The Perfect Marriage(29)

“No. That is entirely not what I mean.”

A long silence followed. James could see where this was going. Before Jessica, he’d closed many a high-priced deal not with a handshake but with intercourse.

“Here’s the thing, James. I’ll wager you cannot show me another Pollock this evening.”

She looked at him hard. A challenge in her eyes.

“What are the terms?”

“Whatever you want them to be.”

James hesitated for a moment, as if considering whether to take that bet. The truth was, he was already all in.



Haley still had a key to James’s office. It had been his home back when they’d met until after they’d wedded, at which time he’d moved into her place. When they got divorced, James moved into the loft, and likely had forgotten that he’d ever given Haley a key to the office because, if he had remembered, he would have certainly changed the locks.

She didn’t use the key very often. Maybe once a month. Okay, sometimes twice. But she knew that frequency was hardly the issue. That was why it was her secret. She hadn’t even told Dr. Rubenstein about it.

She had googled “is it breaking and entering if you have a key,” and the unequivocal answer was yes. No loophole. If your presence was not permitted—and hers was certainly not—then it was illegal to enter. A criminal act, in fact. Although whether it was the misdemeanor of criminal trespass or the felony of burglary depended on whether she intended to commit a crime, which was never clear, even in her own mind.

She took precautions to avoid detection, of course. She only ever entered after James left for the day. Even then, she waited at least thirty minutes in case he had forgotten something and decided to double back. And her visits were usually brief. She’d use the flashlight in her phone to see what was on James’s desk. Sometimes, if he hadn’t logged off his computer, she’d read his emails, hoping to see evidence of a fight with Jessica, or better yet, proof he was cheating on her. So far, at least, she hadn’t. To the contrary, the emails between them were so saccharine they made her want to vomit. How much they missed each other. Or lamer, what kind of wild sex they were planning.

Today she was looking for evidence that whatever deal James and Reid were cooking up was illegal. Unfortunately, James’s computer was locked. She wondered if he had done that because he and Reid were engaged in something shady.

She moved straight to the credenza. If James was hiding something, it would be there.

It too was locked. Normally it was not. To Haley, that was tantamount to a smoking gun. James was definitely hiding something.

Haley doubted that she’d find any answers in the bedroom, but now that she was here, she couldn’t resist entering the inner sanctum. It was pitch dark, but she didn’t dare risk turning on the light. Instead, she positioned the flashlight on her phone to guide her.

That was when Haley heard the most frightening sound of her life.

The front door was opening.

James had come back.

And he wasn’t alone. A woman’s laugh followed him in.

Not Jessica’s. Haley had that woman’s cackle committed to memory.

Haley hid in the bedroom closet, petrified. What if he found her? Would he prosecute her? Would Jessica insist on it?

But then she realized she had it all backward. Yes, it was perilous, but she was not the one in peril. James was. He would have to explain to Jessica why he was in his office after business hours with another woman.

From her vantage point inside the bedroom closet, Haley could not see what was going on in the main room. She could hear them, though. The sound was garbled, but foreplay always sounds the same, even without the words.

The credenza door clicked open. James reaching for a bottle of wine, perhaps. Then their voices went silent. They must have started kissing.

Haley knew that meant that they’d enter the bedroom shortly. She reached for her phone, ready to video the entire scene through the crack in the closet doors. Even in her wildest fantasies, she hadn’t imagined procuring a sex tape starring James and the woman he was cheating with. She was nearly salivating at the thought of Jessica’s face when she clicked on the email Haley would send her and saw a video of James doing to her what he’d done to Haley.

A few minutes later, the light from the other room allowed her to make out the contours of a person entering the bedroom. Not James, but the woman.

Haley couldn’t see her face, but that didn’t mean that she was unable to draw certain assumptions.

Not Jessica—confirmed.

James’s latest conquest was thin, almost to a childlike degree. Apparently, James had opted for a little variety for this round of infidelity.

Haley tried not to breathe. The toilet flushed. The faucet ran, then didn’t. The bathroom door opened.

When the woman emerged from the bathroom, Haley finally saw her from the front. She was a bit flat-chested for James’s taste, and her hair was short, like a boy’s. But she was still the type to turn Haley’s ex-husband’s head. And the way she was dressed suggested she was fully committed to the task at hand.

James must have heard the bathroom door open too because he had made his way to the bedroom. Just Haley’s luck—he had positioned himself in front of the closet. Now all she could see was the back of his suit jacket. She strained her eyes and focused her hearing, trying to block out the sound of her beating heart.