CHAPTER 2

THE NURSERY THEY HAD CHOSEN

For one strange second, all I noticed was that the robe was too long for Vanessa.

The hem brushed the marble stair beneath her bare feet. My mother had been taller. So was I.

Adrian stood beside the console table in dark trousers and a white shirt. His tie was gone. So was his wedding ring.

He did not look ashamed.

He looked inconvenienced.

"Eleanor," he said.

I removed my gloves one finger at a time.

"Adrian."

Vanessa lifted her cup.

"I thought you were staying at the hospital."

"My daughter is stable."

Adrian's expression tightened.

"Our daughter."

I held his gaze.

"Then perhaps you should know what her doctor said at two this morning."

His eyes shifted away first.

I looked back at Vanessa.

"Do not speak about Sophie while wearing my mother's robe."

Her smile disappeared.

Adrian stepped forward.

"That's enough."

"No," I said. "That was the beginning."

The foyer went silent.

I could see what he wanted from me. Tears. Screaming. A slap he could describe later over a drink.

Eleanor lost control.

Eleanor has always been impossible when she's emotional.

Eleanor made a civilized conversation impossible.

He wanted a performance that would turn his betrayal into my instability.

I would not give it to him.

I turned to Mrs. Delgado.

"Has anything been moved from my rooms?"

"No, ma'am."

"From Sophie's playroom?"

"Nothing."

"Thank you. Please make sure it stays that way."

Vanessa descended one step.

"I gave the staff an instruction."

I looked at her.

"You made noise in a house where you have no authority."

Color climbed into her face.

Adrian moved between us.

"Enough with the theatrics. You knew our marriage was over."

"I knew you were having an affair."

Vanessa's hand moved instinctively to her abdomen.

Adrian saw me notice. His shoulders straightened as if the moment had arrived for him to play the card that would end the argument.

"Vanessa is pregnant."

There it was.

The canceled anniversary weekend. His questions about the plumbing in the east wing. His sudden interest in whether Sophie still used the sunny room at the top of the stairs.

Vanessa spread her palm over the silk.

"We didn't want to hurt you."

I looked at the robe.

"You are wearing the last birthday gift my mother ever gave me."

Her hand fell from the cuff.

For the first time, she looked uncertain.

Adrian exhaled sharply.

"She didn't know that."

"She took it from my private dressing room. What she knew is no longer the most important question."

"You're trying to humiliate her."

I almost admired the reversal.

"You brought her into my bedroom while I was at the hospital with Sophie."

"This was not supposed to happen this way."

"How was it supposed to happen?"

He glanced at the staff.

"Not here."

"You made it here."

Vanessa shifted her weight.

"Adrian said the marriage had been over for years."

I looked at him.

"Did he?"

"It has," Adrian said. "You know it has."

Eleven years of marriage resisted simple burial.

There had been good years. Real ones.

Adrian had cried when Sophie was born. He had sat beside my mother through her final Thanksgiving and listened patiently when medication made her repeat the same story three times. When his first business failed, we had eaten takeout on the library floor and planned the next one together.

Whatever he had become did not make every memory false.

It only made his choices harder to forgive.

"If our marriage was over," I said, "you could have ended it before you began another family."

His jaw tightened.

"The pregnancy wasn't planned."

"I'm sure Sophie will find that distinction comforting."

"Leave Sophie out of this."

I stared at him.

"You chose the night she was hospitalized to move another woman into her home. You do not get to leave her out of it."

"I knew you had the situation handled."

The cold inside me sharpened.

"What situation?"

"Her asthma attack."

"She couldn't breathe."

"And you got her to the hospital."

"I called you seven times."

"I panicked."

"No. You lied."

Vanessa looked from him to me.

"He told me it wasn't serious."

Adrian turned sharply.

"Vanessa."

"You said Eleanor always overreacts when it comes to Sophie."

His face changed—not with guilt, but irritation that she had broken formation.

Rebecca's voice returned to me.

Let him talk.

So I folded my hands and lowered my voice.

"What exactly did he tell you?"

"This is pointless," Adrian said.

"I find it useful."

Vanessa tightened the robe around herself.

"He said Sophie had a mild flare-up. He said you insisted on staying overnight because you turn everything involving her into an emergency."

My daughter had been trembling behind an oxygen mask while her father reassured his mistress that I was dramatic.

For one dangerous moment, the room blurred.

I focused on the cream envelope in my hand.

"Did Adrian tell you to clear Sophie's playroom?"

Vanessa frowned.

"He said she hardly uses it."

Adrian swore beneath his breath.

"And what were you going to use it for?"

"Eleanor," he warned.

I did not look at him.

Vanessa touched her stomach again.

"The nursery. It gets the best morning light."

Of course it did.

Sophie had chosen that room for the same reason. She liked to sit on the rug and paint before breakfast when the sun turned every jar of water gold.

"Nobody is erasing Sophie," Adrian said.

"You offered her room to your new child before telling your daughter that you were leaving her mother."

"It's one room."

"No. It's a message."

His brows drew together.

"What does that even mean?"

"My bedroom for Vanessa. The east guest suite for me. Sophie's room for the baby. You decided where every woman and child in your life would be placed according to your convenience."

"You're twisting this."

"Then untwist it. Tell me what you intended."

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

I waited.

Behind him, Vanessa's confidence had begun to fracture. She had entered Rosemere believing the transition had already been arranged. Adrian had told her where she would sleep, where her baby would sleep, and where his wife would go.

He had given her certainty because he assumed I would pay for it.

"You can stay in the east guest suite until our attorneys settle everything," he said at last. "No one is putting you on the street."

Mr. Bell made a sound near the library arch and disguised it as a cough.

Adrian turned.

"Is there a problem?"

Mr. Bell lowered his eyes, but not before I saw the disbelief in them.

Adrian genuinely thought he was being generous.

He believed he was allowing me to remain on my own land.

I opened the cream envelope.

The soft scrape of paper drew every eye in the foyer.

I removed the first document and held it toward Mrs. Delgado.

"Please give this to Mr. Cole."

She crossed the marble and placed it in his hand.

Adrian glanced down.

At first, his expression did not change.

Then he read the heading.

His thumb went still against the edge of the page.

Vanessa noticed.

"What is it?"

He did not answer.

I did.

"A formal demand that he vacate Rosemere—and notice that my attorney is prepared to seek temporary exclusive possession if he refuses."

Adrian looked up.

For the first time that morning, he was no longer irritated.

He was afraid.