Chapter 58
I stare at the earring and try to convince myself that the dreadful realization of what this means isn’t true.
That Sam didn’t cheat on me with that woman right here in our bed.
That he didn’t lie about it right to my face.
But no matter how I try to rationalize my discovery, I can’t, because how else could the earring have gotten there?
It all makes sense now. Sam might have started out helping our neighbor navigate her issues with the Wainwright Building, but it didn’t stay that way.
That’s why he was reluctant to distance himself from her.
It also explains the dinner party. I wasn’t just imagining that look she gave me. It really was a message.
And what about yesterday? He claimed that Catherine had called him to come home early because of a leak in the apartment above, but now I know the truth.
He left work early because he knew I wouldn’t be home, and it gave him an opportunity to spend the afternoon with Kalina.
But what really makes me see red is that he didn’t even have the decency to screw the woman somewhere else, like the apartment across the hall.
Instead, he did it right there in our bed.
Was it somehow more exciting to fuck our neighbor right there in the same bed we’ve made love in so many times?
I want to shout, and cry, and scream at the top of my lungs, and break something.
I want to grab a pair of scissors and cut up his shirts, stab the pillow where he lays his head every night, and throw his stuff off the balcony and into the street below.
But most of all, I want to turn the clock back and make sure that we never move into this building.
I want to erase the weeks since we met Kalina and continue along a different, happier path, blissfully unaware of the dire consequences that one seemingly innocent decision can have.
But I can’t rewind time, and even if I could, it wouldn’t change the underlying flaw in our relationship—the flaw in him—that I hadn’t seen clearly until this moment.
I’m still holding the earring. I let it drop into the palm of my hand.
It’s such a small object to cause such a large rift.
To rip a person’s life apart with cold indifference.
I close my fingers over it and make a fist, squeeze until the rough stones and sharp metal dig into my skin.
The pain is cathartic. It sweeps away the fog of disbelief.
But it can’t erase the dark sense of loss that gnaws at me from within.
I open my hand and stare down at Kalina’s earring lying in my palm, and in that moment, I decide.
I need to know for sure, and I need to know right now.
I stand and get dressed, pulling on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then hurry through the apartment to the front door.
Catherine lives two floors above us in the penthouse suite, which occupies the entire top level of the building, and this is where I go.
I step into the elevator and press the button for the sixth floor.
It’s only when the elevator starts to rise that I realize I’m still clutching the earring.
I’d put it down on the nightstand while I got dressed and must have picked it up again without realizing.
I push it into my pocket as the elevator arrives at the penthouse suite.
I step out into a square hallway smaller than the one on my floor, because instead of four doors, there is only one, which I bang on with a clenched fist.
When no one answers, I bang again, longer this time.
The door opens, and Catherine is standing there looking bewildered. “Jordan, dear? What’s all the commotion about?”
“Did you call Sam yesterday?” I ask, launching right in without bothering to explain why I’m asking. “Did you tell him to come home?”
“No.” Catherine shakes her head. “Why would I do that?”
“He said there was a leaky water pipe in the apartment above us.”
Catherine shakes her head again, more slowly this time. “I didn’t call Sam, and there are no leaking pipes. If there were, Angelo would have told me. He takes care of all that stuff.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite sure. I might be older, my dear, but I’m not senile.”
“Unbelievable.” I turn and stride back to the elevator, a red haze clouding my vision. Sam lied to me.
Catherine steps into the hallway. “Jordan, wait. Are you all right? What on earth is going on?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I jab at the button for the ground floor, because the apartment that I share with Sam is the last place I want to be right now.
I can’t stand the thought of spending even one second there, surrounded by the shattered memories of our life together.
But when I get to the lobby, I come to a halt, because I don’t know where else to go.
I could run to my parents’ house, but I can almost hear my mother saying that she knew Sam was no good all along.
That she never liked him and that I shouldn’t have agreed to marry him.
I can imagine my father storming out of the house and going in search of him in a blind fury.
None of that would do anything to ease my pain or help me figure out what to do next.
I could go to Sam’s office and have it out with him—demand answers—but I’m not ready for that, or willing to air our issues in public. I need time to calm down and figure out how I’m going to handle this before I confront Sam.
I could find a coffee shop and sit there wallowing in self-pity, but I don’t want to be around a bunch of strangers.
Which leaves me with one option—returning to the apartment where Sam cheated on me with the woman across the hall.
I would rather sit in the lobby than do that.
Except for Angelo, the doorman. For once, he’s right there at his desk, and I can feel his gaze boring into me.
Any moment now, he’s going to ask if I need help, and then I’ll be forced to interact with him.
And then it hits me. There is somewhere I can go and someone who will lend a sympathetic ear.
I reach into my pocket, take out my phone, and call Dawn.