Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
AMELIE
I folded my hands in my lap, unfolded them, and ran one finger around the edge of my water glass. It was the good glassware, picked out meticulously by Stefan to match the new china. The crystal was so thin you could see your fingerprints from the other side.
It was nearly nine thirty, and I was still the only one in the formal dining room. The candles on the table were supposed to lend a certain illicit grandeur, but instead, they mocked me with their flicker.
Dan had gone all out as per usual—pressed duck, foie gras, that heady sweetbread, amuse-bouche that tasted like the inside of a rich man’s dream.
“Should I put the leftovers away?” Dan asked from the kitchen archway.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him this wasn’t leftovers. I hadn’t eaten anything yet. Dinner was set an hour ago, the time Stefan promised to be home. But he stood me up, which was becoming the recurring theme in our relationship.
Dan left after setting the table, returning when he anticipated we’d finish dinner.
But Stefan never showed, and I’d been staring at the food for the past hour.
Dan thrived on positive feedback, and not eating his precious meal was the ultimate insult.
To save the poor chef’s feelings, I placed some of the food on my plate.
It remained untouched. I didn’t want to offend him, but I had long made a pact with myself—I’d never eat dinner alone.
Dan hovered politely. I didn’t want to bore him with my woes, and though I wanted the company, I didn’t ask him to join me, either. The staff at my old home hated it when I put them in that position. Employees of a certain bracket preferred clear boundaries with their employers.
“You can go home. I’ll clean up.” I kept a smile plastered to my face until he was out of sight.
My phone was face down on the table. I refused to look at it for the millionth time. I’d already scrolled through Stefan’s social media, hoping for a geotag. Because that was what I had been reduced to—getting updates on Stefan’s whereabouts from Instagram.
A door slammed somewhere in the cavernous hallway. A male voice echoed as it approached. Stefan was on the phone. His blazer was draped over one arm, and his salmon-colored shirt was wrinkled after a long day.
My heart fluttered for a second. I almost forgot how incredibly beautiful he was when life wasn’t being sucked out of him by a dead-end job.
Locks of brown hair, with texture that came from a two-hundred-dollar haircut, fell over his lively brown eyes.
The long day at the office hadn’t dampened his energy or his boyish good looks.
I guess that was what happened when you loved your job.
He never looked so content in our old lives, I thought dejectedly. I knew he was unhappy, but I didn’t realize the extent of it until seeing how quickly he embraced our new fortunes.
His face brightened when his gaze landed on me.
“Hi, baby.” He hung up the phone and set the blazer down on a chairback.
Stefan poured himself a glass of the wine I’d already opened and kissed me before I could go off on him.
Lowering himself onto the seat next to mine, he glanced at the spread that could feed a small army.
“Are you having someone over for dinner?”
My grip tightened around my glass. It was humiliating enough that my husband stood me up, but to forget our plans altogether was twisting the knife in my heart.
“Yes. You!”
I saw it, the moment he remembered our date. He blinked, head leaning back. He looked at the dishes and the untouched food on my plate. “Fuck.”
“Yes, Stefan, fuck. I can’t believe you stood me up again.”
Standing from his chair, he came around to hug me from behind. I was tense, my back ramrod straight. “I’m so sorry, baby. I forgot.”
Forgot? He had a calendar and could have penciled in our date so he’d remember. Or was I not important enough to be scheduled?
“I’ve been working around the clock for this trip. You know that.”
Yet he had time to hang out with his friends and Ruby.
“I’m stressed out,” he continued. “I still need to approve the locations, and our third shooter backed out. The scheduling has been a mess.”
“And that makes it okay to stand up your wife without so much as a text?” Would it have killed him to call?
He sighed. “Of course not. I hate this, Am. I hate not being with you.”
Then why are you doing this to us? I wanted to shout but pursed my lips instead.
“I just can’t have my first project be a failure.
Please try to understand.” He leaned down and kissed my neck.
It was our first physical contact in so long.
Even though I was furious, I leaned into the embrace, melting into him because I was starved for his touch.
“Everyone’s looking at me and expecting me to fail. I have to prove them wrong.”
It sucked that I understood where he was coming from.
For the first time in his life, Stefan was doing something he loved.
He was leaving for Dubai this weekend and leading his first project as the magazine’s president.
The weight of expectations was a lot to carry on your shoulders, especially when you were new at a high-power job and hadn’t proved your worth.
It was no wonder he had tunnel vision about work and was scatterbrained about everything else.
“You missed the amuse-bouche,” I said grumpily as some of my ire seeped out. “It was served fresh. The chef said it was a tribute to a Michelin restaurant in Tokyo.”
“Sounds like my loss.”
“It was. You insulted Dan by not showing up, so he’ll never make it again.” The words sounded petulant, but I was allowed that much grace.
“I’ll have to send Dan my apologies and convince him to change his mind.” A hint of amusement laced his voice.
“It better be a good apology.”
“I’ll send him a card.”
“And a fruit basket.”
Stefan laughed softly. “Done.” He lifted the lid off the nearest dish and sniffed to check on the bone marrow. “Man. Remember when our date nights used to be cheap takeout? Now our private chef serves us amuse-bouche.”
“We can still get cheap takeout.”
He didn’t hear me, or pretended not to. He kissed my cheek instead, and I might as well be putty in his hands. I closed my eyes and breathed in the familiar sandalwood scent that was so uniquely Stefan. “Do you forgive me for tonight?” he asked.
“Yes,” I yielded. Mostly because I didn’t want to let a perfectly good evening go to waste, one we could still salvage. He was leaving the country tomorrow night. I didn’t want to fight during what little time we had together. I playfully elbowed him. “Don’t stand me up again.”
“I won’t.” A kiss landed on my temple. His gaze drifted to the jackets the kids had haphazardly thrown by the door leading to Kai’s side of the house. “Kai picked up the kids?”
“Yup.”
The kids were homesick after only four days of boarding school. They called Stefan, begging him to let them come home early. Stefan said no. Naturally, they called Kai, who was more sympathetic to their plight. He rearranged his schedule to pick them up.
“Kai helped them with their homework and then put them to bed. They’re sleeping over at his side,” I told him.
“I’m glad they’re getting along with Kai.”
Because they are trying to fill the hole you left them with, I wanted to tell him but pursed my lips. I wasn’t the only one Stefan had been neglecting. Since the kids moved into this house, he had spent all of five minutes with them, while Kai had been entertaining them nonstop.
Instead of making him feel bad about it, I focused on salvaging our evening. Tonight was our only date night for a long while. Tomorrow was our family outing, and Stefan was leaving right after. “Can we please eat now? I’m starving.”
I felt him tense behind me. He slowly unwrapped his arms and shuffled away.
Unease coiled inside me. “What’s wrong?”
He ran a hand through his wavy hair. “Um. Kai had Nobu cater for the entire office tonight to celebrate the collaboration with Ruby.” He tried to salvage the tension with a lame joke. “I’ll pop like a balloon if I eat another bite.”
I let the words sink into the pores of my face, not showing my reaction. “Oh.” He ate dinner with Ruby while he forgot his plans with me altogether. “Ruby was there tonight.”
A scene played out in my mind against my will. Ruby in one of her iconic outfits, and the two of them laughing over a sushi boat, bodies angled too close for strictly professional conversation. I closed my eyes to ward off the visual.
We hadn’t shared a meal since I married Kai, yet he had shared numerous meals with Ruby. It felt intentional. Whenever we had plans, Stefan was flooded with responsibilities that trickled down from Kai’s expectations.
I shook my head. I was being paranoid. I doubt Kai had Nobu cater for an entire office just to ensure Stefan was too stuffed to eat with me.
Stefan took a sip of his wine. “Yeah. Ruby wanted to review the itinerary before we flew out.”
My stomach was in knots. I could barely stand the idea of them working late nights and weekends. How was I going to endure the weeks they’d spend abroad together?
His phone vibrated, and he muttered, “Work,” before unlocking it.
“Something important?” I asked tentatively. There was a time when he would’ve told me who was texting him without prompting.
“Um—” he started, but didn’t finish the thought as his phone chimed with more incoming messages.
“Well?” I pressed impatiently.
He shook his head. “Just confirming our car service to LAX. I’d rather have someone else drive so I can do some work during the ride.”
“LAX?” I frowned. The Los Angeles International Airport was four to five hours from Darster, depending on traffic, whereas the nearest airport was only twenty minutes away.
Stefan didn’t glance up from his phone. “Yeah. Kai’s plane is stored at a nearby hangar. Made more sense to drive to LAX and fly out of there.”
Of course, he was taking Kai’s jet to Dubai. Stefan had adjusted to his new life so fast that I couldn’t remember who he used to be in our previous one. Private jets. Personal assistants. Chauffeurs. Parties. Celebrities.
And many, many forgotten plans with his family. Because if he was flying out of LA, he wasn’t planning to spend the day with us tomorrow.
“What about Coastline Kingdom?” I stared at Stefan, at a loss for words.
He froze. I could practically see him sorting through his brain for our plans.
“Your siblings,” I said haughtily. “You must remember them, even if you forgot your wife.”
“Am, come on—”
I put up a hand because I was too hangry for this argument. “You promised to take the kids to Coastline Kingdom tomorrow. Remember?”
He flinched. “Shit. Is that what I told them?”
Fury scratched the walls of my mind. “Yes!”
He leaned back and pressed his palms into his eyes. “It slipped my mind. I can’t. Ruby and I are leaving for LA tonight.”
Ruby again.
“Kai set up a meeting with a potential sponsor tomorrow morning, and then we’re flying out right after.”
I stared at him. “The kids miss you. You promised to spend time with them before you left the country.”
He didn’t meet my eyes. “Can’t you take them? I’m sure Kai would love to go with you.”
I reached for something, anything, that would make the room stop spinning. It ended up being my wine glass. An empty stomach and wine weren’t the best combination, but oh well. “You promised,” I repeated pitifully.
He raked his hand through his hair. “I know. But I can’t blow off this meeting. Please try to understand, Am. I’m doing this for us.”
“Us?” I repeated. As if any of this was what I wanted. “Or are you doing it for yourself?”
He blanched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I dropped my gaze to the wine glass. “Nothing,” I mumbled. “Forget it.”
He waited, but I wouldn’t say more. I couldn’t. He picked up his blazer and ran his hand through his hair, rougher than usual. “I have to shower and pack.”
“You’re leaving right now?” The shock bled into my words. I assumed he’d leave in a couple of hours, not right away. “You just got here. I haven’t even eaten yet.”
Stefan knew how much I hated eating dinner alone.
It gave me traumatic flashbacks of my childhood—a ten-year-old child eating alone in a massive home not unlike this one.
When Stefan proposed, he promised to always keep me company during dinner; it was even in his wedding vows.
How quickly he had forgotten. Then again, we had also vowed fidelity to one another, and that didn’t last a lifetime, did it?
“Can’t you sit with me while I eat? You’re leaving tonight, and I won’t see you for at least a couple of weeks.” I had worked a twelve-hour shift and was starving. But I waited to eat with him anyway. The least he could do was sit with me so we could catch up.
Stefan opened his mouth to answer but was distracted when his phone lit up with more incoming texts. “Uh… Sorry, Am. The car’s picking me up in a few minutes.”
“I’ll eat fast. Fifteen minutes, tops.” I felt pathetic, practically begging my husband to spend fifteen minutes with me.
He sighed. “I wish I could, but I still have to shower and pack. Sorry, baby.” He planted another kiss on my temple. “We’ll do something when I’m back. I love you.”
It was the first time I didn’t have the heart to return the words. “Okay.” I pushed the word out painfully from between my lips, even though I felt the tiny crack of my heart breaking. The sharp pain spread through my chest as he walked away, engrossed in his phone.
I stabbed my fork into the duck, the skin now limp and sad.
I brought it to my lips, but it tasted bland.
I stared at the duck on my plate until my vision blurred, until I could no longer distinguish between food and flesh, between the table and the hands that set it. I dropped the fork with a clank.
How was this my life? I had done everything to claw out of my lonely world. Now, I was back to square one.
Though I had been hungry for hours, I suddenly had no appetite. I left the room and stepped outside for some fresh air. I made my way toward the water. It was neutral territory for our waterfront home, since doors from both wings connected to the beach.
The common space reflected both their tastes.
Stefan had a background in photography and an eye for aesthetics. Two carefully selected sculptures with clean lines created a path to the water, while designer lanterns lit the way. LED lights shone beneath the sculptures to create a sophisticated look.
Meanwhile, Kai had picked out everything that gave the space warmth and comfort. There were two colorful day beds with sheer curtains, a few palm trees, and a couple of fire bowls in case the kids wanted to roast marshmallows.
I left the door slightly ajar and tiptoed outside. The sensory lights came on as I stepped onto the sand.
It wasn’t until I heard the waves crashing and I knew no one was around that I let myself break down into tears.