19. Clay
CLAY
“H ave you seen Mira? I’m looking for Mira.
” Once again, I got nothing but blank looks.
It was getting harder to play this off like it was no big deal.
The fact I couldn’t find my wife on one of the biggest nights of my life, when I gave my speech with the expectation of having her nearby.
Instead, I had the misfortune of watching her leave the ballroom with that fucker Matteo behind her.
Now, I was supposed to smile and shake hands and act like there was nothing out of the ordinary going on.
There was no sign of either of them now. Did she leave with him? She wouldn’t.
Was that what I needed to tell myself? I didn’t do uncertainty or doubt myself. So why the fuck was I so jumpy, looking over the tops of the heads around me, hoping to find her?
Why the hell would she leave and not tell me?
I checked my phone and found it was only two minutes later than the last time I checked.
Nothing from her. I had already sent three messages asking where she was, when she would be back, to at least tell me what happened.
Was it an emergency with her father? She had seemed a little testy and distracted.
Was there something she didn’t want to tell me until after the party ended?
I was painfully aware of the ring box in my jacket pocket as I fought to make small talk, trying to hold it together until the event wrapped up.
I heard a few people ask about Mira in passing, so someone other than me had noticed her absence.
Where the fuck would she go? She knew how important tonight was.
I thought it was important to her too. She looked so incredible tonight and seemed to be enjoying herself while she was chatting with guests from the former Rinaldi properties. Where the hell would she run off to?
It was almost grotesque, putting on a show like this, pretending to enjoy the music and the dancing going on while I silently panicked.
We had spent enough on the damn party, but enjoying it was the last thing on my mind now.
Was this some kind of game? A call to the hospital told me Alessandro’s condition was unchanged and that Mira had not paid a visit.
I could check that possibility off my list.
Where, then? Home? Why would she ignore me like this? Why would she leave with him?
I’d be damned if I waited another minute to find out. While I didn’t have the fucker’s phone number, I knew where he lived. It seemed like an important piece of information, just in case I ever needed to track him down.
Thankfully, a handful of people were already on their way out by the time I ducked from the ballroom.
Maria, my events coordinator, bumped into me on my way out.
“Everything‘s fine, but I have to go check on something. Please make my excuses.” I barely gave her time to nod in agreement before I went through the lobby and out the door. There was time for one more call to Mira as my driver brought the car around. “You know, I’m worried about you. For future reference, when a person vanishes with no warning or explanation, they worry the people around them. Please, if you get this, call me back. Text me. I don’t care, so long as you get in contact. ”
After taking out my frustration on her voicemail, I got in the car and pulled up Matteo’s address.
The driver knew better than to ask why he needed to take me to that particular location in the Hollywood Hills.
My stomach turned, my heart pounded, and I hoped for Matteo’s sake that I would not find my wife there.
If I had to call the LAPD to track their cars, I would.
She wasn’t going to walk away. I wouldn’t let her, especially not with him.
Not when I had her fucking engagement ring in my pocket.
His house was as tacky and ornate as I imagined, complete with plaster statues of lions flanking the open front gate.
From what I knew of him and his family, they were a long-standing wine dynasty.
Matteo was the loser son riding his ancestor’s coattails with no ambitions of his own. And she would leave the gala with him?
A line of sports cars was parked in the front courtyard, each more ostentatious than the next.
There was no way of telling if he had taken one of them out, but lights were on throughout the mansion—a modern monstrosity.
Its walls were mostly glass that allowed me a look inside.
The man clearly didn’t value his privacy much.
He probably wanted people to show up and watch him parade around, surrounded by wealth he did nothing to earn.
I was climbing out of the car when I spotted him descending from the second floor. His unsteady gait told me what I needed to know about his level of sobriety. By the time he reached the first floor, I was pounding against the door with the side of my fist.
There was so much I wanted to say. So much he needed to hear. I settled for lunging once he opened the door, taking him by his shirt and hauling him in close. Yes, he was drunk, the odor of whiskey oozing from his pores. Through gritted teeth, I demanded, “Where is she?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Fuck you.” Pivoting, I slammed him against the open door. “Where is my wife, you cocksucker? I saw you two together in the ballroom. Where did you go with her?”
When he made the mistake of snickering like this was all a joke, another slam against the door left him groaning. “Easy, caveman. I get it. You’re the big alpha. We all shiver in your presence.” I didn’t know what enraged me more, his smirking face or the drunken sarcasm in every word.
“I’m going to give you five seconds to tell me where I can find her.”
“Or what?” he taunted, laughing softly. “Tell me. My lawyer will love to hear it.”
His lawyer. This fucking asshole. “Why did you come to the party, and where is Mira? Don’t tell me you don’t know. You’ve been trailing around after her for weeks. You had no business being at the gala. You went there for her. So where is she now?”
“How the fuck would I know?” It was only possible for him to shake me off because his question and the obvious sincerity behind it surprised me.
“No shit?” I asked, skeptical but inclined to believe him at the same time.
“No shit.” He straightened out his shirt, then ran a hand through his hair like the preening prick he was.
“Maybe she got sick of watching you take credit for what she worked so damn hard for. Ever think of that? No, I guess not,” he concluded, folding his arms and staring at me like he had any business judging my life. “There’s nothing in it for you.”
“You can get fucked if you think I’m going to listen to a single word of what you have to say.” I snarled. “Especially when it’s shit you don’t have the first clue about.”
His mouth twisted in a smirk. “I have more of a clue than you know. All it took was a lot of money and your signature on a marriage license, and now you get to play the big hero. Standing up there, giving speeches, getting your picture taken. Like there’s something heroic about marrying a stranger to get ahead in business. Have you ever once thought about her?”
“I do not need you to remind me to think about my wife,” I fired back. “She’s not yours, and she never will be.” Tipping my head to the side, I asked, “What? Is that what you were hoping? That you could get her away from me?”
“I didn’t think there was anything to get her away from,” he sneered. “Nothing real, anyway. But you lucked out. She’s committed to the bit and wants to ‘make it work.’” His sarcastic air quotes served as punctuation.
The world stopped for a moment. I couldn’t keep up with what he was telling me. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Wait. You’re supposed to be some big genius or something, and you couldn’t figure out what I just said?” He leaned his head forward and spoke slowly, enunciating clearly. “She. Wants. To make it work.”
This fucker. Snarling, I asked, “And how the hell would you know that?”
“She told me so.” He checked his watch. “Two hours ago. Did you ever stop and think maybe you did something to run her off? Like maybe she got so tired of watching you take credit for everything she did, she changed her mind and walked out? Because that’s the kind of thing Mira would do,” he concluded with a superior air about him.
He stood straighter, if still a little unsteady, looking down at me from over his nose.
“You don’t know the first thing about her, but you have the nerve to come in here acting all possessive?
Give me a break. As far as I’m concerned, the two of you deserve each other.
At least you’re honest about the asshole you are.
She only pretends to be smart. If she changed her mind and walked out, maybe it’s the first smart thing she’s done in weeks. ”
Fuck this. I didn’t give a shit who his lawyer was or what they thought they could do. Nothing had ever felt as satisfying as pulling my fist back and smashing it against his jaw.
He fell back against the door, sliding to the floor, dazed, blinking rapidly. I had the pleasure of standing over him, fists clenched, my chest heaving. “Call her again, text her again, touch her again, and I will end you. Do you understand me? You will be over.”
I had to be satisfied with leaving him the way he was, sprawled out against the door, while I hurried back to the car.
What was I supposed to do now? “Home,” I decided, checking my phone again, still disappointed.
If she wasn’t with him, where else could she be?
She told him she wanted to give us a chance.
Was that a lie to get him off her back? Did she mean it?
How could she if she then walked out with no warning, no consideration?
Her car was gone. That was the first thing I noticed on arrival.
She must’ve gotten an Uber back here. My heart hammered against my ribs as I ran into the house, taking the stairs two at a time and running for her room.
We shared my bed, but she still kept her things at the other end of the second floor.
Had she taken everything? That would be impossible.
There wasn’t enough time. I was losing my shit, but what other choice did I have? She was gone.
Her toiletries were missing from the shower and the vanity in her bathroom. I glanced around the room, grunting in frustration and dissatisfaction before heading back toward the door.
Until I saw something in the wastebasket that stopped me in my tracks.
I’d only ever seen them in stores, on the rare occasion I was shopping for myself rather than having someone do it for me. I moved like I was in a dream. Holding out a hand, I pulled the pregnancy test box out of the basket, then found what she had left under it—the test itself.
A test with two lines in the little window. Nobody had to tell me what that meant. Still, I checked the back of the box just in case I was wrong.
I wasn’t. The test was positive, and unless someone had broken in here and used Mira’s bathroom, it belonged to her. She was supposed to be on the pill. Hell, I had been in the room while she took it on more than one occasion while we were away. Yet the test was glaringly positive.
I almost fell against the sink when reality hit me. I was going to be a father.
And now everything made sense. She didn’t want to drink.
At dinner last week, she’d wanted to talk about all the things Alessandro told her about family and falling in love despite how things had started out between him and his wife.
I blamed her train of thought on him pressuring her, but now I understood she was trying to feel me out, to see how I would react to the idea of us being real.
It was all in front of me, and I didn’t see it.
A baby. My child, our child. No matter how I looked at it, it was no less terrifying…
… and incredible.
No, this was not something I had ever imagined for myself, but I had never pictured being married either.
I had never imagined requiring a person’s presence in my life.
I never imagined looking forward to seeing the same woman at the end of every day.
Standing beside her, desperate to provide comfort in her lowest moments.
Tonight, when I finished that speech and looked for her, it was because I wanted to make sure everyone in that room knew how much we all owed her.
Even the people who had never worked for her until now were beginning to learn how special she was.
She had been carrying our baby, probably convinced I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a family after everything I’d said.
But she told Matteo she wanted to make it work, so why the hell had she left? Someone must’ve said something. Maybe it was me. Maybe I had said or done the wrong thing that set her off. I had to believe she meant what she said to him. I needed to.
Slowly, the fog of shock wore away, leaving behind it a clarity I hadn’t possessed.
I turned toward the mirror, setting the test down on the counter, staring at myself.
There had never been a challenge placed in my way that I hadn’t crushed, and this wouldn’t be an exception.
Not when my wife and my child were at stake. I would find her.
Something told me I knew exactly where to look.
The trick would be winning her back. I couldn’t storm in like some stunted caveman. That wouldn’t work, not on her. I had to find another way.
And when it hit me.
I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before.