Chapter 46
He wants to be there with her.
To be there for her, yes, but also to watch her. Yet his presence is so unwanted, so painful for her, and it was thus becoming too painful for him.
Besides, his work is not waiting just because Klara has lost their baby.
There are hours to bill, clients whose hands he must hold.
There is work to sell. His partnership with the firm is in its infancy, and so the pressure to sell is relentless.
He should be doing far more—more networking events, golf with contacts on the weekends, dinner and drinks on him.
But that would involve being away from Klara even more.
It’s not that she’s been a terribly pleasant companion of late.
In fact, she would probably prefer that he be away from the house more.
And perhaps that’s precisely why he won’t do it.
Particularly not now. She is no longer pregnant, the link between them, that tie that was meant to be permanent, suddenly gone.
His perfect family abruptly dissolved into vapor, into nothing.
The blank space of Troy’s document, open on one of his three computer screens, stares accusingly back at him. On another screen, the number of unread emails in his inbox gradually ticks higher. He rubs his face, turns his desk chair toward the windows, toward the city below.
He unlocks his cell phone.
Now he’ll have to start over. And he’s afraid Klara will double down.
I told you very early that I never wanted kids.
The pregnancy, the miscarriage, hasn’t changed that.
She could withhold sex—she’s certainly been testing that already, citing her nausea, her exhaustion, turning away from him in their bed, tugging covers, pulling so close to the edge that it seems she’d rather fall off than risk his touch.
He can only wait for so long. He’s her husband.
There are certain things she simply has to give him. There are certain things he’s owed.
But what if she decides she doesn’t want to be his wife anymore? She could leave. After everything he’s done, she could leave. And that can’t happen.
On his phone, he opens the appropriate folder, then the monitoring app he’d purchased several weeks ago, the icon revealing nothing of its purpose, which is one of the reasons he selected that particular app.
He reviews Klara’s recent phone activity—her texts, her calls, her emails, her searches.
But there’s nothing. She hasn’t even reached out to her best friend about her miscarriage.
Not that, if she did, her calls or texts would go through.
That was why he’d set up the two-way block.
With Zoe unreachable, she’d have to rely more on her husband.
It was just another way of taking her in, of pulling her against him, curling himself around her, just the way he had on the plane, on their way to Grand Cayman, while she vomited into a paper bag.
He checks her location history next, and he’s suddenly sitting quite straight, heart knocking, because Klara isn’t at home.
The video doorbell he hadn’t gotten around to setting up.
The cameras still unhelpfully packed tightly in their boxes, concealed in the trunk of his car.
He’d not yet managed to orchestrate Klara being away from the house so that he could have them installed.
Now he wishes he’d made that more of a priority.
There’s a faint tapping at the frame of his door, and he turns, irritated.
“Hi,” says the young woman. Long and honeyed hair rests on her shoulders, frames of her glasses large and crystalline rose. “Do you have a second?”
She’s Lily something—he’s forgotten her last name—one of the newer associates. He staffed her on a project last week, although he can’t recall at the moment which one.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. “It’s not a great time.”
Her face falls, and she takes a step back. “Sure,” she says too quickly, too timidly. She’ll get eaten alive here if she doesn’t grow a bigger pair of balls.
“I’ll buzz you when I’m free. All right, Lily?” He flashes her a smile, observes the way her name in his mouth makes her flush.
“Thank you,” she says, and she nearly curtsies.
“Shut that door on your way out, would you?” he calls out before turning back to his phone. Ordinarily, he might admire her ass as she walked away, but not this time. Not when his wife has left the house.
He hears his office door click closed, and he pinches his fingertips against his phone screen, enlarging the map to see where Klara has gone.
He feels some measure of relief, because she’s not far from home. Not even two miles. He zooms in farther, sees that the small blue dot that represents Klara’s cell phone is currently at their local library.
He looks for any previous activity, but there’s none. She has, thus far, made only one stop.
Troy locks his phone again, places it down. Elbows resting on his desk, he laces his fingers together.
She’s at the library. What could be more harmless? He knows she enjoys reading, so it’s not at all a suspicious place for her to go. She could be browsing for new books to read as she’s resting at home, recuperating from the miscarriage.
But there’s a sinking feeling still. He just can’t quite articulate why.