Envy(92)

As they somberly shook hands, Daniel asked him where Maris was.

“On her way, I’m sure. I had to leave ahead of her so I could make a quick stop at the office.” The old man bought the lie. In any case, he let Noah lead him inside to get out of the drizzle that had begun to fall.

Maris arrived a few minutes later. She looked pale and wan in an unflattering black dress. It wasn’t her best color. He’d never liked her in black. She spotted him standing with Daniel in the vestibule, wearing paper yarmulkes, waiting for her.

After a slight hesitation, she moved through the crowd toward them. She was too respectful of the situation to cause a scene. He had counted on her discretion, just as he had counted on her not telling Daniel about his extramarital affair with Nadia. Besides being proud to a fault, Maris was boringly predictable.

She hugged Daniel tenderly. “How are you this morning, Dad?”

“Sad for all of us, but especially for Howard’s family. Shall we go in?”

They filed down the long aisle. Maris maneuvered it so that when they entered the pew Daniel was between them. She was the epitome of decorum, yet Noah knew she must be gnashing her teeth even to be in his presence. Imagining what an endurance test this was for her, he could barely contain his amusement.

Following the service, she consoled Daniel and, for his benefit, invented an excuse for having to take a separate taxi back to Midtown. Noah didn’t see her for the remainder of the day.

Nor did he seek her out for the next several days. During scheduled business meetings, she pretended that everything was normal. They had never been overtly affectionate at work, except occasionally behind the closed door of either his or her private office. Around staff members, they had always conducted themselves in a professional manner. Consequently, no one at Matherly Press noticed the chill between them.

He went to their apartment when he knew she wouldn’t be there to collect a few changes of clothing. He wasn’t surprised to find that everything was exactly as he had left it. Maris had not sent for Maxine to pack up his belongings. She would never have entrusted the secret of their separation to her father’s loyal housekeeper. The bad news would have gone straight from Maxine to Daniel, and Maris wanted to prevent Daniel from hearing of it. She would want to spare the old man from worrying about their marital problems and the damaging effect such problems would have on the publishing house.

Daniel, none the wiser, continued to take Noah’s calls, and Noah continued to pay him brief visits in the late afternoons to discuss the events of the day. His relationship with his father-in-law remained solid. Maris was suffering in silence and alone, and she had only herself to blame. She should never have taken that haughty stance with him. She should have thought twice before issuing ultimatums that served only to make her look and sound ridiculous.

He relished the thought of her pacing, regretting her thoughtless outburst, and having absolutely no one in whom to confide. Each time he envisioned her wallowing in her lonely, self-inflicted torment, he smiled.

After a few days, however, Noah began to tire of the situation. He considered approaching Maris and putting an end to the silliness. But he stubbornly resolved to let her brood for the full seven days before approaching her.

She would weep and call him names and beg to know how he could have hurt her so terribly when she had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. He would give her the opportunity to vent. Once she had, she would grant him forgiveness. No doubt of that.

She would forgive him for the old man’s sake. Maris could always be counted on to spare Daniel any kind of unhappiness. She would forgive him also because women love to forgive and then to make the forgiven miserable every day thereafter for the rest of his postforgiven life. That wasn’t going to be his future, of course, but he figured that’s what Maris had planned for him. In light of his deal with WorldView, he would do nothing at this point to enlighten her. That would come later.

In the meantime, the temporary separation wasn’t without its perks. While Maris wasn’t speaking to him, he didn’t have to listen to her harping.

Nadia was another matter entirely. She continually nagged him to divorce Maris. Her persistence had become tiresome and had created a tension between them that came to a head, ironically enough, on the final day of his self-imposed deadline.

They had scheduled a luncheon meeting in an outrageously expensive, trendy uptown restaurant. One of Matherly Press’s bestselling authors was joining them to be interviewed by Nadia for “Book Chat.” The writer hadn’t yet arrived when they ordered prelunch cocktails.

To other diners, which included a large number of publishing industry personnel, it appeared they were having a civil conversation about current market trends or perhaps the sci-fi phenomenon that had rocked the book world by securing the top spot on every bestseller list, when, in fact, they were arguing about their immediate future.

“She knows about us, so why wait? File for divorce now and get it over with.”

“I can’t leave the family until the deal with WorldView is cemented,” he argued.

“What does one have to do with the other?”

“That is an incredibly stupid question, Nadia.”

The insulting remark froze Nadia’s smile into place. Had they been anyplace else, her temper might have erupted on the scale of Vesuvius. As it was, she took a languid sip of her martini, smoothed the starched linen napkin in her lap, and adjusted the triple strand of pearls around her neck—which he noticed was suffused with angry color. “Be careful, Noah,” she said quietly. “You do not want me angry at you.”