His secretary looked up at me, gum popping loudly as she leaned back in her chair. “What can I do for ya?”
“Is Andrew available?” I asked. “I need to speak with him. Now.”
She blew a bubble and shrugged after it’d popped. “Sorry, honey. He’s at lunch.”
“With who?” I pressed.
Another shrug. “Not sure.”
Of course, she wasn’t. Andrew had plucked her from the obscurity of the mail room after, as Colin had quoted,he got a load of her rack when she dropped off an envelope for him.
I stood there for a second, just staring at the woman whose dedication to her job could generously be described as theoretical. Honestly, I couldn’t wait for all of this to be over, but if he wasn’t here, he wasn’t here. Glaring at her wouldn’t magically make him appear.
I left the building and decided to grab lunch outside of the office. Partly out of spite and partly because I needed caffeine if I was going to make it through the rest of the day without committing a felony. I stopped at a coffee shop a few blocks away, joining the line snaking past reclaimed wood tables as I studied the chalkboard menu written in cheerful handwriting.
While I waited in line, I pulled out my phone and scrolled absently, my thumb moving out of habit more than interest. Alex’s name jumped out at me from a gossip site, bolded and impossible to miss. My stomach sank as I tapped on it before I could even begin to wonder what I might find.
The picture loaded so slowly, it seemed cruel, but once I saw it, I wished it had never loaded at all. Alex, unmistakable even in a grainy, poorly lit shot, with a woman’s hand gripping his arm as she leaned in close to him.
Too close.
Familiar in a way that made my chest tighten painfully.
Bile raced up the back of my throat and it felt like the floor dropped right out from under me when I recognized the woman, too. Mallory.
The caption was vague but suggestive, the kind of language designed to imply without outright accusing. My ears started ringing, shock putting stars in my vision and making my heart malfunction. I couldn’t even feel my own hands anymore as I shoved my phone back into my purse.
I left without my coffee, not remembering that I’d decided to go home, but finding myself driving there with my hands shaking on the steering wheel. In my mind’s eye, all I could see was that image, over and over again, trying to make sense of it.
Alex and Mallory, so close together that it looked like she was kissing his cheek. Her hand on his arm. Their bodies turned into each other.
Alex wouldn’t do what that article had implied he was doing, having an affair with my father’s former mistress. I knew it in my bones. He wasn’t careless. He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t the kind of man who would jeopardize everything we were building forher.
And yet, a picture like that didn’t appear out of nowhere. Nothing jumped out at me that obviously made it fake or computer generated. I’d take another, closer look, but right now, I was reeling. Because my gut was screaming at me that it was real.
Which meant that he’d seen her. Talked to her. Talked to her like heknewher actually. Let her touch him, even. And he hadn’t told me.
By the time I pulled into my mom’s driveway, my head was spinning. I wasn’t even sure why I was here. Why I hadn’t just gone back to Alex’s apartment like I’d been doing more and more often lately, like that was my home instead of this place.
Even so, I didn’t turn around. I didn’t even think about getting back into my car and heading over there instead.
I just walked into the house, feeling like I’d been dropped headfirst into an alternate universe. One in which I was seeing strikingly familiar pictures, but of my husband with her this time instead of my father. I almost threw up right there on the floor, but I managed to swallow the swirling nausea just in time.
My mother walked out of the kitchen as I stumbled down the hall, suddenly beaming when she saw me. “Jane! I wasn’t expecting you.”
I nodded automatically. “Yeah. I just thought I’d stop by.”
She studied my face, her smile finally faltering. “Something is wrong.”
I shrugged, but she wasn’t deterred, taking my arm in a gentle grip and leading me to the kitchen. Perching on one of the stools at the island, I just sat there while she made tea neitherof us really wanted. I didn’t stop her, though. My mind was too busy racing, trying to rationalize what I’d seen.
It could have been taken out of context. Or maybe Mallory orchestrated the photo, waiting for the perfect moment and then leaning in just enough to make it look compromising. Alex would never fall for her tricks.
I trusted him. I did.
But you trusted your dad too, and look how that turned out.At the realization, my eyelids slammed shut, a headache suddenly brewing behind my temples and the nausea swirling again, more intensely this time.
“I think you’ve been working too hard,” Nora said gently, setting a mug down in front of me. “You’ve taken on far too much responsibility for one person.”
