Chapter 17
“I made a tactical error.”
“How bad?”
“It’s everywhere.”
He sat beside me.
“Do you regret saying it?”
I considered the question.
“No.”
“Then the rest is noise.”
“You make everything sound simple.”
“No. I separate simple things from difficult ones.”
I looked toward the empty chair across the room.
“Julian is difficult.”
“No.”
Gabriel followed my gaze.
“Julian is complicated. Your decision isn’t.”
“What decision?”
“Whether you go back to living according to his comfort.”
My throat tightened.
Before I could answer, Dalia approached us again.
This time, she looked pale.
“Can I speak to you privately?”
I stood.
Gabriel did not.
He looked at me.
I nodded.
“I’ll be right there.”
Dalia and I moved toward a quiet section near the windows.
Manhattan glittered beyond the glass.
For a moment, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “Did he really leave you during a miscarriage?”
I looked at her.
She knew.
Maybe she had heard from someone.
Maybe Julian had finally told her.
Maybe the corridor recording had captured more than I thought.
“Yes.”
Her eyes closed.
“I asked him.”
“What did he say?”
“That it wasn’t that simple.”
I almost smiled.
“That’s Julian’s favorite phrase when the simple version makes him look bad.”
Dalia looked down.
“I’m not asking because I want details.”
“All right.”
“I’m asking because he told me something different.”
I waited.
“He told me he spent years trying to save you from falling apart.”
There it was.
A cleaner version.
A kinder Julian.
A weaker me.
Dalia wrapped her arms around herself.
“I believed him.”
“You had no reason not to.”
Her eyes lifted sharply, as if she had expected anger.
“You don’t hate me?”
“I don’t know you.”
“I was with him after your divorce.”
“Yes.”
“I knew people thought—”
“You were not the woman in Miami.”
She blinked.
“No.”
“I know.”
A strange silence passed between us.
She looked relieved.
Then ashamed of feeling relieved.
“I met him almost a year later.”
“I know.”
“He told me your marriage had ended long before the legal separation.”
I looked through the windows.
“In some ways, maybe it had.”
She swallowed.
“He said you hated public life.”
“By the end, I did.”
“He said you didn’t want anything to do with business anymore.”
That made me laugh.
Not loudly.
But enough.
Dalia frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. What?”
I looked at her.
“Ask him who wrote the first pitch that got his company funded.”