Chapter 4
“Daniel and I had an argument upstairs.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“That's unfortunate.”
Her eyes lifted.
“He said you were doing this deliberately.”
“Doing what?”
“Trying to make him jealous.”
I looked at Michael, who raised both eyebrows.
Then I turned back to Rachel.
“I've been sitting here for more than an hour. I didn't know either of you would be at this hotel. Daniel walked in holding your hand. If anyone was making a performance out of something, it wasn't me.”
Rachel's mouth tightened.
“I told him that.”
That surprised me.
She looked toward the elevators before continuing.
“He said you must have known he was coming. That you wanted him to see you with someone else.”
“Rachel, I didn't even know where Daniel was spending tonight.”
“He said you always knew his schedule.”
I felt something inside me go very still.
For twenty-seven years, I had known Daniel's schedule.
I knew when his dentist appointments were due, which clients he needed to call, what time he preferred to leave for the airport, and whether he'd remembered to pick up his dry cleaning.
But those things had stopped being my responsibility four months earlier.
“He doesn't have a schedule with me anymore,” I said.
Rachel looked at me as though that possibility had never occurred to her.
Then her phone vibrated.
She glanced at the screen.
Daniel.
She declined the call.
It rang again immediately.
Michael quietly lifted his coffee cup.
Rachel turned the phone facedown.
“There's something else,” she said.
I waited.
“Daniel told me you were refusing to accept the separation.”
For a second, I couldn't speak.
Rachel continued quickly.
“He said you kept calling him. That you were making excuses to see him. That you wouldn't let go.”
I stared at her.
Then I slowly reached for my own phone.
“Rachel, would you like to see the messages Daniel has sent me tonight?”
She hesitated.
I opened the conversation and slid my phone across the table.
She read the first message.
Then the second.
Then the questions about whether I was staying at the hotel.
Finally, she reached the message demanding we talk.
Her expression changed.
I didn't need to explain anything.
The evidence was sitting directly in front of her.
“Those were all tonight?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you didn't contact him first?”
“No.”
Rachel pushed the phone back toward me.
For the first time since meeting her, I saw genuine uncertainty in her face.