11. Rhodes
— ? —
Rhodes
The door closes behind her and I don’t follow.
I should follow. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to follow, to catch her, to fix this, but Rachel is already at my elbow, and Julian is right behind her, and someone is saying something about the press.
“Rhodes.” Rachel’s voice is calm, controlled. “We need to get back in there.”
“I need to go after her.”
“If you walk out of your own anniversary gala right after a public fight, this becomes the story. Not the company. Not ten years of success. Just you chasing your wife through a parking lot while cameras roll.”
She’s right. I hate that she’s right.
“The clip is already circulating,” Julian says, holding up his phone. “Someone got the whole thing. We need to get ahead of this.”
“What do you mean, the whole thing?”
“The argument.” He looks uncomfortable. “Someone recorded it. Through the door.”
My stomach drops. “How much?”
“Enough.”
I close my eyes. The ranunculus, the bouquet. “Stop acting like everything you arrange is some sacred contribution. I built this. You decorate it.”
I said that. In front of people, to my wife.
“Rhodes.” Rachel again. “We have maybe ten minutes before this becomes the only thing anyone’s talking about. You need to go back in there and act like everything’s fine. One dance. One toast. Then we do damage control.”
“My wife just walked out.”
“And she can walk back in once the dust settles. But right now, you walking out means admitting something’s wrong. And if something’s wrong, people start asking why. They start asking about the hotel photo. They start asking about me.”
I look at her. “This isn’t about you.”
“I know that. But they don’t.” She gestures toward the ballroom. “Right now, the narrative is that your wife had a bad night. If you leave, the narrative becomes that your marriage is falling apart. Which version do you want on the morning news?”
Julian nods. “She’s right. One hour. Get through the rest of the event. Then go home and fix things with Maren.”
One hour.
Maren knows I love her. She knows this is just work, just obligations, just the impossible tightrope I’ve been walking for ten years. She’ll understand.
She has to understand.
“Fine,” I say. “One hour.”
I walk back into the ballroom. The crowd parts for me, or maybe I’m imagining that. Maybe they’re not all staring. Maybe they didn’t all hear.
The ranunculus on the floor of that hallway tells a different story.
I smile, shake hands, accept congratulations that taste like ashes. Someone makes a toast and I lift my glass and pretend the champagne isn’t acid in my throat.
Forty-five minutes left, and I watch every one of them crawl down toward twenty.
Then the reporter finds me.
She’s young, mid-twenties, probably, with a press badge and a digital recorder that she’s not even trying to hide. I should brush her off. I should walk away.
“Mr. Calloway, quick comment on what happened with your wife?”
“No comment.”
“Sources are saying the argument was about Rachel Vaughn. About the hotel photo.”
I keep walking. She keeps pace.
“Is your wife jealous of your relationship with Rachel?”
I stop.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But the word jealous lands wrong, and I’m tired, and I’m scared, and I need this story to be about literally anything other than whether I’m sleeping with Rachel.
“My wife isn’t jealous.”
“But there have been rumors-”
“There’s nothing happening with Rachel. She’s my colleague, my business partner. That’s all.”
“Then what was the argument about?”
I give her the boardroom face, the one that gives away nothing, and hate that I’m aiming it at a question about my own wife.
“It was a personal matter.”
“Your wife seemed pretty upset.”
“She was having a difficult night.”
The reporter tilts her head. “Some would say the timing is interesting. The hotel photo comes out, and then your wife has a meltdown at your anniversary gala-”
“It wasn’t a meltdown.”
“What would you call it?”
I should stop talking. I should walk away. But the word meltdown is sitting in my chest and won’t work its way out, and I need to make this smaller, need to make this go away.
“My wife has never really understood the demands of this business,” I say. “She, there’s a learning curve. To being in this world.”
The words are barely out of my mouth before I want to claw them back.
The reporter smiles. “So this was jealousy?”
“No. It was a personal insecurity that unfortunately became public tonight.”
“And Rachel Vaughn had nothing to do with it?”
“Rachel works for me. She does her job extremely well. Any suggestion otherwise is unfounded.”
“Thank you, Mr. Calloway.”
She walks away. I stand frozen, watching her disappear into the crowd, and the cold certainty settles over me that I just made everything worse.
Julian appears at my side. “What did you say to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rhodes.”
“I said Maren has never really understood the demands of this business.”
Julian closes his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“I was trying to kill the Rachel story.”
“By throwing your wife under the bus?”
“I didn’t throw her-” I stop. “How bad?”
“Get out of here, now, before she files.”
I leave. Not through the main entrance, Julian guides me through a service corridor, past the kitchen, out a loading dock where a car is already waiting. The driver knows not to ask questions.
My phone starts buzzing before we hit the first traffic light.
The clip is everywhere. Not just the argument in the hallway, that’s bad enough, my voice clearly audible saying I built this, you decorate it, but now there’s the interview too. My face, my words, playing on loop.
“My wife has never really understood the demands of this business.”
“It was a personal insecurity that unfortunately became public tonight.”
I watch myself destroy my marriage in high definition. I watch the headlines form in real time:
BILLIONAIRE’S JEALOUS WIFE MELTS DOWN OVER FEMALE COLLEAGUE
CALLOWAY CALLS WIFE “INSECURE” AFTER GALA BLOWUP
THE REAL REASON MAREN CALLOWAY STORMED OUT
They’re running my words next to footage of me tearing apart her bouquet. The flowers fall in slow motion, the ranunculus, the sweet peas, the rosemary from our garden, while my voice plays in a loop. You decorate it.
By the time I reach our house, the story is fully formed. I’m not the husband who neglected his wife, not the man who forgot eleven years of anniversary bouquets. I’m the successful businessman with the jealous, insecure wife who couldn’t handle his female colleague.
Maren has been turned into a punchline.
And I did it.
The house is dark when I pull up. No lights in the windows, no movement behind the curtains. For a terrifying moment I think she’s gone, really gone, packed a bag and left, but her car is in the driveway.
I let myself in. The silence is deafening.
“Maren?”
Nothing.
I find her in the living room, sitting on the couch in the dark, her phone face-down on the cushion beside her. She doesn’t look up when I come in.
“Mare.”
“I saw the clip.”
Her voice is so flat it doesn’t sound like her. The woman I married, sharp, funny, quick with a comeback, sounds like she’s been hollowed out.
“Maren, I can explain-”
“You called me insecure.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then tell me what part I misunderstood.” She finally looks up, and the expression on her face makes my chest crack.
“Because I’ve been sitting here for an hour, watching that interview on loop, and I keep waiting to find the part where you didn’t just tell the entire world that your wife is jealous and clingy and can’t handle your job. ”
“I was trying to stop them from making it look like I’m sleeping with Rachel.”
“So you made me look crazy instead.”
I have no answer for that. There’s no answer that makes this better.
“I spent eleven years defending you,” Maren says. “Every time someone suggested you were cold, or workaholic, or cared more about money than people, I defended you. I told them they didn’t know you. I told them you were kind, and thoughtful, and that you loved me more than your job.”
“I do love you more than-”
“And then I watched you tell a reporter that I ‘never really understood the demands of this business.’” Her voice breaks on the last word. “Like I’m some child who can’t comprehend your important grown-up world.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s exactly what you meant.” She stands up, and I see it now, the way she’s holding herself together, the effort it’s taking not to fall apart.
“You’ve been treating me like an afterthought for years, Rhodes.
Like something to come home to when everything else is finished.
And I thought, I thought if I just kept showing up, kept being patient, kept making my stupid anniversary bouquets-”
“They’re not stupid.”
“You crushed them.” Her voice is raw. “You tore them apart right in front of me. And then you walked back into your party and told a reporter I was too insecure to handle your success.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You made a choice.” She wraps her arms around herself. “You could have followed me, could have left your precious gala and come home and talked to me. But you didn’t. You stayed and protected your reputation.”
“Rachel said if I left-”
“Rachel.” She laughs, and it’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard. “Of course. Rachel. The woman who’s been slowly erasing me from your life for three years, and you still take her advice over your own instincts.”
“She’s not erasing you.”
“She produced a ten-year retrospective of your company and I’m not in a single frame.
She scheduled a photoshoot without telling me, and she was in a hotel room with you at midnight while I was at home alone.
” Maren shakes her head. “I know you’re not sleeping with her.
I believe you. But she’s been taking my place piece by piece, and you let her.
Because it’s easier. Because she understands your world and I’m just, what was it? An insecurity that became public?”
“Maren-”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
The words land like a verdict.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t keep waiting for you to choose me.
I can’t keep hoping that one day you’ll look up from your spreadsheets and your endless meetings and remember that you married me.
” She moves toward the door. “I can’t keep being the wife who smiles and nods and watches her husband build an empire without her. ”
“I’m not asking you to-”
“You’re not asking me anything!” Her voice rises, finally, cracking through the flatness. “That’s the problem. You don’t ask, you don’t notice. You just assume I’ll be here when you’re finished, like I’m part of the furniture. Like I’m one of your decorations.”
I step toward her. “Maren, please. I know I messed up. I know I said things I shouldn’t have. But I love you. I’ve loved you for eleven years.”
“I know you love me.” Her voice drops. “But I don’t think you like me very much anymore. I don’t think you think about me at all. And I can’t keep living like a ghost in my own marriage.”
“What do you want me to do? I’ll do anything.”
“Will you?” She looks at me, and her eyes are red but dry. “Because two hours ago you chose your company over me. One hour ago you threw me to the press to protect your image. And right now you’re standing there asking what I want instead of figuring it out yourself.”
I stare at her. She stares back.
And then I say the thing that ends the conversation.
“You don’t understand what it’s like.” The words come out harder than I intend.
“Having hundreds of employees depending on you. Having an entire company watching your every move. If I have one bad night, one wrong decision, people lose their jobs. Families suffer. I’m not just protecting my image, I’m protecting everyone who works for me. ”
“And I don’t have anyone depending on me?”
“That’s not-” I catch myself too late. “Maren, you know I don’t mean-”
“Bellamy Blooms is a small business, right? Just me and a couple employees, arranging flowers. If we have a bad night, what’s the worst that happens? We lose some flowers?”
She’s echoing my thoughts back at me, the thoughts I didn’t even know I was having, and the accuracy makes me flinch.
“If Bellamy Blooms has a bad night, you lose some flowers,” I say, and I know I should stop but I can’t, the words pouring out like they’ve been waiting years. “If I have one, people lose jobs. Mortgages, health insurance. You don’t-”
“I don’t what?”
“You don’t understand that kind of pressure.”
Silence.
Maren stares at me. I stare back.
And I realize, with a clarity that feels like drowning, that I just reduced everything she built to something small. Again. After everything I said tonight, after I built this, you decorate it, I just did it again.
“Maren-”
“Eleven years ago,” she says quietly, “I gave up a residency program to follow you here. I built my business from nothing while you built yours. I’ve had employees cry in my office.
I’ve made payroll when we couldn’t afford it, held the hands of brides whose mothers just died and grooms who were terrified they were making a mistake.
I’ve created things that mattered, not billion-dollar hotels, but moments that meant something to people. ”
She picks up her keys from the table.
“But you’re right. It’s just flowers. And I’m just the woman who decorates your life while you do the real work.”
“That’s not what I-”
“I’ll be at Nora’s.”
She walks to the door. Opens it.
“Maren, wait. Please.”
She stops but doesn’t turn around.
“Don’t come looking for me,” she says. “Not tonight. Not until you figure out whether you actually want a wife or just someone who shows up when you remember to notice her.”
The door closes.
I stand in my empty living room, surrounded by the life we built together, and I understand with perfect clarity that I might have just lost her for good.
My phone buzzes. Another news alert. Another clip of my face, my words, my mistakes on display for the world.
I turn it off.
The dried ranunculus sits on the nightstand upstairs. Year one. A crooked stem in a champagne bottle, chosen by a man who thought it was perfect because it was imperfect.
I don’t know who that man is anymore.
But I know, with a certainty that settles into my bones like winter, that I have to find him.
Before it’s too late.