The Corporate Wife

by Leigh Michaels

  “Why the hell did you do it, Erin? Was it money, to start with? Or the sheer fun of it? Maybe Fritz MacDonald’s supposed charm?”

  She shook her head, more in pain than in denial.

  “Not for Dax, surely. You can’t possibly have imagined yourself in love with that excuse for a man.”

  “No!” She almost screamed the word, and it hurt her throat.

  I made a mistake, she wanted to say. But I did it because I love you.

  And wouldn’t that feeble explanation just fix things up nicely? she thought bitterly. If it didn’t make him even angrier, it would probably send him off into spasms of sarcastic laughter.

  She folded her arms across her chest in a feeble attempt to keep herself from shivering. Her pride told her to leave under her own conditions, rather than waiting for him to tell her to go. Holding onto that last remaining bit of dignity wouldn’t be much comfort, but it was something. She would hold her head high and look him in the eye…

  But she couldn’t. Instead, she focused her gaze beyond him, on the stainless steel Gateway Arch which gleamed in the sun in contrast to the muddy brown of the river which lay just behind it. “Do you mind if I pack up my personal items myself, Slater? Or would you prefer to let security do it and forward them to me?”

  He dropped into his desk chair, his fingertips pressed to the furrow between his eyebrows, and Erin knew it was all the answer he was going to give her.

  She tugged her rings – the sapphire she had thought so beautiful, the matching wedding band – from her left hand, and placed them carefully on his desk blotter. “As it turns out, it’s a good thing I didn’t bother to get you a wedding ring,” she mused. “It would just be one more for you to take back to the jewelry store.”

  She was almost to the door when he spoke. “Erin.” He sounded tired. “Where are you going?”

  Erin didn’t look at him. “I don’t see why you need to know, sir. Unless, of course, you’re trying to avoid me, and in that case you don’t have to bother. I’ll do all the avoiding for both of us.”

  She quietly closed the door behind her.

  Sarah’s eyes were wide, almost wild. “What…?”

  Erin shook her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Sarah – except that I’d rather face your whole lineup of real dinosaurs than Slater in the rage he’s in now.”

  Sarah squared her shoulders. “I’m going in there and tell him everything. Every last detail.”

  “Good luck. But don’t expect it will make a difference.”

  She glanced into her office, but she didn’t have the heart to take her pictures off the walls. She didn’t have the patience to sort out what was hers and what belonged to the firm.

  She picked up Slater’s crystal vase, the one which had once held Dax’s stolen red rose. She had thought of it as a symbol of solidity, something which would last forever. Now she saw only its fragility. How little it would take to shatter it, to turn its beauty into shards which would cut and tear whatever they touched.

  Just as her marriage had shattered, leaving behind only pain.

  In the end, Erin took nothing at all. The things she left behind didn’t matter in the slightest. She had no need of physical reminders to cause her grief; her memories would be painful souvenirs.

  *****

  She walked, without watching where she was going, and she tried not to think. It was mid-afternoon when Erin found herself wandering down a row of antique stores and specialty shops – only a few blocks from Control Dynamics in actual distance, but a million miles away in mood – and realized with a jolt that she’d better start making some decisions. She had no clothes except what she was wearing, no money except for a couple of dollars she found stashed in her skirt pocket, no identification or credit cards, and no place to go for the night.

  She could go home.... not to Slater’s apartment, of course, but to the townhouse. She was still the official owner, and in any case she knew she’d always be welcome in Angela’s home. But that was part of the problem – her mother was there, and Angela would have a whole lot of questions when her daughter turned up shaken, stone-broke, and alone.

  And as if this mess wouldn’t be hurtful enough to a woman who was still recovering from a life-threatening illness, Erin would have her father to face too. Jack Reynolds had answered the phone every time Erin had called to check on her mother; it was painfully apparent that he’d simply moved in to look after her. Until this moment, Erin had been minding her own business about her parents’ decisions, glad just to know that Angela was being well-cared for. But she also knew that whatever uncomfortable questions Angela didn’t think of, her father was sure to.

  Furthermore, once she’d told them even the bare bones of her story – the minimum she could get by with – there was no predicting what either of them might do. Erin didn’t think her father would issue some sort of macho challenge to the man who’d hurt his daughter – he might, she thought, be more likely to give Erin herself a good lecture – but it would be a whole lot easier not to take the chance.

  Which left her right back where she’d started. Why hadn’t she had the brain to pick up her handbag, at least? With a credit card she could at least have checked into a hotel and bought a few necessities.

  But thinking of the things she should have done was only putting off the inevitable. She didn’t have a choice; she was going to have to go back to Slater’s apartment and get some clothes and the couple of hundred dollars she’d stashed in her lingerie drawer. And she’d better do it soon, before the end of the business day, or she’d run the risk that Slater would be there.

  Only when she pushed through the revolving door into the lobby did she realize that the doorman might well forbid her from going further. If Slater had told the security people that she was no more welcome here than Dax was at Control Dynamics’ office building...

  But the doorman touched his cap and smiled. “Nice afternoon, Mrs. Livingstone,” he said.

  Erin agreed, without being quite sure if the man was being straightforward or sarcastic. Was it a nice afternoon? She hadn’t been in any condition to notice.

  Her key was still at the office, of course. She rang the doorbell and hoped that Jessup hadn’t gone out for the afternoon. Despite the heavy door and the thick walls, she could hear the chimes, though they sounded faint and far off. The last notes had not yet died away when the door swung silently open.

  It was the first time in the year she’d worked with Jessup, organizing party after party, that she’d ever truly seen him lose his composure. “Mrs. Livingstone!” His voice cracked.

  Erin bit her lip. How much things had changed in a few hours, since she’d drunk her morning coffee in the kitchen while Jessup finished the party cleanup, and felt guilty because she wasn’t helping.

  Obviously, she thought, he’s had his orders.

  But did it really matter what Slater had told the butler? The only things she’d come for were the belongings she’d brought with her. Surely Slater couldn’t object to her taking what belonged to her.

  “I’ve come after my clothes, Jessup,” she said coolly. “That’s all. I don’t care whether you pack them or watch me while I do it, to make sure I don’t get anything that isn’t mine. I’ll wait out here while you gather them up, if that’s the way it has to be. I just want my things.”

  “Of course,” Jessup said. He stepped back. “But there’s no need for me to supervise.”

  “I’d rather you would. Just so it’s clear what I’m taking.”

  She stepped into the foyer. There was no lingering evidence of last night’s party, not so much as a hint of Katrina’s perfume.

  Just last night, she thought, my biggest concern was Katrina and the way Slater was looking at her. What a fool she had been, those few hours ago – intuitively knowing that her marriage was in danger, but completely ingenuous about the source of the threat.

  Erin avoided the library – it would always be, for her, a memory that made her ache –
and started down the hall toward the back stairs which also led up to the master bedroom.

  Jessup didn’t follow her. “Would you like me to bring you a cup of tea, Mrs. Livingstone? Perhaps a snack?”

  She’d forgotten that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but then she had no interest in food. She gave him a half-smile. “The tea would be wonderful.”

  She found her stash of money first and tucked it safely into a pocket, then pulled her biggest suitcase from the closet and opened a drawer. There was no need to be neat, she thought, just fast.

  A few minutes later the door opened and she heard the click of china. “Thanks, Jessup. Put it on the table, please. Do you know if my ivory silk blouse has come back from the cleaners?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” Slater said.

  Erin’s hands clenched on a frilly bit of underwear and she heard the lace tear under her nails.

  “I must say, Erin, as avoidance techniques go, this one isn’t terribly successful.”

  If he’d attacked once more, Erin would have walked out rather than pursue a futile argument. If he hadn’t said a word, she’d have gone away rather than cause him more pain. But that careless, don’t-give-a-damn comment made her angry. She had a right to her own possessions. And what was the matter with the man, anyway? – did he honestly think she’d expected to find him at home in the middle of the afternoon? That she’d wanted to renew the morning’s bitter quarrel?

  “Go to hell, Slater. I didn’t ask you to come up here, so why don’t you send Jessup to act as your watchdog and just go away?”

  “We need to talk, Erin.” His tone was so mild it frightened her more than any amount of bluster could have done.

  She dumped a few more things into her suitcase. “About what?”

  “Details.” His tone was crisp and completely unhelpful.

  “All the trivial technicalities of a divorce, you mean? If you insist. You don’t mind if I keep packing while you talk, do you? I wouldn’t want you to think I was trying to stretch out my time here.”

  After a moment, wondering why he was so quiet, she turned to face him. The leisurely way he was surveying her, his gaze moving with slow precision from head to foot and back, made her nervous. Had the man never really seen her before?

  She tried to ignore him. “You did bring up the tea, didn’t you?”

  “Of course.” But he finished his inspection of her, still taking his time, before he poured a cup for her.

  She sipped it and watched him warily over the cup’s gold rim. “If you’re worried about what I might ask for in a divorce...”

  “No, I wasn’t.” His gaze was steady. “What in the hell were you thinking of, Erin?”

  Not this again, Erin thought. But it wasn’t the same, she realized; what had been an angry accusation this morning sounded more like an honest question now. Would he actually listen to an honest answer? It was worth a try, she supposed.

  “Dax took advantage of Sarah – and then he threatened to tell you she’d been the brains of the operation all along.” As explanations went, it sounded pretty feeble, Erin knew, but she didn’t quite know how to go on. “And I…”

  “Because you felt so bad about Sarah letting secrets slip, you gave away more.”

  Why had she even let herself hope? “I suppose that’s the bottom line, yes. If you don’t mind, Slater, I’d really just like to pack up my things and go.”

  She set her cup on the bureau and glanced into her suitcase. The contents were as jumbled as if they’d been through an airplane crash, and they were just about as useful. She’d thrown in all her lacy lingerie, but not a sensible blouse or a pair of jeans or a pair of shoes without heels.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you changed the drawings, Erin?”

  She tried to swallow the sudden tightness in her throat. If he knew what she’d tried to do... Was there the slightest hint of hope after all? “Sarah told you that?” she whispered. And you believed her? You listened to her? Why not to me, Slater?

  “She told me. So I compared them myself, line by line.” He sat down on the foot of the bed, next to her suitcase. “Well, Erin?”

  She couldn’t get a full breath, and her voice was little more than a thread. She tried not to think about how important this might be, if he believed her... or if he didn’t. “I’m sure Sarah told you all her reasons – not knowing if Dax had other sources, trying to buy some time so she could tell you herself what had happened.”

  He nodded. “And yours?”

  “I wanted Sarah to have a chance. She’s not criminal, Slater. She’s – I don’t think she’s even all that careless. Dax used her, and she’s breaking her heart over what she did. I’ll guarantee nobody will ever have the opportunity to do that again.” She sighed. “And I hoped that when Fritz MacDonald realized they’d gotten a bogus set of plans, Dax would lose credibility with the people he was selling to – they wouldn’t trust him anymore.”

  “Were you even going to tell me?”

  “Of course I’d have told you, as soon as you got home – but I thought it was better if Sarah did. And in the meantime, somebody had to do something to stop Dax.”

  His face showed no hint of what he might be thinking.

  “I thought that preventing him from getting his hands on the real Brannagan drawings might be a way for Sarah to make up for her mistake. Because it was a mistake, Slater. Only a mistake.”

  She could hear the tick of the gold clock on the mantel; in the quiet room it sounded like a bomb timer counting down.

  “You know,” Slater said finally, “you really haven’t answered the original question. Why didn’t you tell me this morning about the changes you’d made in the drawings?”

  “Would you have listened?”

  He didn’t admit it, but he didn’t argue the point either. She thought, from the long harsh breath he released, that he knew exactly what she meant.

  He said, “You think I should give Sarah another chance.”

  “I don’t have anything to say about it, sir.”

  “Dammit, Erin, will you stop that?”

  “Why should it matter what I call you?” she flared. “And if it helps...”

  “If it helps what?”

  “Never mind. As I was saying before you interrupted me, my judgment’s hardly been a model to look up to lately.”

  “On that matter,” he said dryly, “I can wholeheartedly agree.”

  Erin’s last faint hope had faded into ash; yet she found herself thinking that Slater looked just as unhappy as she felt. But of course he does, she told herself. His perfect, effortless little marriage of convenience had blown up in his face. Erin hadn’t been the perfect corporate wife after all – she’d turned out to be the perfect nuisance.

  “You didn’t even take your purse this morning,” Slater said softly.

  “So what?” She knew she sounded cross, and she didn’t care.

  “You stood in my office while I yelled at you, and you looked at the river. And then you turned your back on everything as if you had no use for it anymore, and you walked away.”

  “I don’t–”

  His voice was harsh. “Don’t you know what I thought, Erin?”

  “That I was going to throw myself into the Mississippi?” She shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to make a decision quite that final.”

  “That’s usually not what stops a suicide,” he said wryly.

  “Though it would have served you right.”

  “Yes, it would.” He sounded as if the words hurt his throat. “I yelled at you, Erin. I accused you. I wouldn’t listen to you. I drove you away.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “And I’d never even told you that I love you.”

  Erin’s heart slammed into her ribs so hard she thought it was going to break through. “No,” she said uncertainly. “ No, you absolutely cannot expect me to believe that in the midst of this mess, you suddenly realized you’d fallen in love. So what the hell—”

  “N
othing of the sort.” His voice was perfectly matter-of-fact. “In the midst of this mess, I was furious with you. I fell in love long before that – which might help explain why I was too angry to consider that you might have had perfectly good reasons for what you’d done.”

  Erin’s ears were ringing.

  “I was so sure, you see, that you wouldn’t betray me. A slip of the tongue, maybe – but to give away confidential information on purpose, no. Then I walked into the office this morning to find Dax screaming at both you and Sarah, and suddenly it was right there in front of me – or at least it seemed to be – and I lost my head.” His eyes were dark, pleading. “Afterwards, when I saw in black and white what you’d really done – and realized that our marriage was so meaningless to you that you walked out instead of bothering to defend yourself...”

  “No.” She could hardly get her breath. “No, Slater. That wasn’t why I left. You and your solid, practical, sensible ideas about marriage, and how magic always turns to melodrama... well, maybe you didn’t plan to lead me on till I fell in love with you, but—”

  “Erin,” he said, and held out his arms.

  She shook her head and took a step back. “But you did a remarkably good job of it, and if there was any justice in the world you’d feel so guilty you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night!”

  She didn’t know how she ended up in his arms, but within thirty seconds, as he kissed her, she didn’t care anymore.

  When he finally stopped kissing her, he nestled her even closer against his chest and said contentedly, “I don’t know about guilt keeping me awake. It sounds pretty uncomfortable. But if you don’t want me to sleep at night, I know a way you can—”

  Erin looked up him through her lashes. “You know,” she said pleasantly, “you deserve to fall for Katrina and have her break your heart.”

  “But I don’t have one. I gave it to you.”

  Erin rolled her eyes. “First thing tomorrow I’m buying you a wedding ring. You’re too dangerous to be let loose without displaying a warning sign.”