Mr. Strategic

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“Oh yes, I’m looking forward to warmer weather so I can really get the garden in order.”

That was a lie. But it was the kind of lie you were supposed to tell at these events.

I thought gardening was boring. All our gardening was done by a very capable team of horticulture specialists. But it was the kind of thing a doctor’s wife living a life of luxury was supposed to care about.

And nothing less than perfection was expected for the garden of every massive house in our exclusive gated community.

I turned to another one of the wives. Mrs. Sofia Garcia. 41. Wife of Dr. Jose Garcia. She was a stay-at-home wife. He worked in Cardiology. They both played a lot of tennis and we’d played doubles with them once.

After several years of marriage, these were the kind of details I tried to remember as a good doctor’s wife. Michael was too busy and important to learn all his coworker’s names, let alone their spouse’s names.

Yes, Dr. Carrington is still able to find time to play golf and tennis despite his intensive schedule.

Oh, he is very good at golf. Yes, he’s really good at everything, isn’t he? I love watching him play!

I am so lucky to be married to him.

Everyone loved the great Dr. Carrington.

Everyone wanted to be the great Dr. Carrington.

I smoothed down my soft knee-length red skirt and matching long-sleeved red sweater, paired with red hose and boots and a delicate heart-shaped necklace. I always dressed up on theme for the hospital parties, and today was Valentine’s Day.

Today I had woken up early to bake and decorate six dozen sugar cookies. Of course, we could have afforded to pay a local bakery to do it, but I loved to bake. And I wouldn’t for the world have anything reflect poorly on Michael.

He had a wife who cared about the little things. He always had.

A wife who kept his home a peaceful respite from his intense, demanding job.

I was a very naturally shy person, but I had lots of practice now socializing with his work colleagues at events like this. But it didn’t mean it wasn’t always easier with my confident, assured husband next to me.

Some might even say cocky. Arrogant. But not in his hearing. Because he could always back it up.

And wasn’t it his confidence that made him such an exceptional surgeon?

But where was Michael now?

He should have met me at the party already. By thirty minutes ago, actually.

Had he even gotten anything to eat for lunch?

My husband was always so busy that I was happy to make sure he had everything he needed, everything he was too busy to do himself.

He must be in his office.

I made him a plate of food as I always did, and went to check.

The hospital hallways were dark and quiet as I passed by all the offices. Michael had one of the biggest ones, a corner office with a huge view of downtown St. Angeles.

The door was closed but he often did that to work on something undisturbed. And I knew he didn’t have any patient appointments this morning.

So I knocked gently, then opened it.

And Michael was there, with his back to me. He was standing up at his desk, leaning over one of the hospital nurses.

For a moment, I thought,

Maybe she’s sick

Maybe he’s helping her

And my natural doormat tendencies took over and I almost squeaked out an apology and left.

But the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach somehow kept the door open. And then I saw that her pink top was pulled down to her waist, her skirt bunched up around her thighs.

For some reason I had to see everything to believe it was real, every sick and disgusting detail, like the way she was spread back on his desk with her thighs wide, looking down at where their bodies connected, her big, tanned breasts bouncing with each thrust.

It was Alix. My brain automatically catalogued her face and details, like I always had because Michael said he wasn’t good with names. Couldn’t be bothered to remember them.

Alix, age 25. Surgical nurse. Married to Dr. Reuben Ben-David, age 55. Chief of Surgery.

I was so close I could even see the slick wetness on her shaved pussy, see exactly the shape her pussy made as it stretched to accommodate my husband, her thighs dripping wet with her arousal.

And her face looked thoroughly fucked, too, a strand of her blonde hair stuck to her face. Her eyes looked glazed with pleasure.

A hairband with two red hearts bounced up and down on her head with each thrust.

Alix’s short skirt was bunched up in my husband’s fist, as my eyes were drawn to the muscles flexing in his lean strong arm, and when he twisted around to see who was at the door, his cock came a few inches out of her pussy. I saw it was slick, the condom dripping wet with her arousal.

My husband Michael was one of the most in-demand surgeons in the country. Difficult cases would get flown to California just for the possibility of getting operated on by him. He was impossibly cool and effective under pressure.

And his expression didn’t change when he saw me.

He had always been the most intimidatingly beautiful man I’d ever seen. When he came up to me in a study room at college to ask me out, I was so frightened and confused. Why was this man, this man I knew all the girls in class wanted, paying attention to me?

But it didn’t ever occur to me to say no. I was riveted, beguiled, under his spell.

I wouldn’t have dared. I had never denied him one single thing. Not then and never since.

My husband was very tall and lean, with broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, short immaculately styled golden blonde hair, and bright blue eyes in a face all sharp planes and jawline.

“What are you doing here, Lavender?” he asked, his deep voice stern and precise.

“Your l-lunch,” I said, holding out the plate, my cheeks flaming as I stuttered over the words.

“This is not what you think,” he said. “Leave it and close the door. I’ll be out in a minute.”

And, as always, it didn’t occur to me to disobey him, setting the dish down with a clatter, and then backing out on shaky legs into the hallway.

My hands shook so hard I had to flatten them against my skirt as I walked numbly down the hall.

I was dressed like the perfect respectable doctor’s wife, and he was having sex with a nurse in a miniskirt.

What did “it’s not what you think” mean? How could it not be what I think? I screamed to myself.

Even if it was only in my head, it felt good to scream.

What excuse could there possibly be for his behavior?

None.

I stopped, indecisive, to look at myself in the mirror.

Turtleneck, long sleeves, a long chestnut brown braid, curls falling out to surround a little pale heart-shaped face with serious gray eyes and pink lips.

Alix’s lips had been much fuller, though, her figure much more. . . sexy than my small breasts and slim hips.

Michael finding some other woman more attractive was what I had dreaded and denied and tried to convince myself was just an insecure fear for so long, that to have it confirmed felt. . . hollow somehow.

What do I do now?

I stumbled outside and for a few minutes I stood indecisively in the tulip garden outside his hospital. People streamed in and out of the door without looking at me. I felt invisible, unnoticed, just a wisp of a ghost in my own life.

I supposed this meant he would want a divorce.

Even the idea of a split forced all the breath from my lungs and I struggled to breathe.

Who was I without him?

I had been with Michael Carrington ever since I was 22 years old, been his sweet, devoted wife through MCATs, eight years of med school and residency.

And all through his intensely meteoric rise as a surgeon, until at 32 he was taking on the riskiest cases with an absolute godlike confidence in his own abilities.

When people met me, or came over to our house for dinner, they always said things like, “A children’s librarian? That’s so adorable!” and “Oh, Dr. Carrington, with your high-stress job, you’re so lucky to have a wife who keeps your home so calm and relaxing.”

I worshipped him, loved my husband with a fierce, desperate devotion that seemed shameful and embarrassing now.

I’m sure it was obvious to everyone.

Who knew about this affair? How many people had lied to me? How many people smiled at me when they saw me, wondering secretly if I knew my husband was unfaithful?

So I waited there, feeling like a fool, until Michael walked out.

You wouldn’t have thought he had just been caught committing adultery in his office by the way he gestured me to follow him as he walked toward his Ferrari.

I followed behind as Michael opened the door for me, then walked around the car, his motions unhurried and calm.

Like it was just another day.

“Did you have a nice meal?” he asked as he slid into the driver’s seat.

Did I have a nice meal? I wanted to scream.

How could he even talk like that?

My fingers tightened on the door handle. I wanted to roll out and run away from him.

“When do you want to go to the lawyer?” I asked as the ignition surged to life.

“Why would we need the lawyer?” Michael replied in his even voice.

“You know.” I said, swallowing hard. “For the divorce.”

Michael didn’t look at me, his hands occupied with smoothly pulling his car into the road.

His profile was expressionless, a study in white marble, perfect lines of stillness, a long, strong throat.

We lived close to the hospital in the most expensive gated subdivision in town.

And that’s her house, I thought as we drove by the big sprawling beige mansion where Alix and Dr. Ben-David lived. Their walls were high, elegant falls of ivy a pop of color among all the cream and brown accents.

How many times had Michael fucked her? Did he stop by her house after work? Did they fuck against that wall? Had he ever fucked her in our home?

Did her husband know?

“This is what I meant when I said it isn’t what you think,” Michael said sternly. “I don’t want you to worry about what you think you saw or take things out of context.”

When I said nothing, my hands worrying the soft fabric of my skirt, he went on.

“I don’t want to divorce you, Lavender.”

“You don’t?”

My stomach twisted with anxiety.

“Of course not. I’m very happy with our life together. Aren’t you?”

Was I?

“But—” I began, feeling strangled.

“No buts,” Michael said firmly as he pulled into our driveway. “This changes nothing.”

This Ferrari was my husband’s baby, and after he carefully glided it into the garage, he turned to look at me.

“What you saw at the office has nothing to do with you and does not affect our life together at all. So put it out of your mind.”

And without another word Michael opened his door.

I felt frozen, had to force my legs to move to get out of the car as he came around to my side.

How was I supposed to put this out of my mind?

As my husband went upstairs to shower, I moved to start dinner, pulling the marinated steak out to pan sear it.

He didn’t want to divorce me.

My initial gush of relief was quickly replaced with a low thrum of fear and uncertainty.

He didn’t want to divorce me, but. . . what now?

Was he going to stop? He said nothing about stopping.

I felt numb.

Michael came downstairs in a white polo shirt and navy slacks, looking tall and unworried, and I moved to set dinner on the table.

He sat down and uncorked the wine, asking in his cold, precise voice how my earlier shift at the library had gone.

I wasn’t even sure what I said.

I tried to answer normally, even though the same things ran through my head.

Michael and Alix

For how long?

Had he ever brought her to our home?

After dinner, we sat in the living room together and Michael put on classical music and then a replay of some professional golf game.

We walked upstairs for bed, Michael’s hand resting coolly on my lower back. Like everything was normal!

“Shouldn’t we—talk?” I asked in a small voice. “About your—affair?”

“It’s not an affair,” Michael said, pulling off his polo shirt.

Shadows illuminated the finely-honed perfection of his body, and my breath caught as I tightened my fingers around my wedding ring.

I should scream at him—rage—demand he leave the house. But I felt frozen, uncertain, caught in the hypnotic web of my husband’s confidence.

Then we had sex, and afterwards I lay there as he slept beside me, one lean strong arm on the curve of my hip.

My husband is cheating on me

He’d said nothing about stopping.

Given me no excuses or reasons.

Was I too boring, too quiet?

I knew Alix pretty well, might have even considered her a friend.

She was outgoing and bubbly, confident and assertive.

Everything I wasn’t.

But there was only one conclusion I could come to.

I was desperately, painfully in love with my husband.

But Michael didn’t love me.