Chapter 5 – Cora
CORA
Adrian is waiting for me when we get home. He’s actually pacing the foyer when we come through the door.
He tells me to take the children to the nursery, that Vera will watch them, and to meet him immediately in the library.
His voice is controlled, but he’s obviously pissed.
He was at work when I left the house. Pence must have ratted me out as soon as I arrived at Drake Chambers’s office for him to have made it back to Connecticut by now.
Adrian is still wearing his work clothes minus the jacket. His shirt is stark white, his pressed wool slacks are dark gray, and his burgundy tie is understated. Except for the five o’clock shadow, which he usually deals with in the shower when he gets home, he looks completely put together.
I’m musky from the anxiety sweats, rumpled from the long car ride, and exhausted. I consider ignoring him and crashing, but I don’t dare. He owns me. He has all along, and I had no idea. No wonder he wasn’t ashamed to be caught with another woman.
I take my time settling Pearl in with her TV show and nursing Winnie before I throw some water on my face and head downstairs. My frayed nerves hum just below the surface.
When I enter the library, he’s standing by the fireplace, staring into the flames with his hand braced on the mantel.
The whole room looks like it should be in one of those historical homes that let you pay money to poke your nose around.
The impressive desk is oak. The books on the shelves are leather bound, and the ladder is on a brass rail.
The art hanging from the walls is signed by names even I recognize, and everything else is made by names I’ve learned since I’ve been with Adrian—the rug is Jamshidi, the chandelier is Baccarat, the marble mantel is Marmoso.
When I asked Adrian to tell me about everything, I thought I was learning about his world, being a good wife. He must’ve thought I was appraising the furnishings.
He straightens and turns to me, his jaw tightening. “Sit,” he says, gesturing to the overstuffed leather sofa. I guess I’m getting talked to again.
This must be what being called to the principal’s office feels like. I never got in trouble in school; I got in trouble for not going.
I sit. He remains standing and looms over me, his hands on his hips.
“Do you want to tell me what you thought you were doing at Drake Chambers’s office?” His dark eyes flash. Oh, he’s mad mad.
I’m surprised. He’s the ruthless business guy. Isn’t he always three steps ahead of everybody else? And lawyering up is a predictable move, isn’t it? Maybe he’s just annoyed that I had the audacity to test the bars of my cage.
“Want to tell me what your director of finance’s pussy feels like?” I snap back.
His eyebrows fly up in genuine surprise. I don’t cuss around him, and I’m never vulgar, but that’s a choice I made, not my nature. He knows nothing about who I really am.
There were times that I was tempted to let him in—a few times in bed late at night, or when we tossed a coin in the Trevi fountain on our honeymoon, or walked on that deserted beach in Crete—but I didn’t know how.
Maybe I wasn’t emotionally stunted after all.
Maybe I just still have a working sense of self-preservation.
His face hardens. “Our agreement is airtight. You’re wasting your time.”
“Does your director of finance like to go airtight?”
His nostrils flare. He really didn’t like that one. “Do you think we can have a civil conversation?”
“No. I think you’re going to tell me how things are, and I’m going to eat shit.” I draw my heels up, propping them on the edge of the sofa, and wrap my arms around my knees. “Well, go ahead, boss man. Tell me how things are going to be.”
He glares at me, exhaling slowly. “You’re making this needlessly difficult.”
“I’m sitting here like you said. I’m listening. Go on.”
He pauses for a moment, the cords in his neck straining, his hands flexing, and then he says, “To be clear, I am not now, nor will I ever be, open to renegotiating our agreement. Chambers is wasting his time and my money. But in the interest of moving forward, I’m willing to entertain a one-time settlement. To put this thing to bed.”
I’m about to make another smart remark about putting things to bed, but I stop myself. I want to know what he thinks would smooth this over. I’m not really sure why he’s bothering. He knows that he has me over a barrel. I’d never walk away from my own children. Nothing in the world could make me.
I raise an eyebrow.
He swallows. “I’m prepared to deposit ten million in your account now and another ten million when—” He pauses to cough. “When normal marital relations resume.”
“You mean when I let you fuck me again?” Never happening. Not in this lifetime.
He closes his eyes for a beat and then levels me with his sharkish gaze. “When normal marital relations and family life resume.”
“What is normal family life?”
“Dinners. Breakfast. Outings. Events.” He shrugs. “That sort of thing. And my people will be dealing with Brian McDonough, not Drake Chambers.”
I set aside for a second how he says Drake Chambers with air quotes like his name is an alias. “So twenty million dollars to go back to the way things were?”
He nods curtly.
I snicker and wince, the sound too close to hysterical. “That was an expensive fuck that I interrupted.”
His eyes narrow. “You’re an expensive wife.”
“And imagine, I had no idea how much I was worth.” Something Drake said pops into my head. “Where is my money? Where’s my payment for Pearl and Winnie?”
His lip curls in distaste. “You didn’t get paid for our children.”
I’m not splitting hairs with him. He knows what I’m talking about. “Where did my seventy million dollars go? And the money for staying with you for five years?”
“It’s with our brokerage. You are more than welcome to audit the account at any time.”
“Who is our brokerage?”
“Gordon Schwartz.”
“I want to talk to him.”
“Gordon Schwartz is a firm, not a person.”
“Then I want to talk to them.”
“You’re more than welcome. You’re not being intentionally kept in the dark. You’ve never shown an interest in financial matters before.”
“Yeah. Funny, that.” I stare at him. “I’ve really been asleep at the wheel.”
Backlit by the crackling fire, his inky hair gleams and his tan skin glows like some kind of dark romance demon lover.
A ghost of a feeling twists in my lower belly.
I used to catch sight of him sometimes in moments like this, when the light would catch him in a way that made him look almost godlike, and my lungs would stop working.
That’s over now. He’s not a demon. He’s the devil, and he’s trying to buy my soul.
“I don’t want your money,” I say.
He arches an eyebrow like he doesn’t believe me. I dig my fingers into my crossed arms. He thinks he knows everything.
“What do you want then?” he asks evenly, his voice betraying not a sliver of a doubt that I have a price.
I guess I did.
He could have had his happy wife and perfect family and cheap sex in the corporate suite as long as he breadcrumbed me just enough to keep me deluded.
It didn’t take much—wildflower bouquets and trips to the pumpkin patch and movie nights with popcorn we made ourselves.
I would’ve given him as many babies as he wanted, and I’d have never known I was accumulating a fortune at Gordon Schwartz.
But he ruined everything, and nothing can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
“What do I want?” I laugh. “I want you to walk out of this room and never come back. I want to forget you ever existed.”
His jaw hardens, and his already cold expression grows dark. “That’s not happening.”
“Why not? Just walk away. There are a hundred—a thousand—women out there who will have your babies and let you fuck whoever you want. You can Elon Musk yourself an entire fleet of genetically perfect boys.”
“I’d never walk away from the girls.”
I almost, almost say, “Well, your mother had no problem walking away from you.” He can act above normal human emotions all he wants, but I know where that would hit him and exactly how hard. My mother dumped me, too. The only reason I don’t say it is because I don’t dare push him too far.
“And you think I would?” I say instead.
“You signed an agreement to that effect.”
Would he even believe me if I said I never read it now? “I never would, and if you try to take them from me, I’ll kill you.” It’s not a threat.
He straightens, his gaze sharpening. He recognizes that I’m serious, and that apex predator brain of his is recalculating. My stomach knots. Did I give too much away? Did I just hand him some kind of leverage I’m not quick or evil enough to see?
“It’s not my intent to separate you from the children. I chose you specifically to be their mother. My goal has always been to create a peaceful, nurturing home for them.”
“Banging your coworker is a hell of a way to go about it.”
His jaw clenches again. I don’t know why bald facts piss him off. Isn’t he the one who said it’s better to deal plainly with each other?
“Cora, we’re not going to get anywhere like this.”
“Where exactly is it that you want to go? Drake Chambers says you want a boy. Is that why you’re trying to make this go away?”
His dark eyes begin to cast sparks. Oh, he doesn’t like Drake Chambers knowing his business one little bit. Noted.
“I would remind you of the nondisclosure clause of our agreement,” he grinds through clenched teeth.
“That doesn’t apply to conversations with my own lawyer.”
“Brian McDonough is your lawyer.”
“Not anymore.”
“Where did you even find this guy Chambers?”
“By the side of the road. Same place where you found me.”
He yanks his tie, loosening it, as a flush rises up his neck, darkening his tan. I don’t think I’ve ever made him this mad before. It’s kind of a high, focusing my mind and bringing me back to my body, huddled on the sofa like a teenager.