Chương 2
Just an angry, frightened man accustomed to being obeyed.
“You think this proves something?” he asked.
She turned toward him.
Rain blew beneath the portico and dotted the shoulders of his white shirt.
“I’m not trying to prove anything.”
“You walk out tonight, people will know.”
That surprised her.
Not that he cared about appearances.
That he was still stupid enough to say it aloud.
“People already know, Roman.”
His face changed.
She had not meant it as a threat.
She meant the staff.
His mother.
The drivers who had seen Sabrina arriving after dark.
The men at Roman’s office who probably knew more about his movements than Elena did.
But suspicion sharpened his eyes.
“What have you told people?”
Elena stared at him.
Then she opened the driver’s door.
“Good night.”
“Elena.”
She got inside.
He caught the top of the door before she could close it.
For a moment they were close enough that she could smell his aftershave.
It was the same cedar scent he had worn at their wedding.
Her body betrayed her with the memory before her mind could stop it.
“Elena, wait.”
She looked at his hand on the door.
He removed it.
“Call me when you get there.”
“No.”
“Then call my mother.”
“I’ll decide who I call.”
His expression hardened again because control was easier for him than shame.
“Fine.”
She shut the door.
Roman stood beneath the lights while Elena drove down the long circular driveway.
She did not look into the mirror until she reached the gates.
He was still there.
By midnight, Roman had checked his phone seventeen times.
He knew because on the eighteenth he became disgusted enough to start counting backward.
Sabrina was asleep in the west guest suite.
She had suggested sleeping with him.
Roman had told her no.
That had produced a silence he did not feel like examining.
He sat alone in his office with a bourbon he had barely touched and Elena’s last text open on his phone.
It was from the previous morning.
Your mother’s prescription is ready at Bellmore Pharmacy.
Nothing else.
No accusation.
No warning.
No evidence that less than thirty-six hours later she would leave him.
At twelve twenty-three, Roman typed, Did you arrive safely?
He deleted it.
He typed, Where are you?
He deleted that too.
Finally he sent, Let me know you’re safe.
The message showed as delivered.
At twelve forty-one, it showed as read.
No answer came.
He slept badly on the sofa.
The next morning, the housekeeper resigned.
Maria Salazar had worked for the Marino family for eleven years and had once continued making soup during a kitchen evacuation because, as she explained afterward, the fire was in the laundry room and therefore had nothing to do with lunch.
Roman found her in the service hall labeling two storage containers.
“You’re quitting?”
“I am leaving.”
“Why?”
Maria pressed a lid onto a container.
“You know why.”
“I’d like to hear you say it.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Maria.”
She looked at him then.
She was sixty-two, five feet tall, and completely unimpressed by wealth.
“Mr. Marino, I cleaned your father’s room when he was dying.”
Roman went silent.
“I cleaned your room when you were drinking so much after the funeral that you vomited in the wastebasket and pretended you had food poisoning.”
“That’s enough.”
“I washed the blood from your shirt when you came home after your brother was shot.”
“Maria.”
“And your wife sat on the kitchen floor with me at three in the morning when my daughter had her first miscarriage because I could not drive home without crying.”
Roman’s hand tightened around his phone.
Maria picked up the containers.
“One of these is lentil soup,” she said.
“The other is chicken.”
He frowned.
“For Elena.”
“You know where she is?”
“No.”
“Then how are you giving them to her?”
“Your mother knows.”
Roman laughed once without humor.
“Of course she does.”
Maria walked past him.
“Maria.”
She stopped.
“Did Elena ask you to quit?”
Maria turned slowly.
“No.”
“Did she ask anyone here to choose sides?”
“No.”
“Did she say anything about me?”
Maria considered that.
“She said you liked too much salt in your eggs.”
Roman stared at her.
“She told me yesterday morning before her appointment.”
Maria adjusted the containers against her hip.
“She was worried I would forget.”
Then she left.
By afternoon, the groundskeeper resigned.
An hour later, the chef followed.
Roman spent the rest of the day in meetings, where three men twice his size discovered that his patience had become dangerously thin.
At four thirty, his mother called.
He answered immediately.
“Where is she?”
Vivien Marino ignored the question.
“Her appointment was fine.”
Roman stood from his desk.
“You were with her?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At her obstetrician’s office, Roman.”
“Where is she staying?”
“She asked me not to tell you.”
“I’m her husband.”
“You behaved as though that position had an opening.”
Roman closed his eyes.
His mother rarely raised her voice.
She did not need to.
“Is she all right?”
“Her blood pressure is elevated.”
“How elevated?”
“Her doctor is monitoring it.”
“I want the doctor’s name.”
“You know the doctor’s name.”
“I want to speak to him.”
“You can speak to Elena.”
“She won’t answer.”
There was a pause.
Roman could hear traffic through his mother’s car speaker.
“She reads your messages,” Vivien said.
“That isn’t answering.”
“No.”
“What does she want?”
“I don’t think she knows yet.”
“I mean from me.”
“I know what you meant.”
Roman walked to the window.
Below, two gardeners were loading equipment into a truck.
He wondered whether they were leaving too.
“I didn’t throw her out.”
Vivien said nothing.
“I told her she could use the east wing.”
Still nothing.
“Sabrina needed somewhere secure for a few days.”
“You own six houses.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“No,” his mother said.
“It certainly isn’t.”
Roman pressed his fingers against his forehead.
May you like
“You’ve already decided what happened.”
“I know what happened.”
