Chapter 1
SAY WHAT?
The front door opens and Randall backs through it carrying two white paper bags with the twisted handles, and oh my God—I can smell the garlic from across the living room.
“Is that Yiayia’s?” I set down my book and sit up on the couch.
“Moussaka, extra béchamel.” He grins at me over the tops of the bags. “And the roasted lemon potatoes you like.”
“You didn’t.”
“I absolutely did.” He kicks the door shut with his heel and carries the bags into the kitchen.
I’m already off the couch, already pulling plates down from the cabinet.
My mouth is literally watering—Yiayia’s makes the best moussaka in the city and they don’t deliver, which means he drove twenty minutes out of his way to pick it up.
“What’s the occasion?” I ask.
“No occasion.” He sets the bags on the counter and starts unloading the containers.
He’s still in his work clothes—navy suit, the Ferragamo tie I bought him last Christmas, sleeves rolled to the elbow.
His hair has that end-of-day look where it falls across his forehead instead of staying swept back.
“I drove past it on the way home and thought of you.”
God, I love this man. I pop open the moussaka container and the steam rises, rich with cinnamon and lamb. “Okay, you’ve officially won husband of the day.”
“Only today?” He opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of white wine. “I’m slipping.”
I laugh. He pours two glasses and slides one across the counter to me. Our fingers brush on the stem, and he holds my gaze for a second with that half-smile he does, the one that still gets me somewhere low in my stomach even after six years.
“How was the bookstore?” he asks, loosening his tie.
“Slow. Natasha and I reorganized the entire front display because she’s convinced that face-out shelving increases impulse buys by forty percent. Ten years of friendship and the woman still thinks she can run my store better than I can.”
“Does it?”
“She has a spreadsheet.”
He laughs—a real one, the kind that crinkles the corners of his eyes—and pulls forks from the drawer and hands me one.
I take a bite. The béchamel is perfect, salty and rich, and the lamb underneath it practically melts.
We eat standing up at the counter because we’re both too hungry to bother with the table.
“We should do this more,” I say. “Have dinner together. Like, actually plan it.”
“We should.” He nods, chewing. “Things have just been crazy with the Blankenship account. Once that closes—”
“I know, I know. Once it closes.” I wave my fork at him. “I’m serious, though. What if we did a date night? Like a real one. Every week, same night, we put it on the calendar and protect it.”
He tilts his head. “What, like a standing reservation somewhere?”
“Or cooking together. Or takeout on the couch with a movie. It doesn’t have to be fancy. I just want us to have one night where you’re not checking your phone and I’m not thinking about inventory at the store.”
“I like that.” He reaches over and squeezes my hand on the counter. His palm is warm from the food container. “Let’s do it. Pick a night.”
“Thursdays.”
“Thursdays.” He says it like he’s locking it in. “Done.”
I squeeze back. We’ve been so busy lately—his hours at the firm have been brutal, and when he gets home he’s tired, and I’m tired from the store, and we end up on opposite ends of the couch staring at our phones until one of us falls asleep.
But right now with garlic on my fingers and wine in my hand and my husband actually looking at me—this.
More of this. We just need to carve out the space.
His phone buzzes on the counter. He glances at the screen and picks it up, reads something, types a quick reply.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He sets the phone down and lets out a breath. “Actually—I just found out I have a dinner tonight. David’s hosting the Blankenship Group at Whitfield’s. Last minute.”
My fork stops halfway to my mouth. “Tonight?”
“I know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “David just confirmed. It’s the whole leadership team—I can’t skip it.”
I put my fork down. Third time this week. “That’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. We just said Thursdays.” He steps around the counter and puts his hands on my shoulders. I can smell his cologne—something woodsy and warm—and underneath it, him. “I’ll make it up to you. Next Thursday. Real date night. I’ll book somewhere good.”
“You better.” I give him a half-smile, and I mean it. I’m disappointed but not mad. His job does this sometimes. A lot of the time, lately. But that’s how finance works, and the Blankenship account is huge for the firm. He’s not blowing me off—he’s doing his job.
“I need to shower and change.” He’s already moving toward the stairs. “David said dress to impress—they’re bringing their CEO.”
“The Tom Ford?”
“The Tom Ford.” He pauses on the bottom step and looks back at me. “Save me the rest of the potatoes?”
“No promises.”
He grins and takes the stairs two at a time. I hear the bedroom door, then the shower running through the ceiling above me.
I eat another lemon potato and lean against the counter.
The kitchen smells incredible and the wine is good and twenty minutes ago my husband was standing right here making me laugh.
I want more of that. I need to stop waiting for it to happen and make it happen.
Next Thursday—I’ll cook his favorite, that rosemary chicken he always raves about.
Light the candles we never use. Put my phone in a drawer.
Remind us both what we’re like when we slow down enough to actually pay attention to each other.
The spark isn’t gone. It’s just buried under schedules and deadlines and the million little things that pile up when two people stop being intentional. That’s fixable. I can fix that.
I miss my grandmother’s cabin. If we still had it, I’d tell Randall we’re going up for a long weekend.
No phones, no email, just the two of us on the dock with coffee, watching the sun come up through the birch trees the way we used to when we were dating.
But the upkeep was killing us—Randall ran the numbers and the property taxes alone were more than we could justify.
So we sold it last year, and he invested the money for our future, for the kids we talk about having. The smart call. The responsible call.
I still dream about that dock sometimes. The water at dawn, flat and silver, before anyone else was awake.
The shower cuts off upstairs. I cap the moussaka and put it in the fridge. The potatoes, I’m keeping.
Randall comes back downstairs in the Tom Ford and a fresh shirt, hair still damp, cologne reapplied. The man cleans up annoyingly well.
“How do I look?” He holds out his arms.
“Like a man who’s about to make a CEO feel very comfortable spending money.”
He kisses my forehead. Warm. He lingers a half-second longer than a peck, and my eyes close without me deciding to close them. “Don’t wait up,” he says. “These things always run late.”
I straighten his tie. The silk is smooth under my fingers. “Go impress them.”
The front door opens. Shuts. The deadbolt clicks from the outside. The Audi hums to life in the driveway, fades down the street, and then—quiet.
I take my wine to the couch and pick up my book. My phone buzzes—Natasha, sending a photo of the face-out display with the caption 40% BABY. I laugh and type back a string of applause emojis.
Next Thursday. Rosemary chicken. Candles. I’m going to make my husband remember why he married me.
Three hard raps on the front door.
I’m in the kitchen, shoes off, still winding down from my shift. The knock startles me. I set my glass on the counter and pad into the hallway.
Through the side window, I see a man who makes me catch my breath.
He’s so achingly ruggedly handsome I don’t know what to do.
Tall, broad shoulders, dark jacket. Not a delivery driver.
So painfully handsome my core clenches with desire, and I immediately feel guilty for how one glance at this man is making me wet.
I open the door.
Work boots, broken in. Carhartt jacket, dusty at the forearms. He’s holding a manila folder and he’s not smiling.
“Mrs. Logan?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Brendan Frye.” He shifts his weight. “I’m looking for your husband. He owes me forty-two thousand dollars.”
I almost laugh. This has to be a mistake. “Excuse me?”
“Forty-two thousand.” He opens the manila folder and pulls out a stack of invoices, angling the top sheet toward me.
Columns of numbers, line items, a job address.
“I did a full renovation on a condo unit at 814 Lakewood Terrace. High-end job—custom cabinetry, imported tile, the whole nine. Your husband contracted the work.”
“Randall contracted a renovation?” That doesn’t even make sense. Why would Randall be renovating a condo?
“Through an LLC. Millstone Holdings.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“Millstone Holdings,” he repeats, like he wants to make sure I’ve got it. “He paid in installments during the build, but the final draw—forty-two thousand—never came through.”
“There has to be a mistake.” It comes out more firmly than I expect. “My husband works in finance. He doesn’t—he doesn’t renovate condos.”
“No mistake.” His jaw tightens. “I’ve sent invoices. Called. Emailed the LLC’s listed address. Nothing back. So I pulled the permit filings, and your home address was listed as the registered agent’s mailing address.” He looks at me. “The registered agent is your husband.”
Our address. Our home address. On paperwork I’ve never seen, for a company I’ve never heard of.
Why wouldn’t he tell me about this?
“I don’t know anything about an LLC called Millstone Holdings,” I say. “And I don’t know anything about a condo at—”
“814 Lakewood Terrace. Unit four.”
“I don’t know that address.”
He goes quiet. His eyes narrow, and I can feel him rethinking this whole conversation—rethinking me. Whatever he expected when he knocked, it wasn’t a wife who doesn’t know.
“Okay,” he says. Slower now. More careful. “Your husband personally authorized every payment through this LLC. He approved the materials. He walked through the unit during the renovation. I did premium work for him, Mrs. Logan. And he stiffed me on the last forty-two grand.”
He walked through the unit. Randall was physically there.
At a condo I didn’t know existed, managing a renovation I didn’t know was happening, through a company I didn’t know he had.
How many times did he come home from one of those late nights and climb into bed next to me, and this was where he’d been?
No. Stop. There’s an explanation. Maybe it’s an investment property.
Maybe it’s something through his firm that he couldn’t talk about—some kind of client thing, a confidentiality issue.
Randall handles all of our finances. There are parts of his work I don’t understand and never have. That’s always been fine. I trust him.
But an LLC with our home address on it. That’s not a client thing. That’s personal.
“How long ago was this?” I ask.
“The job wrapped about three months back. I’ve been chasing the invoice ever since.”
Three months. And however long the renovation itself took before that.
“Why are you coming to me?” I ask. “Why not go to his office?”
“Because this was the address on the LLC filing. And because I’ve tried everything else.” He pulls a business card from inside the folder and holds it out. “If your husband wants to settle this before I involve my lawyer, he’s got my number.”
I take the card. Brendan Frye, General Contractor. A phone number. An email.
“The LLC name,” I say. “One more time.”
“Millstone Holdings.”
“And the condo address.”
“814 Lakewood Terrace. Unit four.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I close the door before he can see whatever is happening to my face.
I lock the deadbolt and lean against the wall.
Randall would tell me if he bought an investment property.
He would. We don’t keep things from each other—that’s not how we work.
When we sold my grandmother’s cabin, we sat down together and talked about it.
He showed me the numbers, explained why the upkeep didn’t make sense, laid out how investing the proceeds would set us up for the future.
He was honest with me. He’s always been honest with me.
So why do I have a contractor’s business card in my hand for a condo renovation I didn’t know about?
He wouldn’t keep something like this from me.
Not something involving this much money.
Forty-two thousand dollars just for the unpaid balance—how much was the total renovation?
How much did the condo itself cost? Randall manages our money, all of it.
He takes care of the investments, the accounts, everything.
I’ve never worried about it because I’ve never had a reason to.
But I don’t actually see any of it. I don’t check the accounts. I don’t look at the statements. I’ve never asked to because why would I? He’s my husband.
I push off the wall and walk into the kitchen. My phone is on the counter where I left it.
Maybe there’s a simple answer. Maybe I’ll ask Randall tonight and he’ll explain the whole thing and I’ll feel ridiculous for standing here with my back against the wall like the floor just shifted.
Maybe it’s something boring—a tax strategy, a side investment, something his financial advisor set up that he forgot to mention.
But he didn’t forget. You don’t forget an entire LLC. You don’t forget authorizing payments for months. You don’t forget walking through a condo while someone installs imported tile on your dime.
He chose not to tell me. That’s different from forgetting.
I pick up my phone and type 814 Lakewood Terrace into the search bar.