I strip out of my pajamas, hoping my nudity will distract him enough to stop asking questions. Unfortunately, it isn’t doing the trick.
“Okay, but what are his motives?”
Seriously, Cal, why are you being such a good husband right now?!
“He’s secretly searching for his lost brother. They were separated in a mob conflict years ago, and he joined a crime syndicate so he’d have the resources to search for him.”
“Wow, that’s interesting. Writing about organized crime gives you so many story options. Can I read some of it?”
Is he serious? The first time he’s ever asked to read my work is the one time I didn’t actually do any work! What in the spotted fuck?
I put my clothes on, mulling over a way to turn him down gently. “Not today. I want to let today’s words sit and marinate. Then I’ll read them tomorrow and see if they’re worth keeping. It’s part of my creative process.”
“Okay lightning bolt. Are you ready to go shopping?”
A pang of guilt hits me right in the chest. Cal’s about to spend an insane amount of money on me. His motto when shopping is, “Why ask when the answer is yes?” Meanwhile, I’m lying to his face, hiding an entire murder investigation from him.
“Always ready to spend your money, Daddy,” I quip to keep up appearances.
Cal kisses my cheek and leads me to the elevator with his hand on the small of my back. The contact burns, but not in the smoldering way I’m used to. It feels like a punishment for lying to him.
I grab my coat and put it on before he has the chance to help me with it.
“Okay, baby. Lead the way,” he gestures to the open elevator doors. We’re doing whatever you want to do today!”
Ugh, all I want to do is crawl into a hole for being such a fucking liar.
“Um, let’s go to Fifth Avenue.” Maybe I’ll feel better once we walk down the street and see the stores, but I doubt it.
Because the only thing I feel today is a crushing sense of dread and anxiety.
6
CAL
My car moves at a snail’s pace in typical NYC bumper to bumper midday traffic. I should read today’s financial reports or review building plans, but I can’t stop thinking of how withdrawn Bolton was yesterday. He didn’t enjoy shopping, and only bought a couple of small trinkets he didn’t seem to care about. When we went to dinner, he ordered only an appetizer. Usually, Bolton eats enough for two or three, ordering more than one meal so he can eat buffet style. I often joke with him about when our food baby is due. Sometimes we give it ridiculous names like Joffrey Kenneth or Mildred Hazel, and we’ll joke about how we want to send our food baby to only the best private preschools.
But holding a conversation with him was like pulling teeth, something I’ve never experienced before. Usually he talks my ear off, telling me every detail of his day or asking me a million questions about mine. I used to find it annoying until we started marriage counseling. Now I recognize it for what it is—connection—and I look forward to talking to him every day when I get home from work. We even text sporadically throughout the day.
I barely slept last night because I was so worried about him. I thought he was still mad at me, or maybe he was having issues with his horrid publisher. But then I realized exactly what he’s up to. When he disappeared to his cabin in the middle of the woods two years ago, I had no clue where he went and no way to contact him. It was as if he had gone off the grid. I knew he was fed up with me—to the point he was considering giving up on us—but I didn’t know if he was okay.
Bolton can be…impulsive sometimes, downright reckless when he’s upset. He could have been dead in a ditch somewhere or piss-drunk at a bar, totally unaware of the predators he’d undoubtedly attract with his pretty face. Not knowing if he was okay or where he was drove insane, and I vowed never to let it happen again.
So I bugged him.
All of his electronics are mirrored, so I can see what he’s up to at all times. They also include hidden tracking mechanisms, which feed into a security app on my phone. I know where he is every hour of the day, down to the exact coordinates. His vehicle is tracked, too. When he uses the building’s car service, I make sure the manager tracks the car and sends me a report. I even installed security cameras in every room of our penthouse, except the bathroom.
I’m not a monster.
The cameras tipped me off. He wasn’t actually writing on his phone. His fingertips weren’t doing their usual dance across the screen, and his usual manic expression he has when crafting a story was absent from his face. He was lying in bed, scrolling with wide eyes.
I went into the security app and saw him reading police reports about men I’d rather he had never heard of. Awful men whose deaths leave the world a better place. He deep-dove into Reddit threads that shouldn’t exist, reading about wild conspiracy theories from some online crackpots.
He battles his anxiety on good days, and it can get bad enough on his bad days that I keep our therapist, Dr. Locke, on retainer for him. Now it’s getting to where he’s obsessing.
The car pulls up outside our therapist’s office, and I thank my driver before getting out of the car and making my way to her suite. Besides having a marriage counseling appointment every other week, Bolton and I each have a weekly solo appointment. Mine is supposed to be in a few days, but I financially motivated her to move it up.
The admin greets me at the door, letting me know she’s ready when I am. When I reach her office, I take my usual seat in the chair across from her desk. Patients usually sit on the couch while she sits in a chair next to it, but that seemed weird to me. My important conversations happen in boardrooms, so she suggested formatting our appointments the same way to make me more comfortable. To my surprise, she was right.
