Chương 2
“Okay, I deserve that.”
I hated how quickly those five words found the part of me that still recognized his voice in the dark.
Grant had once sat on our kitchen floor at two in the morning assembling a cheap bookshelf because I refused to replace it with something expensive.
He had made pancakes for my father during chemotherapy even though every pancake came out shaped like a different state.
He had slept in a chair beside me after my father died because I could not bear anyone touching me.
People did not become strangers cleanly.
Sometimes they remained themselves while destroying the life you had built with them.
“Did you love her?” I asked.
Evelyn looked away.
Daniel suddenly became interested in the departure board.
Grant swallowed.
“That’s not a question I can answer here.”
“Then don’t.”
“I care about her.”
The words were careful.
CEO words.
Words designed to survive later review.
I nodded.
“Congratulations on your son.”
“Claire.”
I walked toward the gate.
His hand closed around my wrist.
The security officer reached us almost immediately.
“Sir, release her.”
Grant did.
His face had gone pale.
“I’m sorry.”
The officer asked whether I wanted Grant removed.
I looked at the man I had married.
“No.”
Grant exhaled.
“I want him to leave me alone.”
The officer positioned himself between us.
Grant stared over his shoulder.
“You’re really getting on that plane?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s it?”
“No.”
He frowned.
“That’s the problem, Grant.”
I looked at the blue folder in Evelyn’s hand.
“This isn’t the end of anything.”
Evelyn gave the folder to Daniel and came with me through the gate.
I had expected Grant to shout again.
Instead, he called my name once.
Quietly.
I kept walking.
On the jet, Evelyn took the seat opposite mine and immediately removed her shoes.
It was such an ordinary act that I stared at her.
“My feet are killing me,” she said.
I laughed.
I did not mean to.
The laugh broke halfway through and turned into something humiliating.
I pressed my fist against my mouth.
Evelyn leaned forward but did not touch me.
“I’m not going to tell you everything will be fine.”
“Thank you.”
“I hate when people do that.”
“So do I.”
A flight attendant closed the cabin door.
Through the oval window, the terminal became a sheet of reflected light.
Grant was no longer visible.
I turned my phone back on.
It vibrated so violently in my palm that I nearly dropped it.
There were eighty-seven notifications.
Thirty-one missed calls.
Messages from reporters.
Messages from Northstar employees.
Messages from cousins I had not spoken to since my father’s funeral.
Three messages from Melissa.
I opened hers first.
The first had been sent nine minutes earlier.
Please tell Grant to come back.
The second arrived four minutes after that.
I know you hate me but the baby is having trouble breathing.
The third contained only four words.
I don’t know anyone.
I read them twice.
Evelyn watched my face.
“What happened?”
I handed her the phone.
She read the messages and returned it without comment.
Outside, the jet began moving away from the gate.
I looked toward the front of the cabin.
“Can we stop?”
Evelyn’s eyebrows lifted.
“Claire.”
“The baby didn’t do anything.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to.”
“I know.”
The engines changed pitch.
I unfastened my seat belt.
The flight attendant hurried toward me.
“Ms. Hale, please remain seated.”
“Can we return to the gate?”
“We’ve already been cleared for departure.”
“Then tell the pilot there’s a medical family emergency.”
Evelyn studied me.
“You understand Grant may interpret this as you coming back to him.”
“Grant interprets most things in ways that benefit Grant.”
“And Melissa?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the first completely honest thing I had said all evening.
The jet stopped.
Ten minutes later, I walked back into the terminal with Evelyn beside me.
Grant was still there.
He was sitting alone beneath a television showing my photograph next to the words NORTHSTAR CEO’S WIFE ANNOUNCES DIVORCE.
When he saw me, hope crossed his face so nakedly that I almost hated him for it.
Then he noticed I was already ordering a car.
“Claire?”
“Your son is having trouble breathing.”
Grant went completely still.
“What?”
“Melissa messaged me.”
He pulled out his phone.
The screen was black.
He pressed the button twice.
Nothing happened.
“My battery died.”
I held out my phone.
“Call the hospital.”
He took it with shaking fingers.
While the call connected, Evelyn’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and her expression hardened.
I watched her walk several feet away.
Grant was speaking to a nurse now, his voice stripped of every trace of executive authority.
“Yes, I’m his father.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“I’m coming.”
He ended the call.
“They moved him to neonatal intensive care.”
His voice broke on the final word.
I took my phone back.
“Then go.”
He stared at me.
“Come with me.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Grant, no.”
“I can’t—”
He stopped.
For the first time that night, he seemed ashamed of what he had almost admitted.
He could betray two women, apparently, but could not bear to enter a hospital room alone.
Evelyn returned before either of us spoke.
“Daniel just called.”
Something in her tone made Grant straighten.
“The investigators found another vendor.”
Grant’s fear changed shape.
Evelyn looked at me rather than him.
“It was incorporated eleven months before your father died.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What vendor?”
“Brightwell Strategic Partners.”
I had never heard the name.
Grant had.
I saw it before he could hide it.
Evelyn saw it too.
“Grant?”
He looked toward the terminal doors.
“Not now.”
“When?”
“My son is in intensive care.”
“That is why I am not asking you another question tonight.”
Evelyn’s voice remained level.
“But understand this clearly.”
May you like
She glanced at the dead phone still clenched in his hand.
“Whatever Brightwell is, someone has been paying it with Northstar money for seven years.”
