He Had Read My Message

For several seconds after I sent the message, Roman didn't reply.

Then my phone rang again.

Maya reached for the cup beside my bed and handed it to me. "You said tomorrow. You can mean tomorrow."

I let the call end.

His next message was different.

Are you hurt?

I answered that I had spoken to medical staff and was resting. I told him Sophie was feeding normally. He asked three more questions, all about her, and I answered those too.

Finally, he wrote:

I will not send anyone tonight.

I didn't know whether to feel relieved or furious that tonight was the limit he had chosen.

I put the phone away.

When I woke before dawn, my first thought was that Roman should take the next feeding. I turned toward an empty chair before I remembered.

Jenna brought Sophie to me and helped warm a bottle. My daughter watched me with solemn eyes while she drank, as though she had been appointed to supervise the destruction of my marriage.

"You're doing well," Jenna said.

"I don't feel like I am."

"You don't have to feel it for it to be happening."

After she left, I checked my messages.

Roman had stopped calling after one in the morning. There were several updates about household arrangements I hadn't asked for, then an apology.

I should have been home. I'm sorry.

Below it was another voicemail from Elise Warren.

I almost deleted it. I didn't want another stranger describing my husband to me. But the preview began with an apology, and I pressed play.

"Mrs. Moretti, I need to correct something. I didn't see everything last night. The private room wasn't just your husband and Laya. There were attorneys and two other men. She left before he did, and she was crying. I don't know what happened, but I shouldn't have let you think I knew more than I did."

I listened twice.

Relief came first, sharp and humiliating. I still wanted a reason not to lose him. Even now, after leaving, part of me was searching for a way to put the night back where it belonged.

Then I looked at the photograph on my phone of the note I'd left.

Whatever had happened in that room, I had still spent the evening begging a silent screen for help.

Maya arrived with coffee and watched me listen again.

"I'm calling Laya," I told her.

She pulled up a chair. "Would you like me to stay?"

"Yes. Please don't tell me what to ask."

"I wasn't planning to."

I had Laya's number from the baby shower. She'd sent me a message afterward saying how lovely the nursery would be. I'd thanked her with a little heart.

Looking at that exchange now made my stomach turn.

She answered after five rings.

"Erin?"

"Were you with Roman last night?"

"Yes."

"Tell me why. All of it."

I heard her take a breath.

"We had dinner downstairs for my birthday. Afterward, he met with the trustees and our attorneys. We were terminating a trust his father established for me."

I pressed my fingers against the blanket.

"Why would his father leave you a trust?"

Her silence lasted long enough to answer part of the question.

"Roman and I were together years ago. Before he met you. Vittorio forced us apart. He threatened my brother's business, then arranged money in a way that kept me tied to his family."

"You were his girlfriend."

"Yes."

"And he told me you were a family friend."

"I know."

My eyes went to Sophie. I needed something in the room that wasn't changing under me.

Laya explained the arrangement simply. She received payments while unmarried. Marriage would cost her the remaining fund. Roman had inherited responsibility for it alongside other trustees, and the negotiations to end the restrictions had dragged on.

"I'm getting married," she said. "To Daniel Mercer. Next Saturday."

I stared at the wall.

"You came to my baby shower wearing jewelry my husband helped you choose, and you never mentioned a fiancé?"

"Daniel and I kept the engagement private until this was resolved. Roman thought public pressure would complicate the agreement."

"Was I public pressure?"

"No."

"Then why didn't I know?"

She didn't answer immediately.

"He asked me not to discuss it. I agreed."

Maya moved her hand onto the bed, close enough that I could take it. I didn't yet.

"Did you sleep with him after we married?"

"No."

"Did you kiss him?"

"No. Erin, there wasn't an affair."

I closed my eyes. Tears slipped out anyway.

"You let people think there was."

"I did."

"You heard Marlene at the dinner. You laughed."

Her voice changed. "I remember."

"Why?"

"Because I liked being important."

I opened my eyes.

"People thought Roman still protected me because he wanted me," she continued. "It was easier to let them believe that than explain the money. And sometimes I enjoyed it. I'm ashamed of that."

"You made me look like an idiot."

"Yes."

The answer was ugly enough that I believed it.

I didn't want to thank her for honesty. I wanted the months back. Every room where I'd felt small. Every car ride where Roman had told me nothing was happening and expected that to be enough.

"Why did the meeting have to happen last night?"

"One trustee was leaving this morning. The attorneys had finally agreed on the terms. There was a deadline before the wedding."

"And my husband had a wife who'd given birth six days earlier."

"I told him to go home when dinner ended."

I went still.

"Why would you tell him that?"

"Because he said you were upset. That you thought he was choosing me."

I felt as though someone had pulled the air from the room.

He had told her about our argument. I had stayed home trying to preserve what remained of my pride, and he had carried it to the woman at the center of my humiliation.

"Did he look at his phone?"

Laya hesitated.

"Answer me."

"Yes."

"After nine?"

"He checked a message when we were moving upstairs."

My first text. Sophie is awake. Are you coming home?

"What did he say?"

"That he'd call you when we finished."

"Did his phone stop working?"

"No. He silenced it during the meeting."

I finally took Maya's hand.

The revelation was painfully ordinary. No locked room. No emergency. No dead battery. My husband had read my words and placed them behind something else.

"Roman loves you," Laya said softly.

"You don't get to answer for him anymore."

She stopped.

I ended the call before she could apologize again.

For a while, I sat without moving. Maya didn't ask whether I felt better. She rubbed her thumb across my fingers, and Sophie made tiny sleeping noises beside us.

When Roman called, I answered.

"I know you didn't sleep with her," I said before he could speak. "Now tell me why you read my message asking you to come home and decided I could wait."