5. Anika
— ? —
Anika
Three days later, I stood in a ballroom full of people who didn’t see me.
The Franco Holdings charity gala was the event of the season.
Half of Manhattan in black tie, champagne flowing like water, silent auction items that cost more than most people’s houses.
Neil had been planning it for months. Or rather, his team had been planning it while he approved things from his phone during dinners I’d thought were dates.
I was wearing a new dress. Sapphire blue, because he’d once told me it brought out my eyes. My hair was swept up in a way that had taken the stylist two hours. My makeup was flawless. I looked like the wife of a billionaire.
I felt like a ghost.
“And then she said, ‘But darling, the yacht is only a hundred and fifty feet.’” Charlotte Whitmore, wife of the CFO, laughed at her own joke while the other wives tittered along. “Can you imagine? A hundred and fifty feet. What is this, the nineties?”
I smiled and nodded and tried to remember how to make my face do things that looked like human emotions.
Across the room, Neil was holding court. That was the only way to describe it. He stood in a circle of donors and board members, commanding attention without seeming to try. His suit was perfectly tailored. His smile was perfectly calibrated. And at his elbow, as she’d been all night, was Karina.
She was wearing red. Of course she was. A dress that hugged every curve, with a slit up the thigh and a neckline that left little to the imagination.
Her hair was down, tumbling over her shoulders in those effortless waves, and she kept touching Neil’s arm while she handed him folders and whispered in his ear.
“Honestly, the audacity of some people,” Charlotte was saying. “Did you hear about the Peterson situation? Apparently, he’s been seen with his personal trainer. At restaurants. In public.”
“Scandalous,” murmured Margaret, wife of the COO.
“Men are all the same, aren’t they?” Charlotte sipped her champagne and cut her eyes toward Neil and Karina. “Present company’s husbands included, of course.”
The other wives went quiet. I felt their gazes slide toward me, assessing, pitying, hungry for drama.
“I need some air,” I said.
I made it to the edge of the ballroom before I heard it.
“And this must be Mrs. Franco!”
I turned. A silver-haired man I didn’t recognize was approaching Neil with his hand outstretched. His wife, dripping diamonds, was beaming at Karina.
“What a lovely couple you make,” the woman said.
Karina laughed. That tinkling, musical laugh that made my skin crawl.
“Oh no.” She waved her hand dismissively, still smiling. “God, no.”
She didn’t correct them. Didn’t say she was the secretary. Just laughed and left the clarification hanging.
The donor couple looked confused. Looked at Neil and waited for clarification.
Neil’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The silence stretched for one second. Long enough for everyone nearby to notice. Long enough for the whispers to start.
I crossed the room in four strides.
“I’m his wife.” I slid my arm through Neil’s, my smile sharp enough to cut glass. “She’s the secretary.”
The donor couple stammered apologies. Karina’s smile flickered for just a moment before she excused herself to get more folders. Neil’s arm was rigid under my hand.
“Anika,” he said quietly. “Let’s get some air.”
I let him guide me toward the terrace. Let him steer me away from the curious stares and the whispered conversations. My heels clicked against the marble, and I kept my spine straight and my smile fixed until we were outside, alone in the cold night air.
Then I pulled my arm from his and stepped away.
“Anika…”
“Not here. In the car.”
The car ride was silent.
Neil sat on his side of the town car, I sat on mine. Giovani drove with his eyes fixed on the road, professionally deaf to whatever tension was brewing in the back seat.
I stared out the window and watched the city lights blur past. Inside my chest, something was hardening. Turning into armor.
“You heard what happened,” I finally said.
“I heard.”
“And?”
“You’re overreacting.”
Those two words.
I turned to face him. My whole body was vibrating with rage, and I could feel my face going red, could feel the heat rising up my throat and into my cheeks.
“People out there are joking about you fucking your beautiful secretary.” The words came out sharp and loud, filling the car. “That’s the whisper going around, in case you hadn’t noticed. Neil Franco and his new assistant. Everyone’s wondering how long until you leave your wife for her.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Because a stranger just assumed Karina was Mrs. Franco, and when given the chance to correct them, you stood there with your mouth open like a fish.”
His jaw tightened. “I was looking for the right word without offending them or Karina.”
“You could have said ‘This is my secretary. My wife is across the room.’ You give speeches to thousands of people without breaking a sweat, but you couldn’t manage twelve words?”
He didn’t answer.
I turned back to the window. The silence pressed down on us, heavy and suffocating.
“Let’s not think about this, please,” Neil said finally. “It’s our anniversary week. I don’t want to spend it fighting.”
Anniversary week. The actual date was tomorrow. The dinner he’d promised to redo. The night that was supposed to prove he could show up when it mattered.
I didn’t respond. Just kept staring at the lights blurring past.
At home, we undressed in silence.
I hung up my sapphire dress and wiped off my makeup. Let my hair down from its elaborate updo. In the mirror, I looked tired. Like someone who’d been slowly hollowed out and hadn’t noticed until she was already empty.
Neil was sitting on the edge of the bed, still in his dress shirt, scrolling through his phone. The blue light illuminated his face, making him look like a stranger.
“How’s the art thing?” he asked without looking up. “Anwesha’s show?”
The question landed like a slap.
“It opens before the leaves turn.”
“Right.” His thumb swiped across the screen. “You’ll smash it.”
He’d said that at the restaurant too. Both times, his eyes had been somewhere else. Both times, he’d said the words like they were a box to check. Supportive husband: say you’ll smash it. Done. Moving on.
I watched him scroll through his emails, his brow furrowed in concentration, and realized he’d never once looked at me when he said those words. He’d offered encouragement without ever seeing the fear underneath it, the dream I’d carried since I was a child finally within reach.
You’ll smash it. Eyes on his phone. Already somewhere else.
I got into bed and turned away from him.