Chapter 2

Tara's POV

Erasing my identity would take two weeks.

I sat in the car for a long time, waiting until the feeling inside me had gone completely quiet. Then I walked back through the front door of the house.

Gordon was in the kitchen, apron tied around his waist, moving between the counter and the stove.

He heard me come in and carried out the tray of chestnut cake he had just pulled from the oven.

His eyes were warm enough to drown in. "You're back. Go wash your hands. Come try this. I learned a new recipe."

I looked at his face. That handsome, familiar face. It felt absurd now.

I forced the nausea back down and kept my voice flat. "I'm exhausted from work today. I'm not hungry."

Gordon stepped forward and pulled me into him, resting his chin at the curve of my neck. "What's going on? Did the kids at school give you a hard time again? I'll have my assistant send over some new toys tomorrow to cheer them up."

He always knew exactly how to take care of me. If I hadn't heard those words with my own ears, I would have gone on believing I was the luckiest woman alive.

"Don't bother." I pulled away, my voice distant.

He blinked and started to say something. Then his phone buzzed on the table.

He glanced at the screen. Something shifted in his expression. He picked up the call quickly.

"I'll be right there."

He hung up and looked at me with an apologetic expression. "Sweetie, something's come up at work. I have to handle it. Don't wait up for me, okay? Eat something."

I watched his back disappear through the door.

I picked up my keys and followed him.

His car didn't go to the office. It stopped in front of one of the most exclusive private residences in the city.

I followed him all the way to the top floor.

Through the gap in the barely-closed door came the muffled sound of a woman crying.

"Gordon, I'm so scared. Every time I close my eyes, I feel like you're going to leave me." Mandy was curled into the corner of the sofa, face pale, fragile.

Gordon dropped to one knee in front of her and pulled her tightly against him. His voice carried a patience I had never once heard him offer me. "Don't be scared. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

"But Tara..."

"Don't bring her up." He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small velvet box. "Look what I brought you."

Inside the box was a custom star-dial watch.

I went cold where I stood outside that door.

That watch. I had spent the better part of six months on it. I had drawn the design myself, sourced the craftsman myself, and had it built from scratch as a birthday gift for Gordon next month.

A few days ago I had noticed it was gone, and he had told me, soothingly, that one of the housekeeping staff had probably moved it somewhere by mistake.

He had taken it to give to another woman.

"It's so beautiful..." Mandy's tears dissolved into a smile. "Is this for me?"

"Of course." He fastened it around her wrist himself. "As long as you sleep well tonight, you can have anything you want."

I turned and walked away.

Moving through the noise of the street outside, all I felt was a hollow kind of absurdity. Everything I had once guarded as precious, he had handed over as a prop to soothe someone else.

At ten o'clock that night, Gordon sent a message. "Working through the night at the office. Get some rest. Good night."

I read it, turned the phone off, and dropped it in the drawer.

The days that followed, I went to work as usual. I poured everything I had into the children. Looking at their open, uncomplicated faces was the only thing that made the dull ache in my chest go quiet for a little while.

On the weekend, Gordon surprised me with a gesture meant to make up for lost time. He rented out the city's most prominent arts center and threw a lavish gallery exhibition filled entirely with my casual sketches and doodles.

"He really is something else, treating his wife's little drawings like fine art."

"That's real love. Everyone in this city knows how much he adores her."

I stood among the murmuring guests, champagne glass in hand, smiling at nothing.

Then a familiar figure crossed the entrance of the gallery.

Mandy had arrived in a couture gown, moving between the guests with easy confidence in her official capacity as director of the exhibition.

I set my glass down and headed toward the restroom.

I had just rounded the corner when I heard voices drifting through the gap in the door of a side room.