Chapter 13
Khloe never checks her phone during dinner.
Eventually, Harrison stopped pretending the comparisons were accidental.
Why can’t you relax like Khloe?
Why does everything with you have to be about work?
Do you know how nice it is to talk to a woman who doesn’t constantly act like she knows more than everyone?
The affair began before I had proof.
My body knew first.
The phone turning facedown.
The unexplained evening meetings.
The new shirts.
The sudden interest in fragrance.
The smile he wore while typing messages that disappeared whenever I entered the room.
When I finally confronted him, he did not deny it for long.
He looked almost relieved.
“I didn’t plan this.”
I stood in our kitchen gripping the edge of the counter.
“How long?”
“Caroline.”
“How long?”
“Four months.”
Four months.
I remember staring at the coffee machine because looking at him hurt too much.
“Do you love her?”
Silence.
That silence gave me the answer.
He walked toward me.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
I stepped back.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“We’ve been unhappy for years.”
“I didn’t know we were unhappy enough for you to sleep with someone else.”
“You’re never here.”
“I live here.”
“You know what I mean.”
His voice rose.
“You’re physically here, but mentally you’re always somewhere else.”
I stared at him.
“Singapore.”
He pointed toward my office.
“London.”
Another gesture.
“Another board meeting.”
His expression twisted with years of stored resentment.
“You make me feel like I’m married to a corporation.”
I had cried that night.
Not because Khloe was younger.
She was only three years younger than me.
Not because she was prettier.
Beauty was not a competition I cared to enter.
I cried because part of me believed him.
I wondered whether I had failed.
Whether ambition had made me unlovable.
Whether I should have skipped more meetings.
Whether I should have cooked dinner more often.
Whether I should have hidden my intelligence better.
Whether I should have needed him more.
Then, during the divorce process, I watched Harrison fight harder for the Tesla than he had fought for our marriage.
Something inside me changed.
By the time we stood outside the courthouse in the rain, I no longer wanted him back.
I only wanted freedom.
Three days before the wedding, an envelope arrived at my Washington estate.
Cream paper.
Heavy stock.
Gold lettering.
Carter brought it into breakfast using two fingers, as though it might be radioactive.