Chapter 6 #3
Tricia did not argue. She looked at Annie once, not with pity, but with a grave professional respect. “Send me the recording when you’re ready.”
“I will.”
Within ten minutes, the lawyers and Deena were gone. The house settled around Annie and Nathan with the discomfort of privacy returning too late. They stood in the kitchen, separated by the island, the same place where so many arguments had begun and ended unresolved.
Annie said, “I’m going to ask you questions. You answer all of them.”
“Yes.”
“If I find out later that you lied, softened, edited, or protected yourself, we’re done.”
“I understand.”
She believed that he did. For the first time in months, he looked more afraid of lying to her than of being known. Annie pulled out a chair and sat down. “When did you sleep with Brooke?”
“We were twenty-five. It was after my mother’s first hospitalization.”
“Who initiated it?”
“She did.”
“Did you want it?”
He hesitated.
Annie’s chest tightened.
“Yes,” he said. “In the moment. I was drunk and lonely, and she was there. But the next morning I knew it was wrong for us.”
“Why?”
“Because I realized I was seeking comfort in someone familiar. Someone who loved me. In the morning, I knew I didn’t want to be with her that way.”
“Did she agree?”
“She said she did.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No.”
“When did you know she still had feelings for you?”
Nathan looked away.
“Nathan.”
“After I proposed to you.”
The words landed with quiet force.
“Before the wedding,” Annie said.
“Yes.”
“And you still let me walk into that marriage without telling me.”
“I convinced myself it would be cruel to burden you with it when I had chosen you.”
“You didn’t choose me cleanly. You chose me while leaving her enough ambiguity to keep hoping.”
His face tightened. “In hindsight, yes.”
Annie looked toward the boarded back door. There was no wind coming through now, but she still felt cold. “Did you enjoy it?”
His brow furrowed. “Enjoy what?”
“Being loved by both of us.”
He looked stricken.
She did not take it back.
“Did you enjoy having a wife and a woman on the side who wasn’t technically an affair but gave you all the devotion of one?”
“No.”
“Don’t answer too fast.”
He fell silent.
Annie waited.
Nathan lowered himself into the chair across from her. “I didn’t think of it that way, but yes. Part of me relied on it. Brooke made me feel known without asking me to grow. You loved me in a way that expected me to become better. When I felt ashamed or inadequate, Brooke was easier.”
Annie swallowed against the ache in her throat. “You made me the difficult love.”
“I did.”
“And her the place to find refuge. From me.”
“Yes.”
Annie looked down at her hands. Her ring sat slightly crooked again. She did not fix it. “I don’t know if I can forgive that.”
Nathan closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he did not look away. “I don’t know if you can either.”
Good answer, she thought bitterly. Too late, but good.
He leaned forward with his elbows near the edge of the island, not reaching for her.
“But I’m going to tell you the truth, whether forgiveness is possible or not.
Brooke kissed me once after you and I were engaged.
She tried to sleep with me. I stopped it.
I told her it couldn’t happen again. She cried.
I felt guilty. I stayed friends with her. ”
Annie’s breath caught. “When?”
“The night I went to her apartment. Three weeks before the wedding.”
“You said you didn’t touch her.”
“She kissed me. I didn’t kiss her back.”
“Do you understand how thin that distinction sounds?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her you were still getting married?”
“Yes. I left right after.”
“And then she came to the wedding.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
“No.”
Annie stood so quickly the chair scraped back. Nathan rose too, then stopped when she looked at him.
“I can’t look at you right now.”
His face went pale. “Annie.”
“No. You have told me enough half-truths for one hour. I need to get out of this room before I say something I can’t unsay.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“I won’t stop you.”
“No,” she said. “You won’t.”
She went upstairs, packed a small bag with clothes, toiletries, chargers, and the folder of printed evidence Tricia had left behind. Nathan waited at the bottom of the stairs when she came down. He had his keys in his hand, then seemed to realize what he was doing and placed them on the console.
“Do you want the car?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He gave her the keys. “Where will you go?”
“Maggie’s.”
He nodded. “I’ll pay for a hotel instead if you’d rather not involve?—”
“Maggie is already involved.”
“Right.”
She opened the front door.
“Annie,” he said.
She paused but did not turn.
“I love you.”
Her throat closed. For months she had wanted him to say it with that much naked certainty. Now the words arrived bruised and late, carrying all the things he should have told her before Brooke weaponized them.
Annie looked back at him. “I know. That was never the whole problem.”
Then she left.
The drive to Maggie’s apartment in Cambridge took thirty-two minutes.
Annie knew because she counted traffic lights to keep from crying.
Maggie lived on the third floor of a brick building with crooked stairs and a lobby that smelled like old mail and lemon cleaner.
She opened the door before Annie knocked twice.
Maggie wore leggings, an oversized sweatshirt, and the expression of someone who had already made coffee for a crisis. “Guest room’s made,” she said.
“I’m sorry to bring this here.”
“Don’t. Shoes off or on, whatever. Coffee’s hot. Wine exists. Food can be ordered. No questions until you want them.”
Annie stepped inside and set down her bag. For the first time in twenty-four hours, she was in a room that wasn’t tainted by Brooke’s history. She sat at Maggie’s small kitchen table and put both hands around the coffee mug Maggie set in front of her.
Maggie sat across from her. “Do you want to talk?”
Annie stared into the coffee. “Brooke and Nathan slept together once years before me. She kissed him three weeks before our wedding. She tried to seduce him. He never told me.”
Maggie’s face changed, but she did not perform shock. “Okay.”
“She’s been making me feel crazy for years, and he let me fight without all the facts.”
Maggie nodded.
Annie laughed then, a broken little sound. “I kept thinking the big reveal would make him innocent.”
Maggie’s voice was careful. “I’m sorry. You deserve better.”
Annie looked at her. The tears came then, fast and humiliating. Maggie moved to the counter, grabbed a roll of paper towels because she apparently did not own tissues, and put it on the table without comment.
Annie cried until her head hurt.
When she finally stopped, Maggie said, “There’s one more thing.”
Annie closed her eyes. “Of course there is.”
“You don’t have to look tonight.”
“Tell me.”
Maggie pushed her laptop across the table. “Brooke has a meeting scheduled tomorrow morning with a crisis communications consultant. The calendar invite was indexed through the foundation site. The title is Narrative Strategy / NG Transition.”
Annie stared at the screen.
NG Transition.
Brooke was not retreating. She was preparing the story.
“Who is invited?” Annie asked.
Maggie clicked the details. Brooke Halpert. Dr. Beatrice Lane. Paige Lansing. A publicist named Cecilia Grant. And Nathan Grisham.
Annie’s pulse slowed. “Which Nathan email?”
“The old personal one.”
The compromised account.
Maggie watched her carefully. “Does Nathan know?”
“I think Brooke plans to make it look like he does.”
Maggie sat back.
Annie picked up her phone. For a moment, her thumb hovered over Nathan’s name. Then she called Tricia instead.
Tricia answered with, “What happened?”
“Brooke has a crisis communications meeting tomorrow morning about Nathan’s transition,” Annie said. “Dr. Lane and ClearPath are invited. Nathan’s compromised email is on it.”
Tricia was silent for one second. Then her voice turned very calm. “Forward it to me. Do not alert Brooke. Do not alert Nathan until I call him. Annie, this is no longer only about your marriage.”
Annie looked at Maggie’s screen, at Brooke’s neat little meeting title. She thought of Dr. Lane’s worksheet. Trigger. Thought. Fear.
She knew the fear now. It was not only that Brooke would take Nathan. It was that Brooke would take control of the story, and Annie would have to live inside it.