2. Bree
— ? —
Bree
The Grant Foods annual gala was an event where everyone smiled and no one was happy.
I moved through the crowd with a champagne glass I wasn’t drinking from, nodding at faces I’d learned to recognize, exchanging pleasantries I’d learned to fake.
The CFO’s wife complimented my dress. A board member asked about the farms. Someone’s nephew tried to explain cryptocurrency to me for fifteen minutes while I practiced not screaming.
“Blockchain isn’t just about currency,” he was saying, waving his hands in patterns that meant nothing. “It’s about decentralization. It’s about taking power back from the institutions.”
“Fascinating,” I said.
“Right? And the applications for agriculture alone. Imagine tracking every tomato from seed to supermarket.”
“I can imagine.”
He couldn’t tell I was dying inside. It worked on these people every time. They were so busy listening to themselves that they never noticed when you stopped listening entirely.
“Anyway, I should introduce you to my partner. He’s developing an app that-”
“I need to find my husband,” I said. “Excuse me.”
What I needed to find was a corner where I could breathe, not my husband.
Rafael wasn’t here yet. Twenty minutes, he’d said. It had been forty-five.
The ballroom was massive. Crystal chandeliers hung from ceilings that must’ve cost more than my father’s entire irrigation system.
White tablecloths. Gold accents. Flower arrangements that probably had their own line item in the event budget.
Everything gleamed. Everything sparkled.
Everything was designed to make you feel small and impressed at the same time.
I found a quiet corner near the bar and checked my phone. No messages. No missed calls. No indication that my husband remembered I existed.
The bartender caught my eye. “Another champagne, Mrs. Grant?”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Water? Sparkling?”
“Just fine.”
He nodded and moved on to the next guest. Even the bartender had learned to read the room. To recognize when someone wanted to be left alone.
“Brianna! There you are.”
I looked up. The woman approaching me was vaguely familiar. Blonde. Expensively dressed. The wife of someone important, probably. She had the look. Careful highlights, a designer dress worth a month’s rent, and a smile that showed exactly the right number of teeth.
“I’ve been looking for you all night.” She took my arm with the warmth of a close friend, which was strange, because I was fairly sure I’d never spoken to her. “I just had to tell you how much I admire you.”
“Thank you?”
“No, really.” She squeezed my arm. Her nails were painted a deep red. They dug into my skin just slightly. “The way you handle everything. It’s so evolved. Most women in your position would be a complete mess.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Oh, honey.” Her eyes went soft with what looked like pity. “You really don’t know?”
The champagne glass felt heavy in my hand. I set it down on a passing tray.
“Know what?”
She leaned in. Her perfume was expensive and overwhelming. Floral, with an undertone of musk, the kind of perfume that announced itself before you entered a room.
“About Camille.”
The name landed wrong, a stone dropped into still water.
I knew a Camille. Camille Fairchild. The woman who ran Grant Foods at my husband’s side.
Tall and sharp and brilliant, with a handshake that could crush diamonds and a smile that never reached her eyes.
I’d met her at exactly three company events and exchanged exactly zero personal words with her.
“What about Camille?”
The woman’s expression shifted. She was enjoying this, enjoying watching me not know. Her pupils dilated, and her lips curved just slightly at the corners. This was sport for her. This was entertainment.
“The affair, sweetheart.” Her voice dripped with sympathy. “Eight months now. Eleven cities on the company jet. Everyone knows.”
The room tilted. I grabbed the edge of the bar. The polished wood was cold under my palm. Solid. Real. A thing to hold onto while the floor disappeared beneath my feet.
“I don’t… I hadn’t heard that.”
“Oh, honey.” She patted my arm. “I’m so sorry.
I assumed you knew. Everyone in the company knows.
They’ve been together at every conference, every late night, every overnight trip.
The way he looks at her, it’s…” She shook her head.
“Well. You’re very brave, staying with him through all this. I could never.”
My face had gone numb, and so had my hands. My heart had lost its rhythm in my chest. Beating too fast. Beating too slow. Beating in a pattern that didn’t match reality.
“Who told you this?”
“Sweetheart, it’s not exactly a secret.” She laughed, high and light.
“My husband is on the board. He’s seen them together.
Everyone has. The hotels with the connecting doors.
The dinners that run until midnight. The way she touches his arm when she thinks no one’s watching.
” She tilted her head. “You really didn’t know? ”
“I have to go.”
“Of course. Of course.” She released my arm. “I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you. I really did think you knew. You’ve been handling it so gracefully, I assumed…”
“Excuse me,” I said.
I walked away with no idea where I was going.
The crowd parted around me, faces blurring, voices fading.
Someone called my name. Stopping wasn’t an option.
If I stopped, I’d fall apart, and I couldn’t fall apart here, not in front of these people, not in this room full of sharks who would smell blood and circle.
I found a bathroom and locked myself in a stall, and then I sat on the toilet with my head between my knees and tried to breathe.
Eight months, eleven cities. Everyone knows.
The words echoed in my skull. I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.
The moments I’d thought were real: the tea when I was sick, the hand on my ankle, the way he’d looked at me during the blackout, hungry and hopeful and so very careful.
Had he been with her then, too?
I thought about Singapore. Three months ago. He’d been gone for a week. International expansion meetings, he’d said. Very important. Very demanding. He’d come home exhausted and apologetic and reached for me in the dark, and I’d thought he missed me.
Had she been there?
Had she been in the room next to his, waiting?
Had he gone to her after he finished with me?
I thought about every business trip. Every late night. Every canceled dinner and missed appointment and apology relayed through Katherine. I thought about the way he’d touch me at night, desperate and reverent, and then disappear into his phone the next morning, and I’d assumed it was work.
It was always work with Rafael.
Except maybe it wasn’t.
My stomach lurched. I leaned over the toilet and waited to be sick, but nothing came. Just dry heaves. Just my body trying to expel what it couldn’t reach.
Someone knocked on the stall door.
“Occupied,” I managed.
“Mrs. Grant?” A woman’s voice. Concerned. “Are you all right? Someone said you looked unwell.”
“I’m fine. Just need a minute.”
Silence. Then footsteps, retreating.
I stood up and washed my hands. The water was cold. I let it run over my wrists, feeling my pulse pound against the porcelain. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and watched my face rearrange itself into a mask that could survive the next three hours.
My mascara hadn’t run. Small mercies. My lipstick was still in place. My hair was still perfectly styled, every strand where it was supposed to be.
The blue dress did photograph well. I looked like a pretty, obedient accessory, exactly the way I was supposed to look.
I walked back into the gala and smiled at the people who smiled at me. A new champagne glass found its way into my hand, and this time I actually drank from it. The bubbles burned going down. I drank it all and took another.
“Mrs. Grant.” A waiter appeared at my elbow. “Your husband has arrived. He’s asking for you.”
“Thank you.”
Rafael arrived an hour late. I watched him cross the room, tall and confident and completely unaware of the bomb that had just detonated in my chest. He moved through the crowd easily, shaking hands, clapping shoulders, laughing at jokes.
Everyone wanted a piece of him. Everyone wanted his attention.
He found me near the bar. His face shifted when he saw me, a flicker there and gone before I could name it.
“There you are.” He kissed my cheek. He took my hand. He asked if I was having a good time.
His lips were warm against my skin, his hand large around mine. He smelled faintly of cologne and coffee, and under that, a scent I couldn’t place.
“Great,” I said. “Really great.”
“Good.” He squeezed my fingers. “Sorry I’m late. The Tokyo call went longer than expected.”
“Tokyo.”
“The distribution deal. I told you about it.”
Had he? Maybe he had. Nothing would come. Nothing at all right now except the words eight months and eleven cities and everyone knows.
We mingled and networked and performed the happy marriage that had never existed.
Rafael introduced me to investors and board members and people whose names I forgot as soon as I heard them. I smiled and shook hands and said it’s so nice to meet you more times than I could count. My husband worked the room, charming and confident, and I wondered which of these people knew.
Which of them had seen him with her?
Which of them were pitying me right now, behind their polished smiles?
“Rafael!” A man in a gray suit approached us. “Wonderful event. Really wonderful.”
“Thank you, David. Have you met my wife? Bree, this is David Pemberton. He’s on the board.”
“Mrs. Grant.” David shook my hand. His grip was firm. His eyes were curious. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I bet you have, I thought. I bet you’ve heard all about the stupid wife who doesn’t know her husband is sleeping with the woman he runs the company with.
“All good things, I hope,” I said.
“Only the best.” He smiled. “Rafael speaks very highly of you.”
Does he? I wanted to ask. Does he speak highly of me when he’s checking into hotels with connecting doors? Does he speak highly of me when he’s having midnight dinners with Camille Fairchild in eleven different cities?
“That’s very kind,” I said instead.
Rafael’s hand found my lower back. The touch was automatic. Proprietary. He owned this and wanted everyone to know it.
Every part of me wanted to flinch away, so I made myself lean into it instead.
I spent the car ride home in silence, watching the city lights blur past the window. Rafael was on his phone again. Of course he was.
“Anything new at the company?” I asked, keeping my voice light. A test, tossed out just to see if he’d take it.
The woman at the bar sat in my head, and Camille Fairchild beside her, and eight months and eleven cities and everyone knows. I thought about asking him directly. Just saying it. Is it true? Are you sleeping with Camille? Have you been making a fool of me this entire time?
But I didn’t. Because if I asked, he might lie. And if he lied, I might believe him. And if I believed him, I’d be right back where I started, hoping for crumbs from a man who couldn’t remember my birthday.
“Nothing you’d find interesting,” he said eventually, half-loosening his tie, still not looking up.
His thumb kept moving across the screen, efficient and focused, answering emails or texts or messages from someone who mattered more than me.
We got home. He went to his office. I went to the bedroom.
I didn’t sleep.
The ceiling was white. Perfectly white. White that costs money, that requires special paint and professional painters and attention to detail that normal people couldn’t afford. I stared at it for hours.
At 2 a.m., I gave up on sleep. I went to the study, to the laptop he never bothered to lock, because it had never once occurred to him that I might look.
I told myself I wasn’t looking for anything, which was a lie.
His calendar opened to the last eight months, color-coded and meticulous, Katherine’s careful work. And there she was. Camille. Her name sat beside his in city after city, the two of them on the same flights, in the same hotels. Dinners for two, in restaurants he’d never once thought to take me.
None of it needed writing down. It was already burned in.
Every trip he’d called work, every night he’d come home too tired to talk and reached for me anyway in the dark, she’d been there for it. A room away. A seat away. And I’d been home in my glass box, practicing what I’d say when he finally noticed me.
I thought about Paris. Six months ago. He’d brought me back a scarf, Hermès, orange box and white ribbon, and handed it to me without looking up and told me he’d seen it and thought of me.
Had she been standing beside him when he bought it? Had the two of them laughed, somewhere over the ocean, about the little wife back home who treasured every scrap he threw her?
I thought about the way he touched me when he got home from those trips, tired and urgent, and how I’d let myself believe it was because he’d missed me.
Maybe he’d been closing his eyes and pretending I was someone else. Someone sharper. Someone who actually belonged in his world.
I closed the laptop.
The deal ended in six months.
I was going to start counting.
I crept back to bed and lay down on my side of it, careful not to wake him.
Rafael shifted in his sleep. His hand found my hip, heavy and warm. He mumbled a word that might’ve been my name. Or might’ve been hers. There was no telling, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I lay very still and felt the weight of his palm through my nightgown and thought about how strange it was, to be touched by someone who wasn’t really touching you. To be seen by someone who wasn’t really seeing you. To share a bed with someone who shared hotel rooms with someone else.
I’d married him for the farms. I’d stayed for the moments. I’d fallen for a man who forgot my birthday and made me feel like staff and apparently spent eight months of our marriage with Camille in eleven different cities.
And the worst part, the part that made me want to claw my own heart out, was that I’d kind of fallen for him anyway.
The trap. That was the trap. The tea and the ankle and the blackout and the way he said my name in the dark. The brilliant, beautiful crumbs he scattered just often enough to keep me hoping.
I was done hoping.
Six months. I could survive anything for six months.