1. Bree
— ? —
Bree
The penthouse had fourteen rooms and I could hear myself breathe in every single one of them.
I sat on the living room sofa with my phone in my lap and watched the minutes tick toward noon.
The reservation was at twelve-thirty. The restaurant was twenty minutes away.
Rafael was supposed to be home by now, showered and changed and ready to take his wife to a birthday lunch, the very picture of a normal husband.
The clock on the mantle ticked, and the refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. Somewhere far below, the city moved and breathed and lived, but up here, in this glass box in the sky, there was only silence.
I’d been sitting here for forty-five minutes. My dress was green and new. The tags were still tucked inside the back because I hadn’t been able to reach the tiny plastic fastener, and I’d been waiting for Rafael to come home and cut them off for me.
Stupid. That was stupid. I should’ve used scissors.
My phone buzzed. I looked down, already knowing.
Mr. Grant sends his apologies. The 12:30 reservation has been canceled. He hopes to make it up to you at a later date. - Katherine
Katherine. His assistant. The woman who scheduled my husband’s life in fifteen-minute increments and apparently also scheduled his apologies.
I read the message three times. Then I set my phone face-down on the cushion and stared at the wall of windows that looked out over Manhattan.
The city sparkled. Millions of lights in millions of windows, millions of people living millions of lives. Down there, somewhere, couples were getting ready for dinner. Putting on dresses and cutting off tags and laughing about nothing. Looking forward to an evening together.
Twenty-nine years old today. Two and a half years married. And my husband had sent his secretary to cancel my birthday lunch an hour before the reservation.
The really stupid part was that I’d gotten my hopes up.
I’d bought a new dress. I’d done my hair.
I’d spent twenty minutes on makeup, which was twenty minutes more than I usually spent, and I’d practiced what I was going to say when he asked about my day, because he did ask sometimes, and when he asked he really listened, his whole face turned toward me, and those moments were the problem.
Those moments were why I was still here.
I thought about the first time I’d realized I might be in trouble.
Four months in, a blackout during a thunderstorm, and Rafael had lit candles and walked me through the building’s structural load to distract me from the lightning, and I’d laughed so hard I’d cried, and he’d looked at me with a softness in those pale eyes I’d never seen there and said, “I like your laugh. You should do it more.”
I’d thought: oh no.
He’d steadied the candle in my shaking hands.
The lightning had flashed outside, turning his face silver, and he’d just kept talking.
Load-bearing walls. Steel reinforcement.
The mathematics of how buildings stay standing.
His voice had been low and calm and certain, and somewhere between the thunder and the tea, I’d stopped being afraid.
I thought about the time I’d gotten sick, really sick, flu that knocked me flat for a week, and he’d worked from home every day.
Brought me soup. Checked my temperature.
Sat on the edge of the bed and read me the news because I said the quiet was making me crazy.
He’d fallen asleep in the chair next to me one night, and I’d woken up to find him still there, his hand still wrapped around my ankle, holding on to the fact of me.
I’d thought: oh no, oh no.
His laptop had been open on his knees, the screen dark, his head tipped back against the chair. In sleep, his face had lost its careful composure. He’d looked younger. Softer. Exhausted in a way he never let himself look when he was awake.
I’d watched him breathe for ten minutes before I made myself go back to sleep.
I thought about every time I’d started talking about the farms, about soil composition and crop rotation and the new irrigation system my father was testing, and Rafael’s whole body had shifted toward me.
Interested, even engaged, asking questions and taking mental notes.
The food scientist in him waking up at the promise of real data.
“What’s the water table depth?” he’d asked once, leaning forward in his chair, his dinner forgotten.
“About thirty feet. Why?”
“Because drip irrigation efficiency changes based on soil conductivity, and if you’re running a conventional system at that depth-” He’d stopped. Shook his head. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear this.”
“I do.” I’d pushed my own plate aside. “Keep going.”
His eyes had lit up. Actually lit up. And for the next hour, we’d talked about water and soil and the farm I’d grown up on, and I’d felt more married to him than I had in months.
And then his phone would ring. Or his computer would ping. Or his assistant would knock. And he’d remember that he was Rafael Grant, CEO, and I was just the wife who came with the job.
The sex didn’t help.
God, the sex didn’t help at all.
If anything it made the wanting worse, and I couldn’t have explained that to anyone, not that I had anyone to explain it to.
My husband forgot my birthday. My husband forgot my name half the time, called me Mrs. Grant at parties and never once the name my parents gave me.
My husband treated me the way he treated staff, one more thing to be managed on his way to the top.
But at night, in the dark, in our bed, he touched me like I was the only real thing in his world.
He’d pull me against him and breathe my name into my hair and his hands would shake, actually shake, terrified I might disappear. He’d ask permission. He’d wait for answers. He’d worship every inch of skin I gave him and thank me after, voice wrecked, like I’d given him a gift.
“Is this okay?” he’d whisper, his fingers tracing patterns on my hip.
“Yes.”
“And this?”
“Yes.”
“Bree.” My name in his mouth, rough and reverent. “Bree.”
And I’d think: maybe tomorrow will be different.
Tomorrow was never different.
I picked up my phone and typed a response to Katherine.
Thank you for letting me know.
I deleted it and typed another one.
Tell him to go to hell.
I deleted that one too. Then I set the phone down and stood up and walked to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine that cost more than my first car, and I drank it standing at the counter, alone, in a dress that still had the tags tucked inside.
The wine was a Burgundy. Rafael had bought a case of it last month, a rare vintage and an auction and numbers I couldn’t follow. It tasted like grapes and oak and three hundred dollars I’d never asked to spend.
I poured a second glass. Then a third.
I was going to leave him.
The thought surfaced clean and cold, and I let it sit there. Six months. The deal ended in six months. My father’s debts were restructured now, the farms safe, the Salazar name secure for another generation. I’d done what I came here to do.
I could leave in six months and never look back. Or so I kept telling myself. The contract ran three years, but once the deal closed my family was safe either way, and staying past that would be a choice. I told myself I wouldn’t make it. Some stubborn, stupid part of me was already negotiating.
The front door opened. I heard his footsteps. The heavy tread, the pause to hang his jacket, the sound of his briefcase hitting the hall table. He walked into the kitchen and stopped when he saw me.
“Bree.” He looked tired. He looked like he always looked, handsome and exhausted and vaguely surprised to find me in his house. “I thought you’d be at dinner.”
His tie was loosened and his hair was mussed on one side, the way it got when he’d been running his hand through it during difficult calls. There was a pen mark on his left cuff.
“Dinner was canceled.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Katherine. Your assistant. She texted me an hour ago.” I kept my voice even. “The reservation was canceled. You sent your apologies.”
His face flickered. Confusion, maybe. Or the performance of confusion. I couldn’t tell anymore.
“I didn’t cancel anything.”
“Well, someone did. And they used your name.”
He pulled out his phone. Scrolled. His jaw tightened.
“Scheduling conflict,” he said. “The Tokyo call ran over. Katherine must’ve made the decision.”
“Katherine must’ve made the decision.” I repeated it back to him, tasting the words. “To cancel my birthday lunch.”
Silence.
Rafael looked at me. I watched the information land. Watched him do the math. His phone lowered slowly. His face went through three expressions in two seconds: confusion, realization, and a horror he wasn’t quick enough to hide.
“Today is your birthday.”
It wasn’t a question. It was the sound of a man realizing he’d forgotten a date that mattered and trying to figure out how much trouble he was in.
“Today is my birthday.”
“Bree.” He stepped toward me. “I’m sorry. I lost track of the date. The deal has been consuming everything, and I should’ve had it in my calendar, I should’ve-”
“You did have it in your calendar.” My voice was still even. I was proud of how even it was. “I put it there myself. Three weeks ago. With a reminder.”
He looked at his phone again. Looked at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Okay.”
“Let me make it up to you. We can go now. I’ll call the restaurant, see if they can fit us in.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” He studied my face. “You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset.” The lie came out smooth and easy. “I’m going to go take off this dress and watch something on TV, and you can do whatever you need to do. It’s fine. Really.”
I walked past him. He caught my elbow.
“Bree.”
I stopped without turning around. His hand was warm on my arm. His grip was gentle but firm, and I could feel his thumb against my pulse point, pressing lightly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I haven’t been… present. The company is at a critical juncture. Once Zurich closes, things will be different.”
Things will be different. I’d heard that before. After the Hong Kong deal. After the Singapore merger. After the board restructuring. Things were always going to be different after the next big thing, and the next big thing never ended.
“I know.” I pulled my arm free gently. “It’s fine. Go do your call.”
“The call is done.”
“Then go do whatever comes next. There’s always a next thing.”
I walked to the bedroom and closed the door behind me. The dress came off and fell where it fell, and I stood in front of the mirror in my underwear, looking at the woman who’d agreed to three years and gotten two and a half of invisibility.
My body and my face looked the same. But the look behind my eyes had gone flat and distant, and I wasn’t sure when it had happened.
I touched the mirror. The glass was cold.
Six more months.
My phone buzzed. The car service, confirming pickup for the Grant Foods event tonight.
Right. The event. The one I’d forgotten about because I’d been stupid enough to think my birthday lunch mattered.
I showered, redid my makeup, and put on a different dress, one I didn’t care about. Then I walked back into the living room, where Rafael was on his laptop.
“The car is coming,” I said.
He looked up. Frowned at my dress.
“I thought we agreed on the blue one.”
“I’m wearing this one.”
“The blue one photographs better.”
He stared back, oblivious, his fingers still hovering over his keyboard, ready to return to whatever was more important than looking at his wife.
“Fine.” I went back and changed into the blue dress. It photographed better. It also made me look ornamental, which was probably the point.
The blue dress was heavy. Beaded at the neckline. It had been chosen for me by a stylist Rafael’s assistant had hired, a woman who’d measured my body and assessed my coloring and never once asked what I actually wanted to wear.
I zipped it up alone. The zipper stuck halfway. I yanked it, hard, and part of me wanted to rip the whole thing off and walk out there naked, just to see what he’d do.
I didn’t. My hair got fixed, my lipstick got checked, and I walked back out.
Rafael was on his phone. He glanced up, nodded approval, and went back to his conversation.
“The Henderson contracts need to be on my desk by eight tomorrow,” he was saying. “No, eight. Not eight-thirty. Eight.”
The car arrived. I waited for him to get off the phone. He didn’t.
“I have to take this,” he said, hand over the speaker. “I’ll meet you there.”
“You’re not coming in the car?”
“I’ll be right behind you. Twenty minutes, tops.”
I looked at him and thought about fighting, about screaming, about throwing his laptop out the window and watching it shatter on the pavement far below. Mostly I thought about the green dress crumpled on the bedroom floor, tags still attached, unworn.
“Okay,” I said.
He nodded, already turning back to his call. “Henderson, listen to me-”
I walked out. The door closed behind me.
I rode to Manhattan alone in the backseat of a black car that could have paid off a house. My lipstick got checked in the window, and I told myself it was fine.
The driver didn’t speak. He’d been instructed not to, probably. I watched the city lights blur past and thought about the farm, about the way the stars looked when there weren’t a million buildings blocking them out, about the smell of dirt and hay and growing things.
Six more months.
The driver opened my door in front of the venue. Cameras flashed. I smiled the smile I’d perfected as Mrs. Rafael Grant.
“Mrs. Grant! Over here!”
“Bree! Can you look this way?”
Nobody asked where my husband was.