2. Cameron
— ? —
Cameron
My wife looked at me last night like I was a stranger wearing her husband’s face.
I’m at my desk by seven, having left before she woke because I couldn’t stand the thought of facing those eyes again over breakfast. The hurt in them, the disappointment, the way she flinched when I tried to touch her.
That’s different.
God. Of all the stupid, thoughtless things I could have said. I might as well have told her flat out that her life’s work is a hobby and mine is the real thing.
I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean it at all. But I said it, and I can’t unsay it, and the look on her face when the words landed is going to haunt me for a long time.
My office door opens. Violet appears with coffee, perfectly timed as always. She’s wearing a sleek black sheath dress, her hair pulled back in a way that emphasizes her cheekbones, and she sets the cup on my desk with her usual efficiency.
“Your eleven o’clock is here early,” she says. “And your mother called twice before eight. She wants to confirm Thursday’s dinner at the estate.”
“Thursday.” I rub my eyes. “Right. Tell her we’ll be there. And push the eleven o’clock to eleven-thirty if you can, I need to review the numbers before I talk to him.”
“Already done. I moved him and pulled the Singapore files, they’re in your inbox.” She pauses, tilting her head slightly. “You look exhausted. Rough night?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“The anniversary dinner.” She winces sympathetically. “Cameron, I’m so sorry. You asked me to text Hannah that you’d be running late, and it completely slipped my mind. Everything was on fire with the overseas group, and by the time I came up for air it was almost midnight.”
She looks genuinely stricken, and I find myself reassuring her before I’ve even processed the apology.
“It’s not your fault.” Except it is, a little, because one text was all I asked for, but I can’t blame my assistant for my own failures. “I should have charged my phone. I should have paid attention to what day it was.”
“You’ve been under a lot of pressure. The Meridian deal is enormous, and you’re handling most of it yourself because you don’t trust anyone else to get it right. Stress like that makes it hard to keep track of personal things.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No,” she agrees. “But it’s an explanation.”
I nod and turn back to my computer, but she doesn’t leave. After a moment, she says, “Oh, the New York gala next week - should I arrange anything for Hannah? I can have someone coordinate her travel and wardrobe if she’s planning to attend.”
The New York gala. Three days of press, schmoozing, and investor relations. Hannah has always hated these things. She offered to come once, years ago, and spent the whole night looking miserable in a corner while I worked the room.
“It’d bore her to death,” I say. “Tell her not to worry about it. It’s basically a giant business meeting with champagne.”
A flicker crosses Violet’s eyes: agreement, maybe, or a satisfaction I can’t name. “I’ll let her know.”
“Thanks. And Violet? Next time Hannah shows up or calls, interrupt me. I don’t care what I’m doing.”
“Of course.”
She disappears, and I try to focus on the projections in front of me, but the numbers keep blurring together. All I can see is Hannah’s face last night when I said her work was different. All I can hear is her voice: I feel like I’m optional in my own marriage.
Around noon, Violet’s voice comes through the intercom. “Cameron? Your wife is here.”
I look up sharply.
“Should I tell her you’re in a meeting?” Violet asks.
“No. Send her up.”
A moment later the door opens and Hannah walks through, carrying a paper bag from the Italian place I used to love, back when I had time for two-hour lunches. She’s wearing jeans and that soft blue sweater I bought her for Christmas, and she looks tired but she’s trying to smile.
“Hey.” She sets the bag on my desk, her movements careful and uncertain. “I thought maybe we could talk. About last night. About us.”
“I’d like that,” I say, and I mean it, and for a moment her smile turns real.
She starts unpacking the bag, lifting out containers and setting them on the desk between us.
Chicken piccata for me, the lemon thing she always orders for herself, a paper sleeve of garlic bread that’s still warm enough to fog its wrapper.
She lines them up and hunts through the bag for napkins and plastic forks, narrating as she goes, telling me the old guy behind the counter remembered her and asked where we’d been, and I watch my wife set a table on top of my contracts and feel the knot in my chest loosen for the first time since last night.
“He threw in extra bread,” she says, “because I told him it was for you, and he said, and I quote, ‘a man that skinny is a man whose wife has given up.’”
“I’m not skinny.”
“You’ve lost weight, Cam. You forget to eat when you’re-”
My desk phone rings. I glance at the caller ID: Tokyo, the overseas liaison I’ve been trying to reach all week. My hand moves toward the receiver before I can stop myself.
“Do you need to get that?” Hannah’s voice is carefully neutral.
“It’s just - it’s Tokyo, I’ve been trying to connect with them for days, let me just-” I pick up the phone. “This is Cameron Jasper.”
The voice on the other end launches straight into business, and I find myself responding on autopilot, talking numbers while my wife stands three feet away next to the lunch she unpacked for us. I watch her face go from hopeful to blank, and then past blank.
The call stretches on, two minutes, then three, then five.
When I finally hang up, Hannah is still standing there, but she’s not looking at me anymore. She’s looking at the phone like it’s a rival she’s already lost to.
“Cam, I really need us to talk.” Her voice is quiet but steady. “I feel like furniture you walk past every day without even seeing.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I-”
My computer pings with a calendar reminder. Then pings again. Violet’s voice comes through the intercom: “Cameron, the Meridian team needs you in the conference room. They say it’s urgent.”
I stand up before I’ve decided to, already reaching for my jacket, and then I see Hannah’s face and I stop. She looks like she’s been slapped.
“Hannah, can we do this tonight? I really have to-”
“Have to what?”
“Walk away from a billion-dollar deal because you want to have lunch?”
The words come out sharp and defensive and exactly wrong. I hear myself say them and want them back immediately, but they’re already hanging in the air between us, and Hannah’s face has gone very still.
“I want you to want to have lunch with me, Cameron.” She picks up the paper bag, the olive branch going home untouched. “But apparently that’s asking too much.”
She turns and walks out before I can find the words to stop her.
I stand there staring at the door she closed behind her, my hand still on my jacket, the conference room waiting for me and my wife already gone. The silence in my office feels like an accusation.
I should go after her. I should tell Violet to reschedule the meeting, tell the Meridian team they can wait, choose Hannah over the deal the way I used to choose her over everything. That’s what the man she married would have done.
Instead I stand here, paralyzed, watching the seconds tick by on my desk clock.
Violet appears in the doorway, her face carefully neutral. “They’re waiting in conference room B.”
I close my eyes for a moment. When I open them, the decision has already been made, the way it always is.
“Tell them I’m on my way.”
I grab my jacket and follow her out, hating myself with every step.
The rest of the day disappears into meetings and calls.
Every time there’s a pause, I think about calling Hannah, but then legal needs a signature or a crisis flares overseas or Violet appears with another fire to put out, and the hours slip away until it’s nearly seven and the office has emptied out around me.
I’m packing up my briefcase when Violet appears in the doorway, coat on and bag over her shoulder.
“Heading out?” I ask.
“Just finishing up some emails.” She falls into step beside me as I walk toward the elevator. “Don’t stay too late. You’ve been running on fumes all week.”
“I’m leaving now, actually. I need to go home and fix things with Hannah.”
“That’s good. She deserves that.” Violet presses the elevator button, and we stand there in the quiet of the empty hallway, waiting for the doors to open. “She’s lucky to have someone who cares enough to try.”
The elevator arrives with a soft chime. I step inside and turn back to face her.
“Hey, Violet? Remind me to call Hannah tonight. Set an alarm or something - I keep forgetting, and I can’t afford to forget anything else right now.”
She smiles, warm and reassuring. “Of course.”
The doors begin to close. Through the narrowing gap, I see Violet standing in the hallway, her phone already in her hand.
“Have a good night, Cameron.”
“You too.”
The elevator descends, and for the first time all week I feel something like lightness. The reminder is set. Violet will handle it, because Violet handles everything. One slip in five years, and she looked sick about it all morning. It won’t happen twice.