3. Three Weeks
Chapter three
Three Weeks
The silver nose of Marcus’s BMW breached the alleyway.
The sedan glided to a halt in front of the shelter, tires silent against the gritty pavement. Behind the tinted windshield, Marcus sat perfectly upright. The late afternoon glare caught the familiar, sharp angle of his jaw and the straight slope of his nose.
I pushed through the shelter doors and stepped outside. Pasting a smile on my face, I reached for the passenger door and opened it. “Hi, honey,” I greeted him, the words tasting bitter on my lips.
“Hey, babe.” Marcus shot me a sheepish look. “I’m so sorry I was late. Traffic was a nightmare.”
Today, he was wearing his favorite navy-blue suit, the collar of his white dress shirt pressing crisp and clean against his neck. His dark blonde hair was parted neatly, falling in the natural wave I was so used to running my fingers through.
I lowered myself into the seat, hauling my legs inside, and pulled the door shut. The cabin sealed tight, cutting off the noise of the street. “Don’t worry about it, Marcus,” I told him. “You know I understand.”
Marcus sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thanks, babe. You’re too good to me.”
Yes, I was. Maybe that had been the whole problem, all along.
I stared at the faint laugh lines at the corners of his blue eyes and his clean-shaven cheekbones. There was no flush to his skin, no nervous sweat, no physical evidence of the afternoon he had just spent. He didn’t look like a monster. He just looked like my husband.
It hurt almost as much as seeing him in bed with my mother. Almost, but not quite.
Marcus shifted the car into drive and pulled away from the curb.
“Sanders is breathing down my neck again,” he complained, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel.
“The man is a relic. He spent an hour in the boardroom today lecturing the senior partners about corporate integrity and family values. It’s a bank, for God’s sake, not a church. ”
Mr. Sanders. The CEO. The man holding the keys to the promotion Marcus had been chasing for over a year.
A cold, sharp clarity settled over the nausea in my stomach. Sanders demanded his executives present a traditional family image. Under the firm’s moral clauses, he fired men for public scandals. He was the only person Marcus actually feared.
“You’ll get the promotion, Marcus,” I replied. “You always give Mr. Sanders exactly what he wants.”
Marcus flashed me a tired smile. He reached across the center console. His familiar hand landed firmly on my left thigh.
The skin beneath his palm crawled. The urge to violently shove his hand away and throw myself out of the moving vehicle sat like acid at the base of my throat. I dug the nails of my right hand directly into my own palm and forced myself to stay completely relaxed.
Marcus gave my leg a rhythmic pat. “How were the kids today, babe?”
He didn’t care about the shelter or the children. He was only pretending to be interested. The same way he pretended to give a damn about our unborn child.
“It was fine,” I answered. I pushed my mouth into a mild, exhausted smile. “The power went out for a few minutes, but the kids just thought it was a game.”
Marcus pulled his hand away and returned it to the steering wheel. He accepted the lie without a second thought. My absolute compliance had always been a fundamental law of his universe.
We stopped at a red light. Marcus leaned forward over the center console to adjust the rearview mirror.
The movement brought his collar within inches of my face.
A wave of floral perfume rolled off the wool lapel of his suit. It wasn’t his cologne. It was Sylvia’s perfume. It was steeped right into the fabric.
My stomach cramped, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from gagging out loud.
I snapped my gaze toward the passenger window, staring blindly at the brick facades of the passing buildings. He hadn’t even bothered to change his jacket. He simply assumed I was the same blindly trusting woman he had dropped off this morning.
I breathed slowly through my mouth, counting the seconds until the light turned green.
The BMW rolled to a halt in our driveway.
I stepped out of the car, my flats hitting the concrete. The fading sun cast long shadows across the lawn. I stared at the solid oak front door. Just a few hours ago, I had fled through that exact doorway. Now, I had to willingly walk back inside.
Marcus unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the door open, stepping casually into the foyer. He dropped his briefcase onto the entryway table with a dull thud.
I followed him inside. The air conditioning kicked on, carrying the familiar smell of roasting garlic and butter from the kitchen.
“We’re home!” Marcus called out, loosening his tie.
Footsteps padded across the hardwood floor, and Sylvia appeared in the archway.
She wore a crisp, white linen blouse tucked into beige slacks. An apron was tied neatly around her waist. She wiped her hands on a dish towel, her platinum-blonde hair restyled into a fresh blowout.
“There’s my glowing girl!” Sylvia cooed, her face breaking into a wide smile.
The maternal affection in her voice made my head spin. I stared at her face, searching for some crack in the performance, a flicker of guilt in her dark eyes. There was nothing. She just looked like a woman who was having a very good day.
Sylvia stepped forward and reached for me. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, pressing her cheek against mine. The exact same perfume I’d just smelled in the car coated the back of my throat.
“You look exhausted, sweetheart,” Sylvia murmured sympathetically, pulling back to inspect my face. She patted my cheek. “Sit down. Let Mommy serve you.”
I managed a single nod and walked past her into the dining room.
The long mahogany table was already set for three. White linen napkins rested beside silver forks. The water glasses caught the light from the chandelier overhead.
I pulled out my chair on the left side of the table and sat down. Marcus took his position at the head. Sylvia bustled back into the kitchen, humming some cheerful tune under her breath.
A minute later, she returned carrying a large serving platter, setting a roasted chicken surrounded by glazed carrots and potatoes in the center of the table. She took her seat directly across from me, on Marcus’s right.
It wasn’t hard to see the geometry of it now. I was the third wheel at their dinner table.
Sylvia served the plates, piling a massive portion of potatoes onto mine. “Eat up, El. You need the calories.”
I picked up my fork and knife. My hands were trembling so badly I had to rest my forearms against the edge of the table to steady my wrists. I pressed the tines of the fork into a piece of chicken. I dragged the serrated edge of the knife across the meat.
The blade slipped, screeching harshly against the bone china.
The scrape echoed through the room. Marcus winced, his jaw clenching in irritation.
“Careful with the plates, Elena,” Marcus said, his tone sharp. “Those were a wedding gift.”
The sheer irony of the complaint settled like a stone in my chest. I stared at his familiar face, my grip tightening on the handle of the knife. It would have been so easy to drive the blade directly into the back of his hand, to shatter every plate in the room.
I forced my fingers to relax. “Sorry. My hand slipped.”
I lowered my gaze to the roasted carrots on my plate. With nothing else to do, I watched them.
Marcus took a bite of chicken, chewed slowly, and let his eyes drift toward Sylvia. The corner of his mouth twitched upward in a private smile. Sylvia picked up her wine glass, peering at him over the rim. She held his gaze for three long seconds before taking a slow sip.
Beneath the table, Marcus dropped his left shoulder slightly, angling his torso toward Sylvia.
I kept my eyes on my plate, tracking the movement under the mahogany edge.
Marcus’s right foot slid across the Persian rug.
His leather dress shoe bridged the gap between their chairs and pressed firmly against the side of Sylvia’s calf.
Sylvia didn’t flinch. She simply smiled and cut another piece of chicken.
They were communicating right in front of me, entirely confident that I was too stupid to see it.
I speared a small piece of chicken and pushed it into my mouth.
The meat tasted like dry ash. I chewed methodically, forcing myself to swallow. It went down like a jagged rock, sitting uncomfortably in my stomach. I took a quick sip of water to wash the bitter taste away, my hand shaking slightly as I set the glass back on the table.
“The chicken is wonderful, Sylvia,” Marcus said, leaning back in his chair.
“Thank you, darling,” Sylvia purred. She turned her dark eyes toward me. “Is the nursery furniture arriving this week, El? I want to make sure I’m here to supervise the delivery men. They always scuff the baseboards.”
She was already planning her schedule around my home. She was settling in to play house with my husband, fully expecting me to just step aside and let her.
“The crib comes on Tuesday, Mom,” I answered smoothly, lifting my head to meet her eyes. I offered her a bright, empty smile. “I’d love your help putting it together.”
Sylvia beamed, her eyes crinkling with perfect warmth. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, sweetheart. We’re going to make that room absolutely perfect.”
Just looking at her made me feel sick. I stared into my half-empty water glass. A private confrontation wouldn’t achieve a single thing. I needed something public. Something so absolute that neither of them would ever recover.
My gaze shifted to the large calendar hanging on the kitchen wall directly behind Sylvia’s head.
A thick red circle marked a Friday at the end of the month.
Sylvia’s fiftieth birthday.
For the past two months, she had been planning a lavish dinner party.
She had forced Marcus to rent the private dining room at the most expensive restaurant in the city.
She had invited fifty people—her country club friends, our extended family, and, crucially, the senior executives from Marcus’s firm.
Mr. Sanders, the guest of honor, was seated at the head table.
A slow, quiet calm settled over me. The tremors in my hands stopped entirely.
Three weeks.
I had exactly three weeks to dismantle the financial traps Marcus had built. I had three weeks to gather proof of their sickness. I had three weeks to smile, to swallow their food, and to play the absolute fool.
I picked up my fork and took another bite of the chicken. It didn’t taste like ash anymore.
At the head of the table, Marcus raised his wine glass. His shoe remained firmly planted against my mother’s calf beneath the mahogany edge. He took a slow sip, looking between the two of us with the relaxed, easy satisfaction of a man who had everything exactly where he wanted it.
He was so very wrong, and soon, I’d prove it to him. Soon, I’d show him and my mother their perfect masks were just as fragile as the ancient lace they’d ripped apart.