Chapter 4

At three in the morning, my phone buzzed.

The message was from Calvin, one of Bryce's lab colleagues.

"Nadine, we're at Mara's place. Bryce is wasted. Can you come get him?"

I stared at the screen.

My first instinct was to ignore it.

He could find his own way home.

Then I looked at the divorce papers on the coffee table.

Five years of marriage.

Five years of love.

It deserved a formal ending, at least.

I picked up my coat.

"I'm on my way."

Mara's apartment door stood wide open.

From the hallway, I could see everything in the living room.

Bryce was sprawled across the sofa, his face flushed and his head pressed against Mara's shoulder.

One of her arms lay across his chest.

Possessive.

Painfully intimate.

The room fell silent the moment everyone saw me.

"Nadine." Calvin stood, relief and guilt mingling on his face. "Thank you for coming. He's completely out of it."

Mara shifted away from Bryce.

Slowly. Reluctantly.

"Nadine, please don't misunderstand. He just drank too much, and I..."

"Don't."

I walked past her and reached for Bryce's arm.

"I'm not misunderstanding anything."

The instant my fingers touched him, he jerked away.

"Don't touch me!"

His eyes were glassy and unfocused. He shoved my hand aside and slurred, "Who are you? Get away from me!"

Then he locked both arms around Mara's waist and buried his face against her stomach.

The living room was so quiet that I could hear the clock ticking on the wall.

Everyone was looking at me.

That humiliation should have burned me alive.

Instead, all I felt was a strange, hollow calm.

Then I saw the necklace.

My grandmother's necklace.

Before she died, she had unclasped it with her own hands and pressed it into my palm.

"Sweetheart, my father gave this to me. Now I'm giving it to you. May it bring you the same good fortune it brought me. Maybe one day, when you meet someone truly worthy, you can let him wear it for you."

On our wedding day, I had fastened the necklace around Bryce's neck and entrusted it to him.

He swore he would never take it off.

He swore it would never leave the place closest to his heart.

Now it hung from Mara's neck like a trophy.

I looked at her.

Unease covered her face, but her arms were still around my husband.

I smiled.

"It's fine," I said. "Let him stay here tonight."

Then I turned and walked away.

The click of heels followed me.

Mara had come after me, and the apartment door swung shut behind her.

"Nadine."

I turned around.

She blinked at me.

"Nadine, I swear, it isn't what it looks like..."

I said nothing. I only watched her perform.

"Drop the act."

Her expression changed in an instant.

God, she was a good actress.

Within a single breath, every trace of nerves and guilt disappeared from her face.

All that remained was a pair of cold, calculating eyes and the faintest triumphant smile.

She folded her arms across her chest, her lips curving with false sympathy.

One finger moved slowly over the necklace at her throat.

The gesture was as deliberate as a winner displaying her medal.

Her voice dripped with cloying sweetness, as fake as a reality star's tears.

"Do you like it? He gave it to me. He said it used to belong to someone very special. I'm guessing that was you. How thoughtful."

She was trying to provoke me.

She wanted to watch me break and squeeze some pathetic sense of victory from my pain.

I remained calm.

It was not the response she had expected.

Her perfectly shaped brows drew together.

"You know, Bryce has always loved doing it in cars."

She tilted her head. Her smile widened, and malice glittered in her eyes.

"That rainy night, while you were at the hospital having your procedure, he drove your car to the airport to get me. We did it in the back seat, right on the leather upholstery you saved so long to buy."

"He wrapped us in that wool blanket you gave him and said it made everything more exciting. He said your scent was still on it. That it felt like we were finally doing it in your bed, then saying goodbye to you for good."

"He also said..."

She lowered her voice, deliberately imitating a lazy, satisfied murmur.

"Nadine never does this for me. She's so boring. Sleeping with her feels like a chore."

My nails dug into my palms, but I would not give her the reaction she wanted.

Not ever.

Mara narrowed her eyes.

My composure was beginning to unsettle her.

She moved closer, her voice becoming more intimate and even more vicious.

"Remember that weekend in Sonoma three months ago, when you said you had to work late?"

She gave a quiet laugh.

"He spent four thousand dollars on a suite with a fireplace. We drank the bottle of Cabernet you'd been saving. The one he took from the wine rack in your apartment."

"We spent the entire night on the rug in front of the fire. The next day, he took me wine tasting and bought me twelve limited-edition bottles from your favorite vineyard."

Her finger slid over the pendant, caressing it as though it were a precious jewel.

"And that week in Paris. He told you it was an academic conference, didn't he?"

She laughed, a sound like glass scraping across a blade.

"We stayed at a boutique hotel in Le Marais. Every morning, I ate croissants on the balcony and watched the sun rise over the Seine."

"He took me to a three-Michelin-star restaurant and bought me a Hermes scarf. The blue patterned one you always wanted but never let yourself buy."

"And every bit of it," she said, drawing out each word, "went on your credit cards. Every dollar you earned working sixty-hour weeks was spent making me happy."

My breathing did not change.

But my palms were slick with sweat, and my nails had left four red crescents in my skin.

Mara noticed.

Her eyes brightened like a predator catching the scent of blood.

She took another step toward me.

She was close enough that I could smell her perfume.

It was the same fragrance I had bought for myself the previous Christmas.

Bryce had taken the bottle from my vanity, saying it was "for a colleague."

"But do you know what made me happiest?"

Her voice softened to a viper's hiss.

"It wasn't the money. It wasn't the hotels or the jewelry."

She tilted her head and looked at me with something close to pity.

The pity of a victor looking down from above.

"What made me happiest was that he chose me every single time."

My heart missed a beat.

"The day you lost the baby, he could have stayed at the hospital with you. Instead, he chose to drive two hours to the airport for me."

Her voice grew softer, but each word pierced deeper.

"On your birthday, he promised to take you to dinner. Instead, he chose to stay and watch the entire opera with me."

"When your mother called to say your father was in the hospital, he still chose to stay beside me because he said I needed him more."

She paused, letting each sentence drive like a nail into the rawest part of me.

"He chose me, Nadine."

"Every day. Every important moment. Every single time you needed him, he chose me."

Her smile opened fully, like a poisonous flower in bloom.

"Do you know what he told me last week? He said, 'I will always choose you, Mara. From beginning to end, you are the one I truly choose.'"

The hallway was deathly quiet.

Somewhere in the distance, a car passed. I could hear its windshield wipers moving through the silence.

I drew in a slow breath.

Then I smiled.

It was real. Almost cheerful.

"Mara," I said, as pleasantly as if I were speaking to an old friend, "enjoy every bit of it."

"This marriage and this man are yours now. Take them. From this moment on, they come as a package."

I took my phone from my bag and turned the screen toward her.

The recording app was open.

The small red circle was still pulsing.

I had recorded every word she said.

Mara's face turned chalk white.

"You..."

Before she could lunge for the phone, I slipped it back into my pocket. Then I took the divorce papers from my bag and tucked them between her folded arms.

"He's your problem now."