Chapter 4

“I’ll give you ten minutes,” Grant texted. “If you don’t unlock the card, I’m not going to let this slide.”

He was not talking about the money.

He was reminding me that every boundary had once ended with me apologizing.

I did not unlock the card.

Instead, I went to The Marlowe to collect my mother’s opening-night scrapbook.

She died the year after it opened.

I had left it in the Founder’s Suite because Grant and I had spent our first night there, then every anniversary after it.

I knocked once.

Sophie opened it wearing a hotel robe and the white slippers embroidered with the hotel’s initials.

She looked at me, then at the clock behind her.

“Why are you back? Isn’t it office hours?”

I looked down at the robe.

“I thought you said you were only staying two nights.”

“I am. Grant said this room was practically unused.”

The room was not unused.

Grant and I had spent our first night there. We had celebrated every anniversary in that bed until he stopped remembering the dates.

“I’m here for my mother’s scrapbook.”

Sophie moved aside just enough for me to see the room.

Two wineglasses. One open bottle. My candle burning beside the bed.

“You could have told me you were coming,” Sophie said. “I would have moved my things.”

She did not move a single thing.

Grant appeared behind her.

“Sophie has been working nonstop,” he said. “She has carried this gala while you were busy making your exit. The least I could do was give her a quiet room for two nights.”

I looked at him, then at the woman standing in my robe, inside my room, beside my anniversary candle.

“You care more about whether she has slept than whether your wife has a home.”

I smiled without warmth.

“You sound less like her boss than her husband. Actually, you two look like the real married couple.”

For one second, the guilt reached his face.

He went still.

Then the guilt disappeared beneath anger.

“That is disgusting,” Grant said. “Sophie has done nothing but help us. You’re humiliating her because you can’t stand being replaced.”

“Replaced?” I glanced at the room. “You already moved her into my marriage. The room is just the part you’re willing to show people.”

His jaw tightened.

Then his voice changed. It became lower, almost gentle.

“Emma, come home after the gala. We can talk privately. You don’t have to make a final decision tonight.”

Sophie immediately shook her head.

“Grant, don’t say that because of me. Emma is still your wife. If my staying here is hurting her, I can sleep somewhere else.”

She did not move. She only pressed closer to the doorframe, as if she were the one being forced out of my room.

The performance made my stomach turn.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You two don’t have to pretend for me. You already look very natural together.”

Sophie touched the brass Founder Key pinned to her dress.

“Grant said it looked better on someone the guests could actually see.”

“Of course he did,” I said. “He keeps handing you pieces of my life, and you keep pretending you’re too innocent to notice.”

A flash of delight crossed her face.

It disappeared beneath a careful little frown.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Grant looked at me as if I had forced her to apologize.

“She is not taking anything from you,” he said. “You’re choosing to make this ugly.”

“No. You made it ugly when you turned our marriage into a waiting room for her.”

Grant’s expression cooled.

“Don’t confuse being hurt with being right.”

I almost laughed.

“And don’t confuse being married to me with owning my room, my money, or my labor.”

He had given my room to another woman, then asked me to check the interview schedule.

“Since you’re here,” he said, “check tonight’s schedule before you leave.”

I took the scrapbook from the desk.

The final run of show appeared on my phone before I reached the elevator.

7:00 P.M. — Emma Reed introduces Sophie Lane as the woman leading The Marlowe into its next decade.