Chapter 2
Blake woke with his skull splitting open.
At first there was only pain. A savage pulse behind his eyes, the thick taste of bourbon on his tongue, his stomach rolling with the sour punishment of too much alcohol.
He shifted, and his body protested as though he had been dragged through the night instead of sleeping through it.
Then he smelled perfume that wasn’t Angela’s. It was cloying and sweet, nothing like the subtle rose scent that Angela always wore. Blake opened his eyes.
The bedroom came into focus by pieces. The gray morning light. The destroyed sheets. A glass on the nightstand with a lipstick mark on the rim. His pants on the floor.
Lily Saint stood near the window in yesterday's dress, wrinkled now, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked like a woman who’d survived something and wanted to be thanked for it.
Blake pushed himself upright too fast. Nausea hit him hard.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Lily turned. Her eyes were red, but Blake had seen enough women cry in his life to know when tears were manipulation.
"Blake," she said softly.
His gaze moved over the room, searching without knowing what he was searching for. The chair. The floor. The open door.
Then he saw the ring.
Angela's wedding ring sat on the nightstand beside his watch.
The world narrowed to that diamond.
Blake reached for it with a hand that didn’tfeel like his. The ring rested against his palm, small and cold and impossible.
"Where’s Angela?"
Lily wrapped her arms around herself. "She left."
"When?"
"Last night."
His heart slammed once, hard enough to hurt. "Last night."
"She came home, Blake."
The room sharpened and blurred all at once.
He remembered the gallery. Angela in black satin, beautiful and furious.
Lily's hand on his arm. Angela's eyes seeing it.
The argument. The shame he turned into anger because anger was easier.
He remembered leaving. Rain. Lily's voice in the elevator, telling him he looked unsteady.
Her fingers at his tie because it had come loose.
Her hand at his back, guiding him through the penthouse door.
A glass in his hand. Lily crying. Something about Angela hating her. Another drink.
Then the edge of the bed against his knees.
Lily saying, "Just lie down for a minute."
After that, nothing.
"What happened?" he asked.
Lily looked down. "You don't remember?"
"Answer me."
She flinched as though his voice wounded her. "We were both upset."
"No."
"You were drinking. I tried to get you home because you could barely stand. You said you didn't want to be alone."
"No." The word came out rougher this time.
Lily's eyes filled. "I know you're scared."
"Don't." Blake gripped the ring until the prongs bit into his skin. "Did I touch you?"
Her silence was worse than an answer.
"Lily."
She pressed her lips together. "You needed someone."
Bile rose in his throat. He tried to remember. He dragged his mind back through the night and found only broken glass. Angela's face at the gallery. Lily's voice in the elevator. His own hand pouring bourbon because he had been angry and tired and too proud to go back and apologize to his wife.
He didn’t remember touching Lily.
God help him, he didn’t remember enough to know what he had done.
"Get out," he said.
Lily stared at him. "Blake."
"Get out of my house."
Her expression shifted. For one second, something sharp and ugly moved beneath the softness. Then it was gone, replaced by trembling hurt.
"So that's it?" she whispered. "Now that Angela knows, I'm just supposed to disappear?"
His stomach turned at the word knows.
"What does Angela know?"
Lily's mouth parted, but no sound came.
Blake stood, nearly stumbled, and grabbed the edge of the nightstand until the room steadied. "What did you tell her?"
"I didn't have to tell her anything."
The ring cut deeper into his palm.
Lily picked up her coat from the chair. She looked back at him from the doorway, fragile and pale. "You shouldn't have let me stay if you were going to hate me for it in the morning."
Then she left.
The moment the elevator doors closed, Blake called Angela. It went straight to voicemail. He called again. Again. Again. By the seventh call, his hands were shaking.
He showered in water so hot it left his skin red. He dressed without remembering the order of buttons, socks, shoes, watch. He put Angela's ring in his jacket pocket because leaving it on the nightstand felt like abandoning her, but that’s what he’d done in a million little ways.
For ten minutes, he stood in the kitchen and did nothing. He wanted to run after her. He wanted to call until she answered. He wanted to say he didn’t remember that surely, he would never, that whatever Lily implied couldn’t be true because he loved his wife.
Beneath the panic though was a truth too ugly to outrun. Angela asked him to protect their marriage before last night. He made her defend the request, the thought made him feel guilty, so he pushed it away. If Angela would just pick up the phone and listen to him everything would be fine.
When he couldn’t stand waiting for her to return his calls he went to the gallery.
Vellum & Verdigris was closed to the public, the windows were still decorated from last night.
Inside, staff moved quietly, the way people did after a death.
The young assistant at the front desk turned pale when she saw him.
"Mr. Hunter."
"Where’s my wife?"
"I'm not sure."
"Don't lie to me."
She opened her mouth and closed it again.
Blake saw the fear in her face and hated himself for putting it there. This was Angela's employee. Angela's space. Angela's staff. He had no right to walk in and make demands because his own house was unbearable.
His voice lowered. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spoken to you like that."
The assistant blinked.
"I'm looking for Angela because I hurt her," he said. The admission scraped his throat raw. "If she told you not to tell me where she is, then don't. Follow her instructions."
The girl's eyes softened a fraction, though her posture stayed guarded.
"I heard someone mention the King," she whispered. "But I don't know for sure."
Connor King's hotel.
Blake left without another word.
The King Hotel rose into the sky with black glass, polished brass, and the sort of discretion men like Connor sold to people who paid a great deal for it.
Blake attended charity dinners there, business lunches, one brutal negotiation in a private suite overlooking the park.
He had never considered that one day his wife would hide from him here.
The concierge recognized him and smiled but there was no warmth in it.
"I need to see Angela Hunter."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Hunter. Mrs. Hunter is not receiving visitors."
"Tell her I'm here."
"We did that when we saw your car arrive."
The polite certainty in the man's voice made Blake's temper flash. "Then tell her again."
"That won't be necessary."
Blake turned.
Connor King stood near the marble columns, his expression neutral. He looked rested, controlled, and entirely too comfortable in the building that carried his name.
Blake hated him on sight.
"Where is my wife?"
Connor's gaze flicked over him, noting, Blake was certain, the bloodshot eyes, the too-tight jaw, the stress that was written all over him.
"Safe," Connor said.
The word cut because Blake had once assumed Angela's safest place was with him.
Blake stepped closer. "This is between me and Angela."
"Angela decides who gets between her and anyone."
Blake's hands curled. "You think owning a hotel gives you the right to keep a man from his wife?"
"No," Connor said. "Angela giving instructions does."
For a moment, Blake wanted to hit him. It was irrational and primitive, born from fear more than anger. He wanted to remove the man standing at the door to his own marriage. Then he saw the truth in Connor's calm. Blake had no right to push past him. Not anymore.
"Tell her I need to speak to her."
"I believe your phone calls have already made that clear."
Blake's humiliation burned. "You've known her again for what, five minutes?"
Connor's face hardened by a fraction. "I knew her before you did."
Blake stilled.
Connor wasn’t trying to stake a claim to Angela, but his words made it clear. Connor was loyal to Angela. They had a history that Blake hadn’t been a part of. Connor knew a version of Angela that existed before Blake had ever become part of her life.
"And I know enough," Connor continued, "to understand that if Angela doesn't want to see a man, he should ask himself what he did to earn the locked door."
A day earlier, Blake would’ve been insulted but now he felt accused. He hated to admit it, but Connor was right. He earned the locked door. Blake stepped back. The elevator opened behind Connor, and for one impossible second, Blake thought Angela would appear.
She didn’t.
Only a couple emerged laughing softly, their weekend bags rolling behind them, their lives intact.
Blake looked at Connor. "I don't remember sleeping with Lily."
Connor didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look convinced either.
"That's not my confession to hear," he said.
"I know." Blake swallowed. "And it wouldn't be enough anyway."
That made Connor's expression shift.
Blake hated that another man's surprise felt like proof of how far he had fallen.
"Tell Angela I'll wait until she chooses to hear me," Blake said. "And if she doesn't, I'll still correct whatever lies I can."
Connor studied him. "That would be a start."
"A start," Blake repeated.
"Yes."
A start. Blake turned and walked out into the rain.
He stood under the hotel awning for a long moment, Angela's ring in his pocket, his mouth full of words she couldn’t hear.
He didn’t remember betraying his wife but he remembered enough to know he had failed her before the bedroom door ever opened.