Confidential(55)

“You’re right, I do say that.”

“I just need to go to the office and forget about this.” I hadn’t been planning to do that; I’d wanted to loll in Michael’s bed, preferably with him, but now it seemed like it’d be prudent to get away. Then he couldn’t badger me about the police. “Maybe you could drive me and pick me up? I’m still a little shaky.”

“I have clients later.”

Right. It was Wednesday. “Maybe you could cancel. We could go out to dinner tonight.”

He looked down at the bed, like he didn’t know how to break it to me.

“We could have dinner here,” I amended. “I just really don’t want to be alone.”

“I’ll be home by eight thirty. You can come by then.”

“After you see all your clients?” I tried not to sound too spiteful on the word clients.

“What would you suggest?” There was an edge to his voice.

“I already suggested. That you cancel.”

“I’m responsible for them.”

He was responsible for me, too, wasn’t he? We were responsible for the people we loved. Unless my worst suspicions were true, and it really was better to be a client than a girlfriend. Not that I was necessarily his girlfriend. Not that they were necessarily just clients.

Time to go for broke.

“I’m afraid to drive myself,” I said. “Afraid I might have flashbacks or something and then, I don’t know, maybe I’d careen off the road or something. You’ve told me weird stories about what can happen with trauma. And I’m afraid to be alone.”

“Do something with Jeanie, and then take an Uber at eight thirty.”

He had all the answers. Finally, I nodded. It was the most I was going to get out of him, and it was certainly progress from how it had been between us lately.

His eyebrows knitted together with concern. That was more like it. Then he said, “Whoever stole your phone has access to all our texts, right?”

Kate wouldn’t have been stunned by his self-absorption, but I was, momentarily. “You know your real name isn’t in my phone. No one would figure out who you are.” I decided against adding, And no one would care.

I also didn’t add that I’d downloaded all the photos I’d taken of him from my phone to my computer. I’d wanted to make sure I’d never lose any of our precious memories. But maybe it was also insurance. Against what? I’d never fully articulated that to myself.

I didn’t go to work. I preferred not to answer any questions, and I was on a reconnaissance mission. On the surface, Michael and I were back on track, and I hoped fervently it was true, but things had turned on a dime before. He’d turned. Now I had to stay vigilant. Trust but verify.

I couldn’t help thinking that with my head scarf and sunglasses and bruises, I officially looked like a battered wife. I reminded myself that Michael would never abuse me. Not physically, anyway, and it wasn’t like he took pleasure in causing me emotional pain. I was the one who’d betrayed him. It wasn’t on purpose; I didn’t see it that way at the time, but that was the net result.

He never should have known. For that, I blamed Kate. Maybe that’s why I waited so long to text her and tell her I was all right, it was just a mugging, nothing to worry about. I did it at almost five p.m. (eight in Miami) as I was sitting in my usual parking space, the one I circled an hour to get, directly in front of Michael’s office building. I pretended the delay was because I hadn’t gotten a new phone until then, when my first stop that morning had been the Apple store.

There she was, approaching the office. The blonde giraffe. My jaw tightened as I noticed that she had a spring in her step.

I reminded myself that it was before her session. She hadn’t even seen Michael yet, so most likely, it had nothing to do with him. She’d won the lottery, or gotten a promotion at work, or her boyfriend proposed. It was a new pair of shoes. It could be anything.

But I didn’t like how she was moving. She was way too confident.

And she was the one going to him while I was the one on the outside, looking in, hoping to avoid detection. Just hoping I wouldn’t be seen.





CHAPTER 43





GREER


Chenille looked worried, and I could hardly blame her. While I’d been much more diligent of late, not wanting any mistakes of mine to lead to further discomfort for her, my heart simply wasn’t in it. She must have sensed that. It seemed that my clients had, which was another reason for my decision. Better to step aside than to destroy everything I had built. Then I’d be able to come back to it later, fresher, with greater purpose, with a child to support.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said, “that I could use some time away.”

She blinked her beautiful brown eyes at me, clearly taken aback.

“You’re meant for this industry. You have all the diplomacy and all the passion.” I’d never had passion, only drive. I’d just wanted to make my mommy and daddy proud, as it turned out, only neither of them had lived long enough to see it. Oh, sure, they saw that I was moving up in my previous corporation, and I’d asked them for their advice if I were to start my own firm down the line, but they never saw me have my own independent success. If they had, if they were still around to disappoint, I might never have had the courage to do this. I might still have been trying to earn their love and attention at almost forty years old. In a way, I was lucky they were gone. It had opened up the possibility of true love, finally.