2. Gideon
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Gideon
“You are such an idiot.”
That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting her to say. With a frown, I stared down at one of my oldest friends. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, you heard me.” She pushed at my chest and rolled her eyes.
“But I’ll say it again because you clearly don’t hear it enough.
You are an idiot. You have quite literally everything going for you.
Billions of dollars in your bank account.
A profitable company that you enjoy running.
Your very own dream house that you helped design, and unlike other men in your position, you have a beautiful wife who looks at you with nothing but love and doesn’t give a shit what you’re worth.
And even more unlike men in your position, you love her.
You adore her. But you failed to take into account that the other people in your life aren’t like you.
They don’t give a shit about authenticity.
They care about wealth and class, and because they can’t target you, they’re targeting her, and you’re fucking letting them.
You are failing to protect your wife, Gideon.
You are failing her, and instead of admitting that, you’re making fucking excuses.
The spark isn’t gone. You’re not putting in the effort, and the absolute worst part is that when you opened your mouth just now, your fucking mother came out. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Her blunt words cut through the dense fog that had overtaken my brain, and I inhaled sharply. “Shit, Meredith.”
“Exactly. You’re shit. I’d like to paint a picture for you.
Your wife, who’s been hiding for the last few months because every time she leaves the house, your colleagues and peers sharpen their claws on her very sweet and open disposition, puts on a gorgeous dress.
She did her hair and her makeup because she’s trying to show up for you.
She’s trying to do what your fucking mother says is her duty, and instead of telling her how beautiful she is and protecting her from all the assholes out there, you’re here complaining that the spark is gone.
If you don’t get your head out of your ass, Gideon, you’re going to lose her, and you’re going to realize that it had nothing to do with spark.
Frankly, I’m surprised she’s still by your side at all.
Go in there and fight for your marriage.
Show her that you’re the same man she married, the one who told her not to be intimidated by your world. ”
There was a strange crack in my chest, and I balled up my fist. “Ellie is a fighter. She doesn’t need me to plan her battles.”
“She is a fighter,” Meredith said softly. “But, and this might surprise you, women get tired of fighting, especially if they’re fighting alone.”
Shit. Had I abandoned my wife? One of the reasons I’d fallen so hard for her was her bottomless energy and optimism despite all those thorns. She was a fighter. She fought for everything, and when I asked her to be my wife, I told her she could stop fighting.
Meredith was right. Ellie was still by my side. I was the one always leaving her because I didn’t want to hear what everyone was saying. I didn’t want to see the way it was slowly wearing her down.
“I’m an idiot.”
“Yes!” Meredith punched me in the shoulder. “There’s the Gideon I know and love. Now go in there, tell your mother to go to hell, take your wife home, and bang her until everyone here can hear her screams of pleasure.”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I would not be telling my mother to go to hell, but I would take my wife home and remind her that I was on her side.
Maybe apologize with a sparkly necklace.
Taking out my phone, I sent a quick message to my assistant to contact my personal shopper and get on that, then stepped off the terrace and back into the gala.
Scanning the ballroom, I looked for signs of Ellie.
I should never have left her alone. Hell, I’d almost left her at the house because I hadn’t realized she’d intended to come with me.
She’d skipped the last few because of various things like headaches and stomachaches.
Somewhere in her excuses, I’d known she was lying, but I’d let her because it was easier than admitting that these events were hell for her.
That I was letting them be hell for her.
A hand wrapped around my arm, but I could tell by the intense floral perfume that invaded my senses that it was not my wife. She preferred lighter and simpler scents. Looking down, I tried not to grimace when I saw Carrie hanging on my arm.
“I have been looking for you all night,” she said breathlessly. “Ask me to dance.”
The daughter of a family friend, Carrie had been clingy before my marriage. I thought the wedding would make her cast her gaze elsewhere, but if anything, she just clung even tighter.
“I can’t right now, Carrie. I’m looking for Ellie. Have you seen her?”
The smile quickly turned to a pout. “A wife who can’t let her husband go for even a few minutes must be so suffocating.”
Irritated, I pried her hands off my arm. “It’s not like that.”
“Well, the last time I saw her, she was slipping through the server entrance with one of the caterers.” A catty smile crossed her face. “Maybe she feels more comfortable with them.”
“Mr. Montgomery?” a voice said loudly. I shook Carrie off and turned to a young woman. “My name is Stacey. I was the one who took your wife to the back. She’d cut herself, and we were trying to manage it so she wouldn’t get blood on her pretty dress.”
“Cut herself? How?”
“One of the wine glasses shattered in her hand. She was fine when she left, but she was looking for you.”
Ellie had hurt herself, and I’d been on the terrace whining like a child. Some fucking husband I was. “She didn’t find me. Do you know where she is now?”
“Looking for Eleanor?” My mother walked up toward me and waved her hand at Stacey.
The caterer couldn’t suppress an eye roll before she walked away, but Victoria didn’t see it.
I almost smirked. “I’m afraid she’s already gone, darling.
She slipped out about twenty minutes ago.
I tried to stop her, but some women just aren’t built for this world.
Come. I have some people I’d like you to talk to. ”
“No.”
My mother’s eyebrows rose, and I realized how little I used that word with her.
My management style had always been to distract her or redirect her, gently postponing whatever agenda she was trying to push on me, but the idea that Ellie had left without me, left without even trying to find me, left me cold.
“My wife is the only thing that I’m concerned about right now, and as part of her family, you should be concerned too.”
Victoria’s chin lifted a fraction. “Gideon, I only meant-”
“I know exactly what you meant. We’ll talk about it later. Goodnight, Mother.” Without a backward thought, I strode to the front toward valet parking.
It took a frustrating half-hour to get to my car and another hour to get home.
Things were too damn quiet when I walked in, and when Lorne materialized in the doorway from the kitchen, there was a strange tightness around his eyes.
As my head of household, Lorne was excellent at hiding all emotions.
That he was showing any now made my gut tighten.
“Where is she?” I asked in a low voice.
“I’m sorry, sir. I couldn’t say-”
Before he’d even finished talking, I was racing up the stairs toward our bedroom.
“Ellie!” I shouted as I shoved open the door.
Her closet doors were open, and clothes were haphazardly piled on the bed.
I instantly recognized them. The clothes she’d moved in with.
The jeans and T-shirts and dresses she’d refused to part with after my mother had taken her shopping for a new wardrobe, one that would befit her new station as my wife.
Those clothes still hung in the closet. Striding across the room, I opened her jewelry case. Everything I’d given her, even the necklace she’d worn tonight, was neatly arranged in the case. Only two rings were missing: her engagement ring and wedding ring.
“Ellie,” I whispered. “No.”
Slamming the door shut on the jewelry case, I pulled out my phone and called her. It rang immediately, and I turned and saw it was on my dresser, along with a note.
My hands shook as I picked it up.
Gideon,
I thought a few days apart might help us discover if the spark really is gone. If you really did choose wrong. Don’t try to find me. I’ll be in touch.
Ellie
She’d heard me. Closing my eyes, I quietly cursed myself.
“She didn’t use Garrison,” Lorne said quietly from the door. “I offered to call her a rideshare, but a friend arrived shortly after she did to pick her up. I didn’t get a name, but the car will show up on the camera.”
“It’ll be Jana,” I said quietly as I read the note again. “Have Garrison bring a car around.”
“Sir?”
I didn’t need a few days to know that I was wrong.
I’d known I was wrong before I left the gala, but now?
Seeing my bedroom empty and knowing that my wife had fled from me with a broken heart?
More than anything, I needed to get her back and reassure her that she was the most important thing in my life.
“I know where Jana lives. I’ll be bringing my wife back tonight.”
“Very good, sir.” With a happy smile, another rarity for Lorne, he disappeared, and I stared at my bed. I’d taken my wife for granted. Not anymore.
***
Two Months Later
“Oh my god. Go home,” Jana hissed. “My boss is going to fucking fire me if you keep camping at my table.”
I held up a cup of coffee. “I’m a paying customer.”
“Christ, Gideon, when was the last time you showered? You stink. You’re going to scare all the other customers off. I told you that I don’t know where she is.”
Same line every day, but I still didn’t believe it.
When I arrived at her house two months ago with every intention of taking my wife home, she wasn’t there.
Jana told me that Ellie was somewhere safe for a few days where she could relax and think, and then she’d be back.
Only after those few days, she didn’t come home.
Jana showed me a text where Ellie said that she needed more time, and there was no other explanation.
She wasn’t at Jana’s grandmother’s house anymore.
It was like she’d disappeared off the face of the planet.
I’d assumed she’d been kidnapped, but there was never a ransom note. Either my wife had left me for good, or she was dead.
“And even if you did know, you wouldn’t tell me?” I asked as I stared at Ellie’s friend. The young woman had a different hair color every week, and she was as snarky as she was sweet. There was a time when she was my biggest champion. Now she hated me.
Or she felt sorry for me. Or maybe both. I wasn’t used to being pitied, but my life had ceased the moment Ellie left me. I hadn’t been to work. I was barely home. I was here until Jana admitted that she knew where my wife was.
“At this point, I would be happy to tell you if that meant you’d go home and shave,” Jana hissed. The bells on the door jingled, and she plastered a big smile on her face as she looked at the new customers. “Welcome to Sunny Daze. Grab a table anywhere, and I’ll be right with you.”
“Sunny Daze,” I echoed. “Feels more like hell to me.”
“Then leave. Honestly, this is just getting sad. Ellie will come home when she’s ready, although I think we both know at this point it’ll be with divorce papers in her hand.”
My phone rang, and I immediately looked at it.
Six weeks ago, I’d hired a private investigator to find her.
Ellie was hardly a mastermind, so the fact that he still didn’t have anything conclusive was troubling.
Either Ellie had been planning her escape for far longer than I’d admit, or my catastrophizing wasn’t catastrophizing at all.
She wasn’t using her credit cards or her bank cards. She didn’t have her phone. Did she have some secret account I didn’t know about? Or a stash of cash? When exactly did my wife decide to leave me?
The caller was my mother, and I immediately silenced it. I wasn’t in the mood for one of her lectures about how I was letting myself get distracted from the important things or how this was a sign to get my marriage annulled. I didn’t even think that was possible after two years.
The phone buzzed again, and I answered it with a growl. “I told you fucking last time that unless you want to support my marriage and my wife, I don’t want to hear anything you have to fucking say.”
There was a pause. “Mr. Montgomery?”
“Stevens.” I closed my eyes. Was it already time for our weekly report when he told me he had nothing and asked if I wanted to pay for him to keep going? My heart ached. “Sorry. I thought you were someone else. Charge me for another week. In fact, just keep charging me until you find her.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Montgomery.”
Was he giving up? A darkness gathered inside of me, and I straightened. “Excuse me?” I asked in a dangerous tone. Was he fucking giving up on her? Someone else who was just willing to let her go?
“I said that won’t be necessary. I found her.”