Page 38 of The Marriage Blunder

He said, “Now I get it. Sometimes you just need a place to be quiet.”

I let the words settle. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t need to. “Me, too.”

The glass was empty. The bottle was empty. The fire was still going. The city, outside, was still trying to break in, but it couldn’t.

I watched Jude, head tipped back, eyes closed, breathing slow. And for the first time in days, I didn’t feel like a man running from disaster.

I felt like I’d survived one.

* * * *

Thursday night was a study in overcorrection.

I’d spent the day managing the shareholders, calming down board members, and making sure the new statement from PR was a clean, single paragraph with no subtext or blood in the water.

I made it home before six. I changed shirts twice and told myself I didn’t care which one Jude liked better, then picked the one with the faint blue grid because he’d once said it made me look “like a very disappointed math teacher.”

Adams had laid the dining table with two place settings, a bottle of Barbaresco decanting on the sideboard, and a breadbasket stacked with something I was pretty sure he’d made from scratch. The house was as close to warm as you could get with floor-to-ceiling glass and a wind chill just this side of criminal.

Jude arrived at 6:32. He was wearing his usual: a button-down, jeans, shoes that had once been black and were now mostly memory. His hair was still damp from a shower. His glasses were fogged at the corners. He looked like a man who had run up the last four flights instead of waiting for the elevator, which was both plausible and on-brand.

He walked in, spotted me at the head of the table, and grinned like he’d just found out the city’s entire weather forecast was an elaborate prank.

“Are we eating in here tonight?” he asked, voice low but carrying.

“Adams said it was necessary,” I replied.

Jude glanced at Adams, who was busy slicing something in the kitchen, and lowered his voice. “Is he mad at me?”

“He’s never mad,” I said. “He just takes it personally when I don’t use the napkins.”

Jude rolled his eyes. “You’ve never used a napkin in your life.”

I wanted to say that I was saving them for a special occasion, but Adams had ears sharper than my last two security consultants and would have corrected me before the joke landed.

We sat. The food was served. Adams poured the wine and retreated, leaving the room in a hush of expectation.

Jude cut into the roast chicken, eyes on his plate, and said, “She’s escalating.”

“She is.”

He ate a bite, then set the fork down and laced his fingers together. “She’s trying to make you the story. If she can push you into doing something reactive, she gets leverage on the back end. The more public your discomfort, the better her bargaining position when she tries to settle it later.”

I watched him as he spoke. There was a precision in the way he moved his hands when he forgot to be careful. I found it comforting. “She wants me to come to her.”

He nodded. “If you cave, she wins. If you don’t, she goes nuclear. She’s holding something in reserve, I promise.”

“She made threats,” I said.

Jude went still, the kind of stillness that only came when he was angry on my behalf and trying to decide if I wanted him to be. He said, “Would she actually do it?”

I thought about it. “Yes.”

He considered, then nodded again, more to himself than to me. “She doesn’t know about Cranston. She doesn’t know about Kincaid. She’s still operating like it’s just you and me against the world, and I’m not a factor unless she needs a sob story for the third act.” Jude refilled his own glass. “She’s wrong, or course. We just have to make sure she finds out before she does anything that can’t be undone.”

I caught the “we.” He didn’t notice, or if he did, he didn’t care.