Chương 9
“You really don’t know.”
His brow furrowed.
“Know what?”
“Leonard Mason is her uncle.”
Elijah stared at me.
The noise of the diner continued around us.
A blender started behind the counter.
Someone laughed near the door.
A child begged his mother for whipped cream.
Elijah did not move.
“That’s not possible.”
“Why?”
“Because she told me her mother was an only child.”
I felt a bitter smile touch my mouth.
“That’s your evidence?”
“She told me about her family.”
“Apparently selectively.”
He looked back at his phone.
“Who told Margaret?”
“She found it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“This makes no sense.”
“Maybe it makes perfect sense.”
His eyes lifted.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
The sentence landed.
He regretted it instantly.
I picked up my bag.
“Alex.”
“I’m done.”
“Please don’t walk away.”
“My mother died five hours ago.”
“I know.”
“No, you know the sentence.”
I stood.
“I am standing in a diner discussing your employee’s uncle and missing money because apparently even my mother’s death has to share space with whatever disaster you brought into our lives.”
His face collapsed.
“You’re right.”
I dropped cash beside the coffee cup.
“I need to go.”
“Where?”
“The hospice.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
He stood too.
Several people glanced toward us.
He noticed and lowered his voice.
“Then let me follow you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what else to do.”
For a second, the arrogance was gone.
He looked lost.
The sight hurt me in a way anger did not.
“I can’t take care of you today.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“You are.”
He looked away.
I walked toward the door.
Behind me, I heard him swear softly.
Then his footsteps followed.
Outside, rain had begun again, thin and cold.
He caught up beneath the awning.
“Alex.”
I turned.
He held the roses in one hand.
They looked absurd between us.
“What?”
“There’s something I need to tell you before my mother does.”
My stomach tightened.
He glanced toward the diner window, where strangers were pretending not to watch.
Then he looked at me.
“I did know Leonard Mason before Denver.”
I said nothing.
“Not personally.”
“Keep going.”
“His firm approached us about an acquisition.”
“When?”
“About two years ago.”
“That’s not three months before you met Laura.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you lie?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You just told me you knew him.”
“I knew the firm.”
“Your mother said you authorized payments.”
“I authorized a vendor code.”
My patience snapped.
“Elijah, stop talking like a quarterly report.”
He closed his eyes.
Then opened them.
“Fine.”
His voice was rough.
“I approved the company.”
“Why?”
“Because Laura asked me to.”
The rain tapped against the metal awning.
I felt my heartbeat in my bruised cheek.
“You said you hadn’t met her.”
“I hadn’t.”
“Then how did she ask you?”
He looked toward the street.
“Email.”
“An employee you hadn’t met emailed you and asked you to approve her uncle’s consulting firm?”
“She wasn’t an employee then.”
“What was she?”
His silence answered before he did.
“A contact.”
“What kind of contact?”
“Someone I had been corresponding with.”
“For how long?”
“A few months.”
“About work?”
“At first.”
The cold beneath my ribs spread.
“At first.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I never slept with her.”
I stared at him.
“That wasn’t the question.”
“I know.”
“What happened after it stopped being about work?”
His eyes met mine.
“We talked.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
The word hit harder than I expected.
“Everything.”
“I was under pressure.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not excusing it.”
“You are about to.”
“I’m trying to tell you what happened.”
“Then tell me.”
He swallowed.
“She understood the company.”
“I understood the company.”
“You hated the company.”
“I hated what it did to you.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
He looked miserable.
“I know that now.”
I folded my arms against the cold.
“Did you love her?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her you loved me?”
His face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
I laughed once.
It came out ugly.
“What did you tell her about me?”
“Alex.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That things were difficult.”
“Were they?”
“At the time, I thought they were.”
“Because I asked you to come home for dinner?”
“Because every conversation felt like another thing I was failing.”
I stared at him.
“So you found a woman who didn’t know enough to be disappointed.”
He looked down.
“That’s probably fair.”
The honesty made me angrier.
“Did you meet her before Denver?”
“No.”
“Did you send photographs?”
“No.”
“Did you flirt?”
He did not answer.
The rain strengthened.
A bus hissed to a stop across the street.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
The word was almost inaudible.
I looked away.
Cars moved through the intersection, tires slicing water.
My mother had been dead for five hours and twenty-three minutes.
My husband had just admitted to an emotional affair beneath a diner awning.
Somewhere inside me, a hysterical part of my mind wondered whether grief came with a maximum occupancy.
“When did it end?”
“It didn’t become physical.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“When she joined the company, I tried to make it professional.”
“Tried.”
“Yes.”
“And the flowers?”
His face tightened.
“The flowers were stupid.”
“The suite in Chicago?”
“There was a booking error.”
“The earring?”
“I don’t know.”
“The bourbon photograph?”
He looked confused.
“What photograph?”
I studied him.
For the first time, fear entered his expression for a reason that had nothing to do with losing me.
“What photograph, Alex?”
I reached into my bag and opened my phone.
The message Laura had accidentally sent was still there.
Two tumblers of bourbon.
A terrace railing.
The corner of a man’s hand.
Elijah’s private office beyond the glass.
I handed him the phone.
He stared at the image.
Then zoomed in.
His breathing changed.
May you like
“That’s not my hand.”
I almost laughed.
