Chương 3
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I said nothing.”
“That’s not trying.”
“No.”
“Did you ever plan to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means no.”
“It means I kept finding reasons not to ruin what you had.”
“What I had?”
“Peace.”
She looked at him for a long time.
“You keep talking about my life like you were managing a property.”
He flinched.
It was small.
But she saw it.
“Claire—”
“No. Don’t.”
She slipped her shoes off because her feet suddenly hurt too much to tolerate them. She picked them up by the straps.
It was ridiculous to be barefoot in the middle of the worst conversation of her adult life.
It was also somehow the only thing that made sense.
“I’m leaving.”
“Take the document,” Adrian said.
She had expected an argument.
He moved away from the desk, giving her space.
“But put it somewhere secure. Don’t scan it on your phone. Don’t forward photographs yet. If someone altered a physical document, there may be information on the paper or toner.”
Claire stared at him.
“You sound very experienced with being framed.”
“I’m experienced with lawyers telling me not to touch things.”
That dry note was so familiar it hurt.
She tucked the envelope beneath her arm.
Adrian’s phone vibrated on the desk.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed again.
“What?”
He showed her.
A message from his head of communications.
CALL ME NOW.
Below it was a screenshot from an entertainment business site Claire recognized.
The headline was already live.
BILLIONAIRE ADRIAN VALE PAID GIRLFRIEND’S FATHER BEFORE SECRET ROMANCE, DOCUMENTS SHOW.
Claire read it twice.
Her hands went cold.
The article included a photograph of the same contract she was holding.
Not a description.
Not a leak from someone who had heard about it.
A photograph.
The pages had been arranged on a dark wooden table.
Claire looked at the envelope.
Then at Adrian.
“I received this forty minutes ago.”
“I believe you.”
“How is that online?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked down at the article.
The photograph was sharper than the copy in her hand.
Whoever had leaked it had possessed the document before sending it to her.
Which meant the envelope had never been intended to reveal a secret.
It had been intended to make her react to one.
Adrian’s phone rang.
He silenced it.
Claire looked toward the door again.
This time there was still no one there.
But the office no longer felt empty.
It felt watched.
She left without letting Adrian touch her.
By seven fifteen, Claire was sitting in the rear of a cab wearing her coat properly for the first time all night.
Her heels lay beside her on the seat.
The driver had news radio playing at low volume. Every few minutes he looked at her in the mirror, not because he recognized her, she thought, but because she had been crying and people were curious about crying women in expensive clothes.
At Thirty-Fourth Street he asked, “You want air?”
Claire blinked.
“What?”
“Window. You look a little carsick.”
“No. Thank you.”
He nodded and returned his attention to traffic.
She pressed her forehead lightly against the cool glass.
Her phone had become unusable.
Thirty-six unread messages.
Then fifty-two.
Her cousin Melissa.
Two museum trustees.
A former coworker.
Three numbers she did not recognize.
A text from Adrian.
I will not contact you again unless you ask. I’m sending the name of outside counsel who holds the original settlement. You can contact them directly without going through me.
A second message arrived.
I’m sorry.
She locked the screen.
Three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
The number kept rearranging everything.
Her father’s silence.
Adrian’s patience during the first months they dated.
The way he never asked why she flinched when unknown numbers called after ten at night.
The first Christmas she spent with him, when she had said, almost casually, “I think Daniel finally gave up.”
Adrian had been cutting an orange over the kitchen sink.
He had paused.
Only for a second.
Then he had said, “Maybe he did.”
Claire closed her eyes.
There it was.
A clue she had lived through without knowing it was one.
Her apartment occupied a renovated building in Tribeca that Adrian did not own and had never paid for. She had insisted on that from the beginning.
At the time she thought it proved something.
Now she wondered to whom.
There were photographers outside when the cab turned onto her street.
The driver whistled.
“Somebody famous lives here?”
Claire reached for her shoes.
Her phone rang.
Melissa.
Claire answered.
“Please tell me you’re not outside my building.”
“I’m in your kitchen.”
Claire shut her eyes.
“How?”
“You gave me a key after you locked yourself out carrying Thai food.”
“That was three years ago.”
“Keys don’t expire.”
“They should.”
“You sound awful.”
“Thank you.”
“I made coffee.”
Claire looked through the windshield.
At least eight people waited near the entrance.
Two had cameras.
“Do I want to know what the internet says?”
“No.”
“That bad?”
“Yes.”
Claire rubbed her forehead.
“Can you come downstairs with sneakers?”
There was a pause.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Do you have shoes?”
“Technically.”
“What does that mean?”
“Please bring sneakers.”
Melissa came down wearing black leggings, Claire’s old Georgetown sweatshirt, and an expression that made one photographer lower his camera before she even spoke.
She walked directly to the cab, opened the door, saw Claire’s bare feet, and said, “Of course.”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said of course.”
“That is two words.”
“It was a paragraph.”
Melissa handed her sneakers.
Twenty minutes later they sat at Claire’s kitchen island with the blinds closed.
May you like
Claire had changed into gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt. Her face was washed clean. Without makeup, she looked younger and more tired.
Melissa read the forged contract without touching the pages. Claire had placed them inside two clear document sleeves she found in a drawer left over from a museum presentation.
