13. Anika
— ? —
Anika
Day six, and Neil was taking me to dinner.
I was tired of takeouts eaten cross-legged on Anwesha’s floor while we talked about everything he’d done wrong.
Or sandwiches from the deli downstairs while I listed every event he’d forgotten and every gala he’d abandoned me at.
An actual dinner in public. Like normal people who weren’t in the middle of a trial separation that had become international gossip.
“You’re sure about this?” I asked as we walked to the car.
He held out his hand. “Phone.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I know the rules only technically apply at Anwesha’s, but I want you to know I’m here. Completely. No distractions.”
I took his phone and dropped it in my purse. The weight of it felt significant somehow.
He drove. He’d gotten marginally better at it over the past week, which wasn’t saying much. He still took corners too fast and braked too hard and muttered under his breath every time someone cut him off. But the bollard situation hadn’t repeated itself, so I was calling it progress.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Marisol’s. On Tenth.”
I turned to look at him. “Marisol’s?”
“Three years ago, we were walking past it on the way to some gala, and you said the windows looked warm.” He kept his eyes on the road, but I could see the tension in his jaw.
The hope he was trying not to show. “I made a reservation. Just a regular table. I wanted to take you somewhere that meant something to you. Don’t worry, this doesn’t cost much. No black card needed.”
Something shifted in my chest. A crack in the wall I’d been building.
“You remembered that?”
“I remember everything now. I’m making a list. Every time you mentioned something you wanted, something you liked, something that made you happy. I’m writing them all down so I never forget again.”
“That’s…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Too little too late?”
“I was going to say sweet. But also yes.”
He almost smiled. “I’ll take sweet.”
Marisol’s was exactly as I remembered it. Warm lighting, exposed brick, candles on every table. The kind of place that felt like a secret even when it was full. Neil had gotten us a table by the window, the one I’d admired three years ago without ever expecting him to notice.
He pulled out my chair before I could do it myself, and his hand brushed my shoulder as I sat down. The touch sent sparks down my spine.
I hated that. Hated that my body still responded to him like this, even after everything.
“Wine?” he asked.
“Please.”
He ordered without looking at the menu. My favorite. A Burgundy I’d mentioned loving at a dinner party five years ago, when he’d been on his phone the whole time and I’d assumed he wasn’t listening.
He’d been listening. He just hadn’t shown it.
The menus arrived and I started to relax. Maybe this would be okay. Maybe we could have one nice evening without the weight of everything we’d broken pressing down on us.
Then I heard the whispers.
A table of women across the room. I hadn’t noticed them when we walked in, but I noticed them now. Phones out, pointing and leaning together to murmur things they didn’t want us to hear.
I recognized one of them. Charlotte Whitmore. The wife of Neil’s CFO. The woman who’d made that snide comment at the gala about men being all the same while looking directly at Neil and Karina.
She caught my eyes and smiled. Started walking toward us.
No, no, no.
“Neil,” I said quietly.
He followed my gaze. His jaw tightened.
Charlotte arrived at our table in a cloud of Chanel and false sympathy. Her Botox-smooth face arranged itself into an expression that took effort. Diamonds glittered at her throat, her ears, her wrists. She looked like a woman who’d never worked a day in her life and wanted everyone to know it.
“Anika! So you two were back together again.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “So brave of you.”
“Excuse me?”
“After those diary pages.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper, the kind designed to carry. “I mean, ‘not compatible anymore’? In his own handwriting? I would have died. Truly. I don’t know how you’re showing your face in public.”
The words hit like a slap.
“Everyone’s seen them, sweetheart,” Charlotte continued.
“It’s all anyone’s been talking about. The way he wrote about you, like you were just this…
burden he was carrying. And now you’re here, having dinner together, like nothing happened?
” She laughed, a tinkling sound that made me want to throw my wine in her face.
“I admire the commitment to denial. I really do.”
I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up, my face burning with humiliation. I could feel every eye in the room on us. Could hear the whispers spreading like wildfire. The phones were being raised, recording this moment for posterity.
Neil’s chair scraped back loudly. The sound made Charlotte flinch.
He stood, and suddenly I remembered why people found him intimidating. It wasn’t just the money or the power. It was this. The way he could fill a room with his presence. The way he could make you feel small just by looking at you.
“You should leave,” he said.
Charlotte’s smile flickered. “I’m just making conversation.”
“You walked over here to humiliate my wife in the first restaurant she’s set foot in since your friends made her a punchline.” His voice was quiet but deadly. “Leave. Now.”
“Neil, really. There’s no need to be dramatic.”
“I’m not being dramatic. I’m being very, very clear.” He took a step toward her, and she actually backed up. “You came to our table to rub salt in a wound you had no part in creating. You did it with a smile on your face and malice in your heart, because that’s the kind of person you are.”
Charlotte’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.
“So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to walk back to your table.
You’re going to pay your bill. And you’re going to leave.
If I see you approach my wife again, ever, I will personally ensure that your husband’s position at Franco Holdings becomes very uncomfortable. Do we understand each other?”
The color drained from Charlotte’s face. She looked at me, then at Neil, then at the room full of people who were all pretending not to watch.
“I was just…” she started.
“Leave.”
She left and Neil sat back down. Picked up his wine glass. Took a sip like nothing had happened.
But I could see the tension in his shoulders. The way his hand wasn’t quite steady. He was furious. Furious on my behalf, in a way he’d never been before.
“I want to go,” I said quietly.
“We’re not running.”
“Neil…”
“We’re finishing dinner.” He reached across the table and took my hand.
His grip was warm, steady. “We’re going to eat our food and drink our wine and have a conversation like two people who belong together.
And when we’re done, we’re going to walk out of here with our heads high.
Anyone who has something to say can say it to my lawyers. ”
I looked at our hands, intertwined on the white linen.
“I’m sorry,” he said, softer now. “I should have known this would happen. I should have anticipated that people would recognize us, that someone would say something.”
“You couldn’t have known Charlotte would be here. It’s really not a place where you expect her in the wild.”
“I should have. I know how these people are. I’ve been one of them for years.” His thumb traced circles on the back of my hand. “I just forgot that you’d have to face them too. That my world would become your burden.”
I looked up at him. At the guilt in his eyes.
“It’s not your fault she’s a terrible person.”
“No. But it’s my fault everyone’s seen those diary pages. My fault you’re being judged for something I wrote.” He squeezed my hand. “I’m going to fix it.”
“How?”
“She’ll not be allowed to come close to you ever again.” He held my gaze.
I thought about Charlotte’s smug smile. About the phones recording our humiliation. About the whispers that would follow me everywhere I went now, the pitying looks, the cruel comments.
Then I thought about Neil, standing up for me, defending me. Choosing me over his reputation, his connections, his carefully cultivated image.
We finished dinner. The food was excellent, but I barely tasted it. I was too aware of the eyes on us, the phones still recording, the whispers that never quite stopped.
When we left, Neil walked me through the room with his hand on the small of my back. Protective. His head was high, his stride confident, daring anyone to speak.
No one did.
In the car, I sat in the passenger seat and stared out the window at the city lights blurring past.
“They’ve all seen those pages,” I said quietly. “Everyone knows what you wrote about me. They think I’m pathetic. The wife who stayed even though her husband wrote that they weren’t compatible.”
“You’re not pathetic. You’re brave.”
“I don’t feel brave.” I turned to look at him. “I feel like a joke.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached over and took my hand again.
“You’re not a joke. You’re the only thing in my life that matters. And I’m going to spend however long it takes proving that to everyone. Including you.”
I didn’t answer. I just held his hand and watched the city scroll past and tried to remember what it felt like to not be the subject of everyone’s gossip.
This was my life now. The woman everyone pitied. The wife who wasn’t enough.
I was going to have to find a way to live with that.