by A. R. Torre
Embarrassment flooded through me. “Tonight, Neena asked me why we haven’t had kids. I sat there and lied to her, and she knew it. Do you know how stupid I feel? Knowing that she thinks this is some secret the two of you share?” I shoved off him, and he caught my arm. “When did this come up? How did this come up? Because it sure as hell doesn’t have anything to do with Winthorpe Tech.”
“I don’t know.” He frowned down at me. “It just did. In passing. I’m sorry.”
“When?” I stayed in place, stubbornly fixated on the question. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember, because you remember everything.” He was an encyclopedia of conversations and details, both insignificant and important. He’d be hell if he was ever called to a witness stand, and an absolute terror to have an argument with.
He swallowed, and I watched his Adam’s apple bob with the motion. “At lunch, sixteen days ago.”
“You didn’t tell me you went to lunch with her.” I yanked my arm free of his hand.
He grimaced. “We didn’t go to lunch together—I was eating lunch, she stopped by the table, and we ended up eating together.”
It sounded like a lie, but I was too emotional to sort out the details. “And?”
“And she asked why we haven’t had kids. People ask, Cat. It’s a normal question. Don’t tell me you haven’t gotten it.”
People ask. How many people had asked him? How many times had he offered up the details of my infertility struggle?
I turned away, and when he went to follow, I stopped short and held up a hand. “Leave me alone. Just . . . leave me alone.”
I moved silently through the giant house, my steps quickening as my hurt emotions flared. I heard him calling my name, his steps sounding up the stairs, then down the hall. I crouched beside the one place he wouldn’t find me. Ducking into the dumbwaiter elevator, I curled into a ball on the polished wood surface and closed the heavy insulated door. Leaning back against the wall, I took a deep breath, then broke into tears.
CHAPTER 20
NEENA
“You’re going on a run?” Cat stared at me as if I’d just announced my plans to join the circus. Behind her, the warmth of the house curled out of the large front doors, tickling along my skin.
I offered her my best smile. “William offered to show me the neighborhood trails. I tried to find them on my own but couldn’t.”
“Really? The signs are pretty obvious.” She knotted her arms over her chest.
“Are you feeling better? I was thinking, you know, that it could have been that July Fourth potato salad that made you sick. You didn’t throw up, did you?”
Cat’s face got that annoyed look, the one that twisted her beautiful features into a haglike pinch. “I don’t think it was the potato salad.”
William appeared beside her, a long-sleeve shirt snug on his strong chest, a baseball cap hiding his dark hair. In workout pants and Nikes, he looked good enough to eat. “Ready?”
“Ready.” I gave her a cheery wave. “We’ll be back in an hour.”
“I—” She searched for an objection. “Will, do you need a water bottle or—”
“I’ll be fine.” He planted a quick kiss on her mouth, then moved out the door, lifting his chin in my direction. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” I turned my back to her and jogged down the steps. I reached the wide drive and bounced up and down in place, warming my muscles. “You want to lead the way?”
He nodded toward the main road. “Sure. We’ll pick up the trail off Britnon. It’s a four-mile loop, if that’s okay with you.”
I scoffed and flashed a cocky grin. “Just try and keep up.”
I started down the long drive, and William ran easily beside me, his strides almost twice as long as mine. It didn’t matter. My closet had a stack of marathon T-shirts in a dozen different colors. When I’d noticed him leaving on early-morning runs, I’d started pounding out miles on my treadmill, increasing the speed and distance until I was back in race mode. And . . . just like that, another check in the Neena Is Better Than Cat column.
I let out a huff of air, reminding myself to be patient with William. While our progress had been slow, it was beginning to ramp up. Our contact had transitioned from business to personal, my text messages answered with increasing speed, our inside-joke collection growing, my suggestions of lunch no longer met with stiff reluctance but quick agreement. He didn’t recoil from my casual touch and had lost the stiff air and foreboding manner he typically carried with Winthorpe Tech employees.
We rounded the bend, almost to his gate, and I looked up into the ceiling of tree limbs and inhaled the crisp morning air, giving myself a mental pat on the back. This run was already a victory. I had been careful with Cat so far, but that flash of insecurity on her face as he’d joined me on the run . . . it had been unexpectedly enjoyable. Had she started to nag him about me yet?
All I had to do was remain innocent in his eyes. The sane to her crazy. The calm fun to her neurotic paranoia. A safe haven for his thoughts and fears. A support system who made him feel valued and protected. I’d be a better version of her, doused in the tempting light of the forbidden.
“What are you smiling about?” His arm brushed mine as we turned left out of the open gates and onto the street.
“Nothing.” I looked down at the ground, suddenly aware of how my cheeks were split with the grin. “I was just thinking about the team members. I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough with them recently.”
“Really?”
His focus was one of the things I was starting to love about him. It was as if he stopped everything in his life and turned his full attention to me. I felt it in my initial interview, and I savored it now as the pebbles crunched under our running shoes, his head turned to me.
“Yes.” I continued my fictional story and hoped he’d see the parallels. “We’ve always had a distance, but recently they’ve begun to let me in.” We moved up the hill, hugging the edge of the road, protected from the wind by an estate’s stone wall. As we rounded the curve, the view of Palo Alto appeared through the morning fog.
We stopped at the park and stretched, my muscles now warm and pliable. I propped one shoe on the top of a bench and hopped back on the other foot, getting a deep stretch that he couldn’t help but notice. I turned to him quickly and caught the moment before his eyes darted away. Was he imagining what else my limber legs could do?
I stretched my hamstrings and thighs, then nodded to the small grassy area underneath the trees. “Stretch my back?”
I lay back on the manicured grass and lifted one leg. He settled above me, his knees on the ground, his shoulder flush against my ankle. As he leaned forward, my leg moved effortlessly, my teenage years of dance still blessing me with the ability to do a split or straddle. His brows lifted in what I took to be appreciation, and he pushed farther, his body moving in tighter to mine. This close, I could feel the heat of his body, loved the grip of his hand on my thigh, the burn of every finger.
The risk of it hit me with delicious intensity. I pictured Cat’s convertible curving along the road, the brake lights glowing when she saw her husband on top of me, his eyes on mine, pelvis pressed against my thigh. I looked up at him, and that handsome smile broke across his face, his eyes crinkling at the edges, his—
“Ready for the next leg?”
I nodded, and he settled back on his heels, placing one leg down and lifting the other. He returned to the position, and I tried to sort my way through his head. Was he on guard? He didn’t seem to be. But skittish . . . yes. Still a little skittish. Wary on the edges of his appreciation. I thought of his finger brushing against my knee in the Ferrari. That beautiful moment of contact that had never been re-created. This, at least, was a move in the right direction. Touching. Proximity. It had to be pushing at the binds of his self-control.
He’d been harder to crack than I had expected, but that loyalty was one of the most attractive things about him. Every time he reestablished boundaries or held himsel
f in check, I wanted him more. I appreciated him more. Cat griped at him when she should be thanking him. She would start needling him over our growing friendship when the smart woman would play the supportive and loving wife.
But that was what made this game so fun to play. I had the cards. I knew the hands. And she . . . she didn’t even know the game.
He grunted a little, applying more pressure, my foot passing over my head, and I closed my eyes in bliss at the sound.
CHAPTER 21
CAT
Tom Beck’s full report on Neena was thirty-two pages thick. I settled into the end of our couch, a cappuccino in hand, and flipped over the embossed cover page.
The first few pages were sad but unsurprising.
She’d been poor, even more than I’d been. A small-town beauty queen whose mom had run off when she was ten, her dad following suit seven years later. She’d won the town’s sympathies while wearing the crown of . . . I squinted at a grainy photo of a young Neena with a crown and a sash, the newspaper caption barely legible. The . . . Strawberry Queen. Amusing. Not surprising she omitted that from her wine-charity board application. It looked like she’d lived with her aunt and uncle until graduation and then gotten married to Matthew Ryder.
From that point on, things grew boring. I quickly flipped through the pages of home deeds, credit card balances, and credit scores. All average. The medical-history section was where things got interesting.
I’d known she’d had some work done, but my mouth still dropped open at her list of surgeries. Arm lift. Butt lift. Tummy tuck. Breast augmentation. A second breast augmentation. Cheek implants. Brow lift. Eye job. Chin implant. Ear reshaping. Rhinoplasty. Neck tuck. Labia and vaginoplasty. She was Frankenstein’s monster, and I flipped quickly through the rest of the report, hoping for a before photo of the petite blonde. There wasn’t any other than the newspaper clipping, and I returned to the medical-history section of the report.
Below the cosmetic surgery list was a section marked OTHER SURGERIES. I ran my finger down an appendectomy, wisdom-teeth removal, a broken arm, sprained ankle—my nail stilled on the last item, and I scanned the details, focusing in on the date.
Eight years ago. An abortion.
It had been three days, and all I could think about was Neena’s aborted baby. All those probing questions when she knew I was struggling with my fertility. Eight years ago, she had been pregnant. Pregnant! Pregnant, and given it up. Was her story about Matt’s prostate cancer even true? And if it was, that just reaffirmed my belief that she was a cheater. I pulled our lunch from the fridge and yanked open the lid to the lobster pasta salad. William’s phone dinged, and I jerked my head to the side in time to see him silence the notification, his attention on the paperwork before him. It sounded again, and I reached across the kitchen island and grabbed it, unsurprised to see her name on the screen. Two new texts.
Brought some of my cookie dough bombs into the office. Hungry?
Are we still on for three?
I bit back the desire to ask why Neena was texting him. They had a standing meeting schedule. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at three. There wasn’t a need to verify it. No need for chitchatty little texts at all hours of the day. He was growing more and more comfortable with her, and my nerves were fraying with every single ding of his phone.
Their encroachment into our lives had passed any level of social norms. Matt and Neena seemed to be everywhere we were, all the time.
You’ve got a box at the 49ers’ stadium? We loooovve football.
Oh, how funny to run into you at the market. Join us for lunch!
Sorry to pop in, but we accidentally bought extra wine that happens to be your favorite!
We’re eating some nasty healthy crap for dinner. Why don’t you guys come over and pretend to like it?
Okay, so that last one wasn’t verbatim, but I’d read between the lines. Add in Neena and William’s new biweekly runs, and I couldn’t turn around without seeing her ridiculous face. And now, with him home for lunch, she was still interrupting us. I flipped his phone to silent and tossed it back onto the counter. “I’m exhausted by her. I swear to God, I’d just like one day without seeing her face or hearing her ridiculous laugh.”
“Who?” William flipped to the next page, his pen skimming over the lines of a contract.
“Neena,” I snapped.
“When did you become so vicious?”
“Excuse me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with her laugh. Or her outfits, or whatever else you feel the need to bitch about.” He scrawled his signature along the block at the bottom of the page and dotted the i’s in his name with a little more intensity than needed.
I turned away, pulling plates from the cabinet and shoving them onto the counter. “So you’re defending her now?”
“I just don’t understand why you’re so hostile toward her. She’s doing the best she can. She’s not like you, Cat. She doesn’t have everything in life.”
I let out a strangled sound. “I’d love to know what that means.”
He abandoned the contract and stood, rounding the edge of the counter. Leaning against the marble, he attempted to pull me away from the food and against him. “It means that you’re beautiful.”
I resisted, standing before him, my arms crossed.
“And she’s not. You don’t have to work, and she does. You’re the queen of this social circle, and she’s excluded from it. It’s got to be hard on her, trying to compete with you—with us and our world.” He closed the gap between us, hugging me despite my crossed arms, the awkward positioning of our bodies breaking my stern composure as he tried to jiggle my arms loose.
A smile cracked across my features, and he took advantage of the break and gave me a kiss on either cheek.
I forced a scowl back into place and pushed away from him, my mind turning over Tom Beck’s report and wondering how much of it to share. “Giving me compliments doesn’t excuse the fact that she has no boundaries. Coming by here and asking you to get a bird out of her house? She doesn’t know how to shoo?”
“She was petrified, Cat. When we were in the room with it, she was trembling.”
I snorted. “Oh, please. And wanting to carpool to work? It’s called a loaner car. I called the dealership. They have plenty of loaners there. She had to specifically decline one, and why would she do that?” I smacked my forehead. “Oh, right. Because she wants to spend time with you. She’s a snake, William. A snake!” I inhaled sharply, unsure of why I was suddenly screaming. I turned back to our lunch and ticked through the necessary menu items, then reached for an avocado from the bowl.
“Cat.”
I ignored him, pulling a knife free of the block and halving the fruit on the stone cutting board. She had been pregnant. Hadn’t she realized what a blessing that was? She could have an eight-year-old child by now, but she didn’t. She had thrown it away, and I couldn’t even manage to wrangle up a miscarriage. I felt a sob push up my throat, and I swallowed it down, blinking hard to keep the tears at bay.
“Please ease up on her.”
I stacked the quarters and ran the knife tip over their lengths, slicing through the avocado’s flesh. I gave myself a moment, then spoke. “I don’t want you running with her again.”
He coughed out a laugh of incredulity. “Wow. You’re that insecure about this? You want me to fire her, too? Is that what you want? Should we move to a different house?”
I pinched pepper pieces together and worked the knife furiously against their strips, cubes of red and green flying along the cutting board.
That blonde bitch had backed me up against a wall, and I hated it.
CHAPTER 22
CAT
“Good morning, Mrs. Winthorpe.”
“Good morning.” I smiled at the chef and poured a cup of coffee. “I’m going to walk through the gardens. If William comes down for breakfast before I get back, please let him know.”
“Certainly.” Philip nodded, a
nd I took my mug and stepped through the back door, inhaling the crisp morning. The hydrangeas were in full bloom, and I took a moment to appreciate the neat pockets of color set off against the roses and grass. The gardens stretched between our home and the pool, then picked back up at the entrance to the orchard at the rear of our lot. I’d spent years cultivating the perfect mix of apple and lemon trees, set off by spice and strawberry bushes.
The privacy hedges between us and the Ryders ended at the edge of our home, the back of their home exposed if you walked deeper into our gardens. I wove around a bed of white roses and glanced over, spotting Matt on their upper balcony, his own coffee in hand.
He leaned against the railing, and even from here, I could see some dark chest hair peeking out of the top of his white robe. “Good morning!” he called out.
“Morning.” I moved closer and lifted my hand in greeting. “It’s actually warm out!” The prior few days had been miserable, the air thick with humidity, the skies dark and gray.
He laughed. “I don’t know about warm, but I’ll take it.”
An awkward silence fell, the distance too far for real conversation. Still, the effort should be made. “The pavers look great.”
He came to my side of his balcony and leaned forward, cupping his ear. “What?”
I worked my way around a bed of lilies and leaned against the low stone fence between our two backyards. “The pavers!” I pointed to the new white bricks that circled their pool. The color would be impossible to keep clean. I’d told Neena that, but she’d ignored the advice, picking a crisp bone color that would require bleaching and weekly pressure cleaning. I made a thumbs-up sign.
He nodded, then turned, a guilty expression flashing across his face. The door behind him opened, and I saw Neena appear, her obligatory workout outfit on. She’d probably already pounded out five miles on the treadmill, then jumping-jacked her breakfast off.
“Morning!” I called, waving up at her.
She came to stand beside Matt, looking down at me without returning the smile. “Cat.” Turning to her husband, she said something I couldn’t catch.
