Chương 1
"“You’ll only embarrass me wearing that dress.”
Julian said it loudly enough for the housekeeper to hear, which was how I knew the humiliation was intentional.
I stood halfway down the staircase with one hand on the banister, wearing the navy gown I had spent twenty minutes trying to repair with thread that did not quite match.
Mrs. Martha had been arranging white roses in the foyer, but her hands stopped over the vase.
Julian looked at my sleeves, then at my shoes, and gave the small impatient sigh he usually reserved for delayed elevators and incompetent employees.
“You seriously planned to go like that?”
The invitation to the Apex Group charity gala was still tucked inside my evening bag.
It listed Mr. and Mrs. Julian Cross in raised silver lettering.
“I thought we were leaving at seven,” I said.
“We are.”
The front door opened behind him.
Chloe Miller stepped inside as though she had been expected all along.
She wore champagne silk, diamonds at her throat, and the pleased expression of a woman arriving somewhere she had already decided belonged to her.
For one stupid second, I stared at the necklace.
I recognized it because I had seen the charge from Bellamy Jewelers on one of Julian’s credit-card statements six weeks earlier.
Twenty-eight thousand dollars.
When I had asked him about it, he had told me the purchase was a gift for an investor’s wife.
Apparently the investor’s wife was twenty-nine, worked three offices down from him, and had her hand resting comfortably on my husband’s shoulder.
Chloe smiled.
“Oh.”
Her eyes traveled down my dress.
“So you were coming too?”
Mrs. Martha lowered her gaze to the roses.
Julian adjusted his cuff.
“Clarissa misunderstood.”
“No,” I said.
He finally looked directly at me.
Something in my voice had annoyed him, although I had barely raised it.
“I received an invitation with my name on it.”
“Because you’re my wife.”
“That generally explains why wives attend things addressed to them.”
Chloe gave a quick laugh and then seemed uncertain whether I had made a joke.
Julian did not laugh.
“This isn’t dinner with neighbors, Clarissa.”
“I know what a gala is.”
“Then you know who’ll be there.”
He stepped closer and lowered his voice, but not enough to spare Mrs. Martha.
“Apex is considering the expansion agreement next quarter, and half the people I need to impress will be in that ballroom.”
His eyes touched the frayed seam near my wrist.
“You’d only humiliate me.”
The words landed more quietly the second time.
That made them worse.
Three years earlier, I would have answered immediately.
The woman I had been before Julian could make a room uncomfortable without ever raising her voice.
My father used to call it my expensive silence because people tended to start confessing things when I simply waited.
Marriage had trained that habit out of me one apology at a time.
I looked at Chloe.
“Are those the Bellamy diamonds?”
Her fingers went instinctively to her necklace.
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“Not now.”
“That means yes.”
“It was a gift.”
“I gathered that.”
Chloe glanced between us.
“Julian, maybe I should wait in the car.”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly.
He took her hand.
“You’re coming with me.”
Then he looked at me.
“You’re staying here.”
There was something almost childish in the satisfaction on his face.
He expected an argument.
Perhaps he wanted one because anger would let him call me unstable, jealous, difficult, all the words he had begun using during the last year whenever I noticed something he preferred me not to notice.
I gave him none.
“All right.”
He blinked.
Chloe’s smile returned.
Mrs. Martha accidentally knocked one rose against the rim of the vase.
A few petals fell onto the marble.
Julian studied me for another moment.
“Good.”
He reached for his coat.
“I’m glad you can be reasonable for once.”
I nearly laughed.
Instead, I stepped aside so they could pass.
Chloe paused beside me.
Her perfume smelled sweet and expensive, with something citrus underneath.
“You know,” she murmured, “you could get something newer.”
I looked at her.
“A dress?”
She smiled.
“Everything.”
Julian called her name from the doorway.
She hurried after him.
Through the glass beside the door, I watched him place his hand against the small of her back before helping her into the black SUV.
He had once touched me that way.
Not recently enough for the memory to hurt in the clean manner grief was supposed to hurt.
It irritated instead, like grit beneath a contact lens.
The SUV disappeared beyond the gate.
Mrs. Martha bent to collect the fallen petals.
“Leave those,” I said.
She straightened.
Her face had gone pink.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I could make tea.”
I looked at the roses.
They were leaning too heavily toward one side of the vase.
Mrs. Martha had always been terrible at arranging flowers, although Julian insisted she do them because paying a florist for the foyer was, according to him, wasteful.
The absurdity of thinking about flowers almost made me smile.
“Tea would be nice.”
She hesitated.
“Chamomile?”
“Something stronger.”
Her eyebrows rose.
Then she gave me the faintest smile.
“I’ll see what I can find.”
I climbed upstairs without hurrying.
My phone vibrated before I reached the bedroom.
The message came from a number I did not recognize.
The photograph loaded first.
Chloe sat in the back of Julian’s SUV, holding two fingers in a victory sign while city lights blurred behind the window.
Julian’s profile appeared beside her.
Under the photograph was a sentence.
Tonight he’ll be completely mine.
A second message arrived.
Enjoy waiting for him.
I stared at the screen long enough for it to dim.
May you like
Three years of marriage had contained worse moments than this one, though I had worked hard not to name them.
There had been the anniversary dinner Julian canceled because of an emergency meeting, followed by a restaurant receipt in his jacket for two people.
