The woman my husband claimed to hate lifted her champagne glass and announced to a room full of our old classmates that she had once been the love of his life. Then she smiled at him as if the fifteen years between them had never happened. My husband did not smile back, but what frightened me was that he could not seem to look away.
Part 2
Halfway to the clinic, I made the mistake of testing him.
“Maybe you should let Victoria have the marina project.”
Daniel slammed on the brakes so suddenly my seat belt caught me across the chest. He pulled onto the shoulder and stared at me.
“Never say that again.”
“She’s rebuilding her company from nothing. Maybe—”
“She deserves nothing from me.”
I looked down at my hands. “I just don’t want her becoming part of our life.”
Daniel’s expression softened. He leaned across the console and kissed my forehead.
“Claire, I hate what she did to me. That’s all I feel.”
Then his phone rang.
Victoria’s name appeared on the screen.
Before Daniel could lower the volume, her sobbing voice filled the car.
“Please don’t take Eastport from me. I put everything I have into it. And what happened years ago—I didn’t have a choice. You were the only man I ever loved.”
Daniel went completely still.
He ended the call.
A moment later he said, “Something came up at the office.”
He pulled to the curb, came around, and opened my door.
“Take a cab to the clinic. I’ll meet you later.”
Before I could protest, he drove away.
I stood beneath the hot Maryland sun watching his taillights disappear.
Daniel had never left me like that. Not once.
By the time I reached the clinic, I had missed my appointment. While the receptionist tried to fit me back into the schedule, my phone rang.
It was Daniel’s office manager.
“Claire, I thought you should know. Daniel just withdrew Mercer Development’s bid from Eastport. He handed the project to Hale Group.”
I sat down.
Our staff had spent months on that proposal. Daniel had fought for it like a man defending his home.
Twenty minutes later, my obstetrician examined me and frowned at the ultrasound.
“You need to keep your stress down,” Dr. Bennett said. “With your previous injuries, this pregnancy is already higher risk than most.”
Three years earlier, Daniel had gotten into an argument at a restaurant after drinking too much. A stranger swung a chair at him, and I stepped between them.
Two fractured ribs. Damage to my lower back. Six months of rehabilitation.
Daniel had sat beside my hospital bed and cried until he could barely speak.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you.”
Now Dr. Bennett looked around the room. “Where is he today?”
“Work.”
She studied me for a moment, then let the lie pass.
As she walked me toward the elevator afterward, shouting erupted near the emergency entrance below.
I looked over the railing.
Victoria lay on a gurney.
Daniel stood beside her.
She had both hands wrapped around one of his.
“Don’t leave me,” she cried. “Please, Danny. I’m scared.”
“Stop this,” he said coldly.
Yet he did not pull away.
I stared at their joined hands until the elevator doors opened.
Daniel called an hour later and asked about the baby as though nothing unusual had happened.
He never mentioned Victoria.
That evening, he finally came home. He lifted me from the couch and carried me toward our bedroom with the tenderness I had loved for years.
Then I smelled a woman’s perfume on his shirt.
“You were with her.”
He froze.
“She was drunk,” he said. “I found her near the office and took her to the hospital. That’s all.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d worry.”
He showered, climbed into bed, and held me until I fell asleep.
Sometime after midnight, I woke to cold sheets.
The front door stood slightly open.
I walked toward it and heard Victoria whispering.
“You still love me.”
Through the narrow opening, I saw her arms around Daniel’s waist.
He pushed her back. “Go home.”
“You gave me Eastport.”
“That was business.”
“You gave up a project you fought six months to win.” She stepped closer. “You married Claire because you were angry at me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Daniel said nothing.
Victoria smiled.
Then she rose onto her toes and kissed him.
Daniel stiffened.
But he did not push her away.
I backed into the darkness before either of them saw me.
He did not come to bed again that night.
At seven the next morning, another call came from Mercer Development.
Daniel had transferred thirty million dollars from the company.
The exact amount Victoria needed to begin Eastport construction.
I was still holding the phone when Daniel stormed into the bedroom.
There was no tenderness in his face.
Only rage.
