8. Real Affection
Chapter eight
Real Affection
Marcus’s hand was warm and heavy, resting perfectly against the curve of my swollen stomach.
We sat together on the white sofa in the living room.
The television played a cooking show on low volume, casting a soft glow across the glass coffee table.
Marcus sat close to me, his thigh pressed against mine.
His fingers traced slow, soothing circles over the fabric of my maternity dress, his thumb occasionally dipping to press lightly just above my navel.
“She’s quiet tonight,” Marcus murmured, his eyes fixed fondly on my stomach. He leaned his head against the back of the couch, looking entirely relaxed.
“She kicked a lot this afternoon,” I said, keeping my voice soft, matching his cadence. “I think she wore herself out.”
“Good.” Marcus turned his head, smiling. The affection reached all the way to the corners of his blue eyes. He looked exactly like a man deeply in love with his pregnant wife. “She needs to rest. You both do. You’ve been working so hard on the nursery.”
He leaned in and kissed me. His lips were firm, tasting faintly of the expensive mint toothpaste he kept in the master bathroom. He cupped the side of my face, his thumb brushing gently over my cheekbone.
I forced my shoulders to drop. I leaned into the kiss, letting my eyes flutter shut, playing the role Julian Sinclair had assigned me.
My skin crawled, a suffocating itch spreading across my neck and chest. I didn’t show it. Instead, I let out a soft sigh against his lips and rested my hand on his chest, right over his heartbeat.
He pulled back, smiling down at me, and kissed my forehead.
“Here we go,” Sylvia’s voice called out from the kitchen.
Footsteps clicked against the hardwood. My mother walked into the living room, bearing a small silver tray that held a ceramic mug and a plate of sliced apples. She wore a soft beige cardigan over her blouse, her platinum hair pinned up in a loose twist.
“Chamomile and lavender,” Sylvia said brightly, setting the tray down on the coffee table in front of me. “I steeped it for exactly four minutes, just the way you like it, sweetie.”
“Thank you, Mom,” I said. I picked up the warm mug, wrapping both of my hands around the ceramic to hide the slight tremor in my fingers. “It smells perfect.”
“You looked a little pale at dinner,” Sylvia noted, her brow furrowing with genuine maternal worry.
She sat down in the armchair adjacent to the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her and looking from me to Marcus, her eyes shining with warmth.
“I just want to make sure she’s staying hydrated.
The summer heat is so hard on the body in the third trimester. ”
“I was just telling her the same thing,” Marcus agreed effortlessly. He slid his arm around my shoulders and pulled me flush against his side. “We have to take care of our girls.”
Sylvia beamed and shot him a fond look. If a stranger had walked through the front door at that exact moment, they would have seen the quintessential American family—a devoted husband, a doting grandmother, and a cherished expectant mother.
They smiled with their eyes. They brewed herbal tea.
They were so incredibly good at this that it made my stomach physically turn.
“I hate to break this up.” Marcus sighed, checking the heavy silver watch on his left wrist. He gave my shoulder a final squeeze before pulling his arm away and standing up. “I’ve got to get back to the city. The regional directors are in town, and the dinner reservation is at eight.”
“Do you need me to grab your dry cleaning from the closet?” Sylvia offered, half-standing from her chair. “You mentioned you wanted the navy suit for tomorrow.”
“No, sit, sit,” Marcus insisted, waving her off. “I grabbed it when I came downstairs. You just relax and keep an eye on Elena.”
He walked around the coffee table, stopping in front of me. He leaned down, bracing his hands on the armrest of the sofa, and kissed me deeply one more time.
“Call me if you need anything,” he murmured against my mouth. “Even if it’s late. My phone will be on.”
“I will,” I promised. “Drive safe.”
Marcus straightened up, offered a warm smile to Sylvia, and walked out into the foyer. The deadbolt clicked. The heavy front door shut. A minute later, the low rumble of his BMW faded down the street.
Sylvia let out a soft, contented sigh, picking up her sparkling water from the side table.
“He works so hard,” she observed, taking a sip. She looked at me. “You’re very lucky, Elena. A lot of men at his level in finance barely come home, let alone care about nursery furniture and chamomile tea.”
I looked back at her over the rim of my mug. I took a slow drink of the hot, floral water.
“I know,” I said evenly. “I’m very lucky.”
“Well.” Sylvia smiled, setting her glass down and standing up. “I’m supposed to be at the country club by seven-thirty for the charity auction committee. I need to go touch up my makeup. Will you be alright here by yourself for a few hours?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m just going to finish this tea and go to bed early.”
“Good idea,” Sylvia cooed. She walked over, leaned down, and kissed the top of my head. Her tuberose perfume enveloped me, thick and heavy. “Sweet dreams, my beautiful girl.”
I watched her walk up the stairs. I sat perfectly still on the white sofa, listening to the muffled sounds of the water running in her bathroom and the opening and closing of her closet door. Twenty minutes later, she came back downstairs, holding her designer clutch.
She waved at me from the foyer, and the front door closed again. The lock clicked. The house was empty.
I set the mug of tea down on the glass table. I stood up, walked directly into the downstairs powder room, and turned the brass faucet.
I pumped a massive pool of harsh antibacterial soap into my hands.
I scrubbed my palms together, working up a thick lather.
I brought the soap up to my face, aggressively washing the skin of my cheeks, forehead, and jawline.
I scrubbed my mouth where Marcus had kissed me, pressing my fingers against my lips until the skin burned.
I rinsed the soap away, splashing freezing water over my face. I grabbed a hand towel and dried off, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
My eyes were bloodshot, and the skin around my mouth was pink and raw. The invisible residue of their fake affection was gone.
I left the bathroom, walking straight out the back door. The evening air was thick with the lingering humidity of the July heat, alive with the mechanical hum of neighborhood AC units and the shrill sound of cicadas.
Walking over the damp grass in my flats, I crossed the property line and stepped onto Hayes’s back porch. I pulled the handle on his sliding glass door and let myself in.
The interior of Hayes’s house smelled like roasted garlic, dark coffee, and dry pine. He was standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a glass of water in his hand. “They’re gone?” he asked without preamble.
“Marcus has a dinner in the city,” I replied. “Sylvia is at the country club. I have a three-hour window.”
Hayes nodded. He turned around, walking down the short hallway toward the back of the house. I followed him.
The door to the office was open. The blackout curtains were drawn, isolating the room from the rest of the neighborhood. The dual monitors on the massive desk were awake, casting a cool blue light across the dark hardwood floor.
Hayes pulled the rolling leather guest chair out for me. I sat down, resting my hands on my thighs. He took the primary executive chair, sliding closer to the desk, and placed his hand over the wireless mouse.
“I pulled the logs an hour ago,” Hayes said. He clicked open a heavily encrypted folder on his desktop. “The server automatically timestamps and categorizes the footage anytime the motion sensors in the house are triggered. I filtered out anything where you were in the room.”
I stared at the screen. A neat grid of video thumbnails populated the window.
“Living room, guest room, or office?” Hayes asked.
“Living room,” I said. “Yesterday afternoon. I went upstairs around two o’clock to take a nap.”
Hayes clicked the search bar, typing the date and time parameters. The grid shrank down to three specific video files labeled CAM1_LIVING.
He hovered the cursor over the first file. “Ready?”
“Play it.”
Hayes double-clicked the file. The video expanded to fill the entire left monitor.
The feed was completely silent. Julian Sinclair’s warning about felony wiretapping meant Hayes had stripped the audio from the archives and permanently disabled the inputs from the server dashboard the second we got back from the city.
Watching my living room play out like a silent film made the footage infinitely creepier.
On the screen, Marcus stood near the fireplace, adjusting the cuffs of his dress shirt. Sylvia sat on the white sofa, casually flipping through a magazine. They were completely still, looking toward the staircase.
They were waiting.
They waited for exactly thirty seconds. Then, the atmosphere in the living room shifted entirely.
Marcus let out a long breath, loosening his tie. He walked over to the sofa and dropped onto the cushions right next to my mother. He kicked his shoes off, leaned back, and draped his arm across the back of the couch.
Sylvia set her magazine down. She shifted her weight, sliding across the cushions until she was pressed flush against his side, and rested her head casually against his shoulder.
Marcus tipped his head back against the cushions. Sylvia reached her hand up, threading her fingers through his blond hair, and began massaging the tense muscles at the base of his neck. They exchanged a few silent words, Marcus smiling lazily at whatever she said.
He shifted on the couch, wrapping his arm around Sylvia’s waist and pulling her firmly into his lap. She went willingly, straddling his thighs, her hands resting flat against his chest.