If You Only Knew(99)

“Oh, no, actually,” he says, wiping his mouth. “I’m surprised Adam didn’t tell you, since he recommended her for the position. She’s with our Manhattan office now. She’s the new head of litigation.”

I don’t move for a second. Then, realizing that a response is required, I nod. “Oh.”

“Were you guys friendly?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Well, she’s got a kick-ass apartment in Trump Place,” he says. “She had all of us partners down for a cocktail party last week. Very nice. Didn’t Adam mention it? He was there, too.”

My heart seems to have stopped.

“We drove in together. It was fun. Grabbed a beer afterward before we headed home. It was nice. He and I don’t talk much, to tell you the truth. I mean, at work.” He stops chewing. “Rach? You okay?”

“Yep.”

“You sure?”

“Um...yeah. I just had a weird bit of lettuce or something.” I smile and drink some water.

Adam recommended his mistress for a promotion and went to a party at her place.

Funny, how that hasn’t come up in conversation.

* * *

I wait until the girls are in bed that night to fight with Adam. “So you lied to me again,” I say calmly. “Emmanuelle didn’t quit. She got a promotion with Triple B. Thanks to you, I hear.”

He looks at me, a look of faux confusion/innocence on his face, same as the night he expressed his moral outrage that I thought him capable of an affair. At least I’ve learned how to tell he’s lying. “I told you about that,” he says.

“No, Adam,” I grind out. “You didn’t.”

“I’m sure I did, actually.”

“You didn’t! You said she took a job in another city!”

“Well, she did, Rach. She’s working in Manhattan. I don’t understand the problem. You didn’t want us working together, and we’re not.” He raises his eyebrows in the patented “women are so hysterical” look. I could cheerfully shank him right now.

“What you told me, Adam, was that she got a better offer from somewhere else.”

His face tightens. “Look,” he says, and his voice is hard. “She could’ve had a f*cking field day with me. She could’ve made things public, complained to the partners, whatever. Instead, she and I made a deal.”

“And all of this is news to me.”

“I told her I’d recommend her for the promotion so long as she didn’t say anything.”

“So she blackmailed you, got a promotion and now lives in a swanky apartment in Manhattan, where you recently visited. Well done, Adam. You really drew a line in the sand, didn’t you?”

“You’re misinterpreting things again. You wanted a solution, I found one. I don’t have to leave Triple B, and we get to keep my salary and my 401(k) and the health insurance, and no one knows a thing about the affair. Can you imagine those bitchy book club friends of yours if they knew about this? They’d eat you alive.”

He comes over to me and takes my hands. “Seems to me like we all win here,” he says in a gentler voice. “Honey. She’s gone. I’m here. I’ll probably never see her again. Can’t we put this behind us? Please?”

“I want to, Adam, but it seems like every time I think we’re moving ahead, I learn something new, find out some other little lie.” My voice picks up speed. “I want to move on, but you’re the one who brought this into our lives. You’re the one who changed me, and I never wanted to be changed to begin with, and I hate myself these days!”

With that, I burst into tears. Sobs jerk out of me, taking me by surprise, and I cover my face with my hands, unable to stop the noises.

It’s the first time I’ve really cried in front of him since I found that horrible picture. “Oh, sweetheart,” he says, pulling me into his arms, and I hate that it feels so good to be held, and I hate that we fit together so perfectly, and I love that he knows just how to rub my back and stroke my hair. I love him. I hate him. And I’m so tired of feeling both ways.

“Baby, please don’t cry,” he murmurs. “Let’s go away together. Let’s have a second honeymoon. I love you, Rach. I love you so much.”

I nod, simply because I’m too tired of being angry. I’ve got nothing left. Except for the girls, I’m empty.

“We’ll have the girls stay with my mom, or Jenny,” he continues. “We can go to Paris, how’s that? Or Turks and Caicos, you always wanted to go there, right?”

And so it’s decided, when I’m done crying, that we’ll go the week after Jared and Kimber’s wedding. Adam will call the travel agent. I won’t have to do a thing. “And I get to see you in a bikini,” Adam says with a wink.

So because of their affair, Emmanuelle gets a promotion and a raise, Adam gets a vacation, and I got an STD panel.

Through my bleary, weary eyes, I can see that the kitchen is sloppy and sticky with crumbs, as Adam offered to do cleanup tonight. It’s still lovely, but up close, it’s grimy. The stove pans need to be scoured, and there’s spatter over the knobs. The flowers I picked last week are dying in the mason jar, and I can smell the hint of decay.

It feels like this house will never be clean again.