him went still.
“Laura?”
“Yes.”
“What does Laura have to do with Mason?”
May you like
I watched him carefully.
If he was acting, he was better than I had ever given him credit for.
