Chapter 3
That was the insult that made me laugh.
I had been sitting in the kitchen of our townhouse on East Seventy-Third, drinking coffee that had gone cold because Chase liked to schedule “breakfast conversations” and then cancel them after I had already made an effort.
The kitchen was all limestone and pale oak, designed to look warm but cost more than some families’ homes. Morning light slid over the countertops. A vase of white ranunculus sat between two untouched plates.
Chase had texted at 6:12 a.m.
Emergency consult. Don’t wait up tonight. Proud of you always. C.
Proud of you always.
He used that phrase when he wanted credit for loving me without having to show up.
I had opened my phone with the lazy dread of a woman who already knows the answer but still needs the evidence. There she was.
Sloane Mercer.
Former ballet darling. Wellness influencer. Recovery ambassador for the Whitaker Foundation. Fragile in the way rich men find erotic because it makes their rescuing look noble.
She had posted a photo from a private terrace in Aspen. Snow behind her. Firepit beside her. One bare shoulder turned toward the camera. On her wrist, flashing beneath the soft gold of the mountain sunset, was my bracelet.
Not a similar bracelet.
Mine.
A vintage Cartier panther, emerald eyes, flexible gold links, a tiny scratch near the clasp where my mother had dropped it on the marble floor of the Carlyle the night my father proposed to her for the second time.
Sloane’s caption read:
Healing looks different when you finally feel chosen.
I looked at the bracelet for a long time.
Then I looked at the coffee.
Then I laughed so softly the housekeeper, Maribel, glanced in from the hall and asked, “Mrs. Whitaker?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
And that was the first lie I told before noon.
The second came when Chase called me that afternoon from the private jet.
“I hate missing dinner,” he said.
“No, you don’t.”
A pause.
Then his laugh, smooth as poured cream. “You always know when I’m exhausted.”
He was a gifted surgeon, but an even better actor. People believed Chase Whitaker because he possessed the most dangerous kind of beauty: the kind that looked honest.
He had sandy dark-blond hair that never fell wrong, blue eyes that seemed designed by a campaign consultant, and hands that had repaired torn ligaments for Heisman winners, tennis stars, and billionaires who wanted to ski again before their third wives got bored. His body looked disciplined. His voice sounded expensive. His sins wore cologne.