The Widower's Wife

by Cate Holahan

  “Did she charm Michael?”

  Bob’s cheeks puffed. He exhaled and glanced around the room. “I don’t really want to speculate about who was charming whom. Michael’s a married guy. She had a wedding band.”

  Ryan leaned toward Bob until their knees almost touched. He stared at him, creating uncomfortable intimacy for both of them, trying to encourage Bob to say something to break the tension. “But maybe?”

  Bob snorted. “Look, she was attractive, nice personality.” His mouth curled in a wry smile. “Maybe Michael seemed a bit possessive of her during dinner.”

  Ryan raised his eyebrows, asking the question with his face rather than using words. Sometimes, physical signals worked better than outright demands for information.

  Bob caught the cue. He rubbed the back of his neck, betraying his discomfort. “I don’t really know anything, but he sat pretty close to her all night. And he’d wanted her to stay with him rather than walk us out, which made me think he planned on continuing the party after George and I left.”

  “Any idea where they would have gone?”

  “We’d eaten at L’Ange Treize. I’ve heard that place has a private after-hours lounge for members.” Bob pulled his coat into his lap, a signal their meeting was coming to an end. “But again, I don’t know that they stuck around. Could be that Michael had other business to discuss and wanted her to lag behind with him a bit. I don’t want to cast any aspersions.” He stood and shook open his outerwear. “I should get going. I’m expected across town.”

  Ryan rose, bracing himself for the obligatory handshake. He really hated all the society-required physical demonstrations of false intimacy. “Thanks for taking the time.”

  “Of course.” Bob slipped on his coat. “Look, I know insurance companies have to do their own due diligence, and I respect that.” His friendly face firmed into a serious mask. “Still, I hope you give her daughter whatever life insurance she had. Can’t be easy growing up without a mother, and the holidays are coming up.”

  Ryan hadn’t thought much of Sophia during his investigation. Bob’s short speech brought back the child’s image with painful clarity. A third of Americans grew up without their biological fathers, but a childhood without a mom was far more rare and detrimental. Thanksgiving was tomorrow, and the little girl wouldn’t have a mom to prepare a meal. Tom didn’t seem like the kind of guy who could roast a turkey or bake the fixings. Maybe Auntie Eve would make something?

  Ryan felt a newfound sheepishness as he watched Bob leave. If he did his job, Sophia wouldn’t have much to be thankful for this holiday, or after.

  16

  August 18

  Glasses clinked. A blood-red Syrah sloshed over the edge of Michael’s goblet onto a snow-white tablecloth. It didn’t matter. We celebrated. My boss had successfully wooed the trustees of the Illinois Police and Fire Department Pension Fund with wine, steak, and the firm’s five-year average annual ROI of 12 percent. George and Robert had committed three hundred million dollars to the firm. Everyone felt richer, even me.

  I intended to ask Michael for an advance against my salary. Not much, just two hundred dollars, the amount I still needed to get the gangs to stop harassing my parents—at least, for a while. The meeting’s success made me feel confident he’d okay it. I’d undoubtedly earned a bonus with my performance: flattering the clients so that they would lower their guard and absorb Michael’s pitch, providing relevant statistics from my research, adding levity.

  Robert, the thinner of the two men, wouldn’t stop grinning at me over his wine glass. George sat far back into his chair, hands folded on a generous belly filled with filet mignon. Talk turned to the Bears and the Cubs. I made a steroid joke, comparing the head size of the rival Cardinals’ heavy-hitters to sperm whales. Everyone laughed. Chicagoans love any joke at the Cardinals’ expense.

  The check came. I glimpsed the $1,200 bill, though Michael barely opened the leather folder to slip in his Visa Black Card. Spend money to make money. Surely, he would reward my work at year-end with the cost of the waiter’s tip. What was a couple hundred dollars, a few months early?

  Lanterns in the outdoor garden flickered through casement windows behind us, casting tic-tac-toe shadows on the floor and faces. We stood and shook hands for the umpteenth time. Michael wished everyone goodnight.

  As Robert and George headed out, my boss tilted his head toward the table, a subtle motion intended to tell me to remain with him in the restaurant. The mother in me urged my body to follow the pension guys outside. It was nearly ten and I needed to return to my sleeping child and impatient husband. But the daughter in me demanded that I stay and ask for the money.

  I stood until our guests exited the dining room and then, taking my cue from Michael, followed him to a row of bookshelves lining a back wall. A server stood in front like a palace guard. Michael nodded. The man slipped a key between two books. The wall slid back to reveal a marble staircase. Michael flashed a naughty grin. His white teeth gleamed like polished porcelain. “Now we can celebrate.”

  We descended the stairs to a speakeasy worthy of The Great Gatsby. Lights, dim as candles, highlighted rows of liquor bottles behind an antique-mirrored bar. Ebony club chairs flanked black-lacquered coffee tables. Onyx stone floors ended in a merlot-colored leather bench, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling wine shelves.

  I followed Michael through the empty bar to the wine cove. He sat on the bench and patted the seat beside him.

  “I didn’t know this was here,” I said.

  “What would you like to drink?”

  The bartender approached. Aside from Michael and me, he was the only person in the room.

  Michael grinned. “Red, white? Something else?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t know. You pick.”

  “The Hillside select.”

  The bartender mimed approval before disappearing behind a wall. The scant lighting created dark shadows in all the room’s corners and crannies, hiding the true exits. I felt cast in a spy movie. Michael was Bond. That made me a Bond girl. I much preferred the role to that of nagging wife.

  “You were great this evening.” Michael fixed me with his stare.

  My neck grew hot. I shifted my gaze to my reflection in the shiny table. “No. You did everything. I just tried not to get in the way.”

  Michael’s fingers grazed just below my ear. I tensed at the gesture. He just wanted me to look up, but he’d never made any physical contact before. “Don’t sell yourself short. Your charm went a long way this evening.”

  I could feel the blush creep into my cheeks, an alcohol buzz that started in the gut and spread to the head.

  “Robert was smitten,” Michael went on. “I thought he might ask you out.”

  I giggled. The wine at dinner, the hidden bar, Michael’s attention: it was all too much.

  “And can’t say I blame him. You are a gorgeous woman. What man doesn’t like the company of a beautiful woman?”

  The bartender appeared before I could utter an awkward response. He uncorked the bottle. A long pour landed in the glass. Michael sipped and smacked his lips together.

  The bartender filled a third of my goblet and brushed the lip of the bottle with a white cloth.

  “Leave it,” Michael said.

  The bartender gave a curt nod before disappearing a second time. Michael raised his cup. Another compliment would cross the line into overt flirting. This was my boss. My married boss. And I was a married mother, not a Bond girl. I had to get home—but not before I asked for that salary advance. My father’s health, if not his life, depended on it.

  I preempted his toast with one of my own. “To three hundred million dollars more.”

  A couple sips and then I would mention the money. Michael wouldn’t say no. Two hundred dollars meant nothing to him. Plus, he could take it out of my salary or withhold a bonus at the end of the year. He knew I wouldn’t go anywhere.

  Michael took a long sip. “To sealing the deal.”

  I
’d barely set the wine down before he was on top of me. A hand snaked up my inner thigh, pushing the skirt of my black sheath toward my navel. Fingers squeezed my breast like a vice.

  I gasped for air, and the opening was all he needed. His tongue invaded before colonizing my ear. I pushed against his chest. “I’m married.”

  He continued nibbling my jugular. “Me too.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “We are doing this.” He pressed against me, pinning my body to the bench. The hand on my breast traveled down to my thigh.

  “No. I can’t.”

  His pupils seemed to consume his eyes. His fingers dug into my hips as he pulled me into his pelvis. I moaned. The sound was completely involuntary, like a cough or a sneeze, an uncontrolled physical response to an outside stimulant. I hadn’t been touched in more than a month. My body didn’t understand that the hands groping me belonged to a man other than my husband.

  Michael mumbled as his mouth enveloped my neck. “The moment I saw you, I thought, this could be trouble. But you were so smart and sexy. I couldn’t not hire you.” He licked my collarbone. “Besides, I like trouble.”

  I slammed my palms against his chest. “Michael, we can’t do this. Think of your wife.”

  “I won’t.”

  “My husband is waiting for me.”

  “Come on. You think Tom thought of you when he bailed on your daughter the other day and you had to rush out of the office? He’s an idiot. What kind of dumbass sells forty million in credit protection against an electronics company with a debt-to-asset ratio of spot sixty-five?”

  I blanched at the assessment of Tom’s job performance. Did everyone on the street think that? When Tom had complained of a “black mark,” I’d assumed he’d exaggerated. Was it really true? Was he permanently unemployable?

  My shock enabled Michael to better position himself on top of me. I scooted backward, the leather seat burning my skin. Michael grabbed my calves and pulled me back into him.

  “Michael, please. It’s late. We’ve both had too much to drink.” I pushed against his torso with all my upper body strength. He barely moved. “Please.”

  His hands went to his crotch. I heard the fly unzip. “You’re my administrative assistant. Now be a good girl and administer some assistance.”

  I slammed my knee as hard as I could in the direction of his balls. No thought, all instinct. The blow landed. Michael rocked backward, cradling his crotch in both palms.

  “Bitch,” he screamed.

  I rolled off the bench and scrambled to my feet. Somewhere, there was an exit from this dungeon. Where had the bartender gone?

  “Fucking tease,” Michael yelled. “Don’t even think of coming back to work.”

  I pulled my dress down. “You think this is over? I’m going straight to the cops.”

  Michael smiled wide, teeth bared. “You think anyone will believe you? They’ll think you’re just some desperate whore looking for a payout after her husband got his ass handed to him. Everyone will think you saw me as easy money.”

  He tossed my purse at my feet. The impact knocked open the change container in the front, spilling coins on the floor. Michael laughed.

  A pathetic sadness shook my extremities. He was right. People didn’t believe in coincidences. It would seem too convenient that Tom and I were broke and a megamillionaire had tried to rape me. Moreover, I didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer. What attorney would go up against the big guns on Michael’s legal team for a he said–she said sexual assault case, on contingency?

  “Fuck you.” The words trembled in the air, more of a cry than a curse.

  Michael sipped his wine. His face was still red from my blow moments before. “Offer no longer on the table.”

  A lump formed in my throat. I couldn’t break down here. The marble staircase sparkled beneath a chandelier. I stumbled toward it.

  Michael called after me. “That’s right. Get the fuck out.”

  *

  Headlights cast a spotlight on my double front door. Blackness blanketed the windows. Tom had shut off the exterior lights, a passive-aggressive way to tell me that I wasn’t welcome home this late.

  My hands still trembled on the steering wheel. I wrapped my fingers around the leather ring until my nails pressed into my palms on the other side. I needed to stop sobbing, control myself, and plan what to tell my husband. I had a last paycheck coming to me. I was entitled to unemployment. Like Tom had said, admin jobs were a dime a dozen. I’d find another.

  I pressed the electric garage door opener and watched the wall retract. Nerves squelched the tears in my throat. Would Tom blame me? I’d told him that I needed to work late, but I hadn’t provided details. Now I’d have to explain how a client meeting—something outside my job description—had gone so horribly wrong. What if Tom didn’t believe I’d even been invited to talk to investors? What if he thought I’d courted Michael’s attention and gone out to a romantic dinner?

  I parked and then sat inside the garage, staring at the dashboard. The clock read eleven fifteen PM. I’d stayed out too late. If only I’d refused that celebratory drink . . .

  I couldn’t stay in the car forever, even if I wanted to. I opened the door and stepped out. My legs had fallen asleep. A sadistic acupuncturist jabbed at my thighs as I put weight on them. I planted a palm on the Camry’s hood for support and leaned over to open the mudroom door.

  I slipped my heels off. My bare feet, sweaty from nerves, squeaked against tile. The powder room door was open on my right. I knew I looked awful, but I couldn’t clean up and have Tom hear the faucet running. He might wonder if I washed off someone else’s scent.

  The railing supported my weight as I ascended the back stairs. I rounded the hall to our bedroom. The house was silent. At least Sophia was asleep.

  I slipped through the master bedroom door. Tom sat in our king bed, back pressed against oversized, linen pillows, a large book resting in his lap. A scotch glass sat on the nightstand, cradling a sphere of ice.

  I wanted to collapse onto the covers, fold into the crook of my husband’s arm, and hide. I wanted Tom to make me feel safe and loved. But I could tell by his lowered brow that he didn’t plan on providing any such comfort.

  “Working pretty late, huh?”

  Though the words were plain, his tone could have sliced stone. I shuddered with the death throes of my adrenaline. Tears tumbled down my cheeks.

  Tom jumped from the bed. “What happened?” For the first time in months, he didn’t sound angry. Anxiety raised the pitch of his voice.

  I couldn’t look at him. My long hair covered my face as words bubbled out like boiling water in a saucepan. “My boss invited me to a dinner with this pension fund. He said I’d be helpful in feeding him relevant stats. I thought if I went it could help me get more money . . .”

  “What happened?” Tom sounded frantic.

  “The guys from the pension fund left, and we were in this private bar.” My breath came out in staccato gasps, adding a comma after every word. “And the next thing I knew . . . Michael was forcing himself on me.”

  I chanced a look at my husband. He stared at the weeping mess before him. It seemed he didn’t recognize me. Was he shocked that it had happened or that I had let it happen? I had to get it together.

  I wiped beneath my eyes with my fists. “I tried to push Michael away, but he was stronger. No one came to help. I had to knee him in the groin to make him stop. Then he fired me.” I attempted a deep breath. Oxygen entered my lungs in painful spurts. “I swear, Tom, I’ve been over it a hundred ways in my head. I didn’t do anything to lead him on. I didn’t want this. I only went to the meeting because I thought that if I did a good job, he might consider me for a better-paid marketing role or give me an advance against my bonus. He knew we were married.”

  Tom’s chest rose and fell as though he were running. His neck had turned a raw pink. “Did you go to the cops?”

  “No. He said they wouldn’t believe
me. They’d think I targeted him for money because of our financial difficulties.”

  Tom paced in front of me. A vein protruded from his forehead. He looked as though someone were strangling him—except for the eyes. They remained focused, furious.

  The look reminded me of Michael. My body responded to the similarity. A flight instinct shook my limbs, urging me to run. There was nowhere to go. I slumped onto the ground. “I’m so sorry.” I blubbered like a hurt child, not even trying to get it together anymore. “I didn’t mean for any of this—I’m so sorry. Please don’t be angry. I didn’t know . . . I thought I was helping us.”

  Warm palms cupped my biceps. My husband kneeled in front of me. His lips grazed my forehead. “I should never have let you work for that guy,” he said. “He had a reputation.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I just thought—”

  “Sshhh. Don’t apologize. There’s no need for you to be sorry.” Tom cupped my chin. He looked me straight in the eye. “You’re beautiful. And he’s a bastard who knows my situation, so he thinks he can just take you from me without repercussion.”

  My husband’s chest muffled my sobs. He stroked my hair. “You did good, baby. You didn’t let it happen.”

  I burrowed deeper beneath his arm. He smelled of sweat and sandalwood. He sounded like the man I’d married, the one who’d promised to honor and protect. Kisses fell on my forehead, my cheeks, and finally, my mouth, each one awakening memories of my humanity. I wasn’t flesh, but a mother and a wife. I hadn’t deserved this.

  My husband scooped me into his arms. I hung on his neck as he carried me to our bed. He laid me on the comforter and pushed my hair away from my tear-stained face. His long fingers slipped beneath me, propping me up just enough to pull the zipper on the back of my dress.

  I pulled the fabric over my head and removed my bra, eager to free myself of the clothing that smelled of Michael’s cologne, wanting my husband to erase the night’s memory with his hands.