His Promise Was Paper-Thin

After the seventy-eighth time my husband's mistress sent me photos of the two of them together, I posted every one of them online. The girl cried until her face was ruined, screaming that she had no way to go on living. A second later, Nathan's call came through. "Take it down." I didn't. Ten minutes after that, every social account I owned was logged into from somewhere else in the country. Posts deleted. Accounts closed. The trending topic pulled. Start to finish, it took Nathan less than ten minutes. Three days later he came to me with divorce papers and said, gently, "It's only a trick to keep her quiet. Be good. Play along." I nodded and signed. After he left, I changed my prenatal appointment to a termination. He probably doesn't believe I can actually stop being Mrs. Cole. Chapter 1 Half an hour after I signed the divorce papers, I went in and terminated the pregnancy. My phone started shrieking just as I came off the table. The anesthesia was wearing off, and the pain brought up a fine sweat all across my forehead. I answered anyway. Nathan's voice came through, flat and cold. "Vivian. Take your things and get out." "Okay." I didn't even hesitate. Five years of marriage, and there'd been one girl after another. To keep me from getting in the way of whichever one he wanted that month, he had his secretary rent a house for me out past the edge of Northport. He'd said, "If I want to see you, I'll call. My secretary will send your living expenses. Don't show up in front of me unless I say so." The last time, he knelt in front of me and begged me to come back. He swore he was done with all of it, that he wanted to build a real life with me. I cried like an idiot, and I believed him. Again. So I moved home. A week later, a girl caught her heel in the hem of her dress at a runway show and went sprawling, and landed right in his line of sight. I saw the way he looked at her. Something in me was screaming, but I couldn't pretend I didn't know that look. He'd fallen again. That night, photos of him walking a model into a hotel took over every front page in the city, and I went back to being the punchline people passed around over coffee. This one really was different. A whole year, and Nathan never got bored. In that same year, I got seventy-eight taunting photos and videos, plus more harassing messages than I could count. Every line of them said the same thing: she wanted my place. Until three hours ago, when he put divorce papers in front of me for the first time. "It's only for show. Be good. Don't make me angry." I held myself together and looked at him with my eyes burning. I didn't want to sign. However he'd played around before, that document had never once appeared. But there he was, unhurried, stroking my hair the way you'd calm a cat with its back up. I knew what happened when Nathan got angry. It was the same thing that had happened this time — he barely had to move a finger, and every problem Bianca had went away. So I signed. And left him one word. "Fine." By the time I got home, Nathan and Bianca were gone. Martha came hurrying out of the kitchen, delighted to see me. "Mrs. Cole? How did the checkup go?" My face was bloodless. I shook my head. I'd planned to tell him that night that I was pregnant. Plans don't always survive contact. In the space of a few days, I'd lost my marriage and I'd lost the baby. "I ended it." I watched the shock land on her face and kept going, quietly. "This child wouldn't have had a happy life anyway." Before she could answer, the front door swung open. Bianca came in loaded down with shopping bags, a dozen bodyguards behind her carrying the rest. She wasn't surprised to see me. She settled back into my chaise, all smiles, and everything she said had a blade in it. "Honestly, I don't get it. Nathan treats you like this and you're still hanging around. Why? "Yesterday I said I wanted chestnut cake. He didn't even think about it — walked three miles through the snow to get it for me. "Has he ever done anything like that for you?" I went quiet for a second. Yesterday was the anniversary of my father's death. When I finally reached Nathan through his assistant, I could hear wind roaring against the phone. And I heard him say, clearly, that he didn't have time. So that was what he'd been doing. Buying her dessert. My fingers closed around the hem of my coat. There was a time when Nathan loved me more than anyone in the world except my parents. He was our driver's son. No pedigree, nothing that fit in with the other kids we grew up around. They picked on him constantly for it. He never cared what any of them thought. He used to say, "The only person I care about is Vivian." When I ran a fever as a child, he sat up beside my bed the whole night. When the earthquake hit, he threw himself over me and let the falling debris split his scalp open. He didn't make a sound. He just kept his voice soft and told me I was safe. In college, after a fight, he stood outside my dorm all night in heavy snow with my favorite candy in one hand and an apology letter thousands of words long in the other. The day we graduated was the day we got married. At the ceremony, my father put my hand in his, and his voice was hard. "If I ever catch you turning away from her, I'll take her out of this without a second thought. She has never lacked for people willing to love her." Nathan closed his hand into a fist and swore he never would. He said, "I'm going to make her the happiest person alive. I'm going to drive sadness out of her life for good." School uniforms to a wedding dress. Everyone we knew envied us. A year in, my father died, and Dawson Group landed entirely on Nathan's shoulders. He worked himself into the hospital more than once, and it broke my heart every time. I'd never so much as boiled water growing up. I learned to cook for him. Every evening he came home with an armful of yellow roses, my favorite. He called them the ones that meant something. He sat out in the yard with me counting stars. He held me while I slept. So when did it change? Chapter 2 I think it was around the time he finally shed the name "the Dawson driver's son" and became Mr. Cole. The business dinners started, and they never stopped. He came home with cheap perfume on his shirt, sharp enough to sting. When I looked at him with a question on my face, he smiled. "It's on one of the partners, sweetheart. Don't read into it." I believed him. One flimsy excuse after another, spending down the trust I handed him without conditions. Once he had the company completely in hand, he stopped bothering with the act at all. And I was still sitting inside the cage he'd built out of love, too far in to climb out. The first time I caught him was at the surprise party I threw for his birthday. I'd rented a yacht. Everyone waited until they were exhausted and the guest of honor never showed. In the end I had someone pull his location, and it said he was at the office, working late. The whole way over I was silently scolding him for never resting. I pushed open his office door still carrying the cake I'd made by hand. There was a half-eaten candlelit dinner on his desk. Underwear scattered across the floor. And, the part I still can't get over, two bodyguards posted outside his private lounge. When I kicked the door in, there wasn't a flicker of panic on his face. He pulled the blanket up over the woman under him, gently, to spare her, then grabbed a towel for himself. When he finally looked up at me, he was cold as a block of ice. "Shut the door. You may not have any shame left, but she does." He was so calm that it made me look like the clown in the room. I went at her like something feral, trying to drag the woman who'd wrecked my marriage out of that bed. One of his bodyguards slapped me hard enough that the room spun. In the middle of it, I finally saw her face. It was the young nurse who'd changed his dressings after he collapsed and was hospitalized. She burst into tears. "Please don't misunderstand. I only came by to drop off some medicine for him. I never wanted to come between you two. We'd had a little to drink, we weren't thinking straight, that's the only reason—" Nathan pressed his lips together, his eyes flat and cold on me. "Vivian. I'm warning you. Don't lay a hand on her." So he'd been cheating that early. All that talk about flowers meaning love. They were just something he picked up on the way home to smooth things over with the wife after a good night out. After that, the women rotated with the dinners. Glass after glass, one after another. He stopped caring how I felt. He stopped caring about anything to do with me. As though only money, standing, and a different woman in his bed could make him feel like his life meant anything. I went numb inside the gap between who he'd been and what he became. Until one day I stopped expecting him to walk through the door at all. I let Bianca's sneering go. I went upstairs, got my passport and a few other documents, and came back down. She was going through the handbag I'd left on the sofa. My breath stopped. I crossed the room and snatched it back. She held her hands open and rolled her eyes. "There's nothing worth stealing in there. Why so jumpy?" I felt for the hospital paperwork at the very bottom of the bag. Still there. I let out a breath. Then she came and stood in front of me, and her mouth split into a grin. "You're pregnant, aren't you? "I saw the prenatal vitamins in there. "You know Nathan can't stand children. If he finds out, there's no chance he lets you keep it. "So take my advice. Get rid of it now, before—" That was exactly when Nathan came back. He glanced at me, offhand. "Did you drop something?" I smiled and slid the documents back into the bag. "It's nothing." He was quiet for a beat. Then, as I turned to go, he pulled out two cards and held them toward me. "Presidential suite at the Grand Azure. Stay there for now. "There's ten million dollars on this one. Use it. "Yesterday, I really did have something." Something. Hiking through snow for Bianca's chestnut cake counted as something. Standing there looking at him, all I felt was revulsion. I smiled, sweetly. A second later my hand cracked across his face. I shook out my stinging palm. The smile never moved. "You're disgusting, Nathan. "A driver's son who fell into a lucky break and turned into somebody. Did you forget how you used to beg me to help you through it?" I'd never said anything that cruel to him. He didn't hit back, but his face went dark. Before he could do anything at all, Bianca picked up an ashtray and swung it into the side of my head. Warm blood ran down from my temple. The room tipped. The lights in the front hall turned suddenly unbearable, and I could barely stay on my feet. Martha rushed over and caught me. She shouted at Nathan, frantic. "Mr. Cole! You don't know what she's—" Chapter 3 I cut her off before she could finish. "Martha. I'm fine." The man in front of me didn't react at all. He gave her a careless glance, and his voice came out like ice water. "Martha, get it straight in your head whose house you work in. She's divorced from me. She isn't the lady of this house anymore." Martha looked at me, sick with worry. I gave a small shake of my head. There was no point saying anything to him now. He wasn't the Nathan who used to bend down and listen to every word I said like it mattered. He was holding Bianca's trembling hand, anxious. "Did you hurt your hand on it?" She sniffled and shook her head. "It's fine. I just couldn't stand watching her treat you like that." The light caught the softness in his eyes when he looked at her. "Idiot. I don't care what she does to me. I care that no one gets to make you feel small." That was all Bianca needed. Her chin came up. "That slap she gave you — I'm giving it back ten times over." He didn't say anything. So she swung on his arm and pouted at him. "You're Mr. Cole. Imagine how it looks if word gets around that your ex-wife slapped you." He still didn't give in. She went up on her toes and whispered something in his ear. And then he smiled, satisfied. He put an arm around her waist and kissed her lightly. "All right. However you want it." I backed up a few steps, staring at the two of them, unable to believe it. The bodyguards shoved Martha out of the way and caught my wrists. I started to fight them. "Nathan! You—" Bianca laughed once and hit me across the face, fast and vicious. At the same moment the pain in my abdomen and my head came up together, so sharp it brought the cold sweat out on me. By the tenth one I was down on the floor, wrecked. Tears ran across my cheeks and disappeared into my hair. It took everything I had left to hold the sound in my throat so I wouldn't cry out loud. He didn't look at me once. He took her upstairs. Before they were out of earshot I heard him, low and warm. "Wear the lace one tonight." She flushed against him and looked back at me, flat on the floor, just to make sure I saw. The bedroom door shut. Martha got me back onto my feet. But the dull pain low in my body didn't ease off. It got worse. I don't know how long I was out. I only know that when I woke up, Nathan was sitting in my hospital room with nothing in his face at all. There was no feeling in his voice either. "Martha told me you passed out. If you're this fragile, stop making trouble. You behave, and I don't have to worry." He said it lazily, like it cost him nothing, and every word of it went straight through me. "Vivian, look at the level I've reached. Name one man around me who doesn't have women. What you're asking for, one man and one woman for life, is a brutal condition. "I can't do it. Between the work and the socializing, everyone around me is pushing women at me, some of them without even pretending. "I told you this divorce is theater. All you have to do is behave and give me some time. When I've had my fill out there, I'll come back to the family. We'll have children. We'll be happier than we were. "On one condition. That I've had my fill first." He paused, and only then did he bother to lift his eyes to me. For the second our eyes met, I couldn't find a trace of guilt in him. All I could find was his certainty that I would give in. "Vivian, you really should learn to behave." Behave. That wasn't the Nathan I knew. He used to love it when I got difficult with him. He said girls who did as they were told were spineless, that there was nothing to them. I looked down at the wedding ring on my hand. My chest filled up with a dense, needling pain, the way it feels when something has been pressing on it for years. I was quiet for a long time. When I spoke, my voice came out hoarse. "I understand. "There's something in that handbag I left on the sofa. Something Bianca wants. She'll be very happy when she sees it." That was enough to put a real smile on his face. "The pigeon-blood ruby set from the auction? Vivian, if you'd come around to this sooner, none of it would have gotten this ugly." No. It's the receipt from the procedure and the aftercare instructions. I answered him silently, in my head. We aren't going to have children. He took my silence for agreement and left in high spirits. I checked myself out and moved into the presidential suite he'd arranged. Over the next couple of weeks I liquidated every piece of jewelry he'd given me over the years and moved the money into a trust. When the last sale cleared, I bought a ticket out of Northport. When I walked out dragging a suitcase, the bodyguards asked me where I was going. I didn't answer. Then they asked how long I'd be gone. I thought about it. "A couple of days." A couple of days, and then a couple more, and I never went back. A month later, the first people to figure out that I was actually gone were those two bodyguards. Shaking, they called Nathan and told him I was missing. Chapter 4 One second. Two. Three. Then the line went dead, the man on the other end breathing hard. At that moment Nathan had Bianca backed against the floor-to-ceiling window. He hadn't heard a word of the call. Right when it would have gone further, she pressed a hand against his chest. "Wait." He caught her chin and made her look at him, her eyes glassy and unfocused. "What is it?" Bianca went red. Then, like a magician, she produced a pregnancy report, and there was no hiding the excitement in her voice. "Nathan, you can't have me tonight. I'm pregnant." The air in the room cooled with his mood. Everything that had been between them a second ago simply went out. He let go without any energy behind it and put on a robe, taking his time. Looking at the stunned woman in front of him, he almost laughed out loud. This one had overstepped. Just like every other stupid woman before her, she'd overplayed her hand. He made a small sound of acknowledgment, sat down on the sofa, shook a cigarette out of the pack, and lit it. Nothing else came. That was it? One syllable? Bianca was lost. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. In the version she'd built in her head, he was supposed to grab hold of her, thrilled, and tell her he'd take responsibility. Then she'd marry him, and there'd be staff, and nothing to worry about, and a life of the kind of luxury she'd been circling for years. Instead the man in front of her had made a noise in his throat and gone back to his cigarette. The drop was more than she could hold in. "What is that supposed to mean? You don't want it? In bed you said you only ever wanted children with me." His voice went cold, and whatever had been in his eyes was gone without a trace. "You believe what a man says in bed? "Bianca, I thought you were different from the rest. I thought you understood where you stood. Turns out you're as stupid as all of them." She stumbled back a step. For a moment she was sure she'd misheard him. "What—" He let out a slow ring of smoke. "Go take care of it tomorrow and I'll pretend tonight didn't happen. "If you insist on having it, that's your business. I'll pay support every month. How much is up to me. Might be a million. Might be a hundred thousand. Might be ten thousand, or a thousand, or a hundred. If you want to take me to court, be my guest. I'll put the best attorneys on the planet in that room. "Your odds are under ten percent." He didn't raise his voice once, and it killed every plan she'd walked in with. She weighed what she had against what she'd lose. Then she lowered her eyes, bit down on her lip, and nodded, humiliated. He smiled. It didn't get anywhere near his eyes. Women like this were the easiest thing in the world to manage. No cards, no ground to stand on. A scrap of pity and a few gifts and they'd live inside the fantasy and give up everything for it. Then he remembered what Vivian had said at the hospital. He reached into the handbag beside him, feeling around for the pigeon-blood set, planning to hand it over and be done with Bianca for the night. There was no velvet box. His fingers found paper. Curious, he pulled the pages out. The words at the top of the form came at him all at once. VIVIAN DAWSON. PATIENT ELECTED TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY. He froze. He stayed frozen until the arm holding the page ached, and still none of it had reached him. What did "patient elected termination" mean?