2. Danica
— ? —
Danica
One month in Los Angeles. Stefan disappeared into the hospital before sunrise and came home after I was already asleep, and I rattled around a house that had been furnished by a designer who’d never met me.
Nothing to unpack. Nothing to arrange. Just dinner alone at a table meant for twelve, scrolling through my phone to have something to look at besides empty chairs.
It wasn’t surgeries keeping him away. Not really.
Stefan still operated, but only the cases no one else could handle, the impossible repairs that kept his name in medical journals.
The rest of his time belonged to the business.
Board meetings, investor calls, expansion plans for the Salvatore Medical Group.
Seven hospitals across the country now, with an eighth breaking ground in Seattle, and every single one of them needed something from him.
So when Stefan called at five o’clock on a Tuesday and said “Dinner tonight, wear something nice,” I practically floated to the closet.
He wanted to have dinner. With me. Like a normal married couple.
I pulled out the red dress. The one that made his eyes go dark every time I wore it.
Crimson silk that draped in all the right places, with a neckline that was just suggestive enough to make him forget about whatever acquisition deal was waiting for him tomorrow.
I curled my hair, did my makeup properly for the first time in weeks, and spritzed on the perfume he bought me in Monaco.
The restaurant was in Beverly Hills, one of those places where the waiters memorized your name and the lighting was designed to make everyone look like they belonged in a magazine.
I gave my name to the hostess and followed her through the maze of white tablecloths, my heels clicking against the marble floor.
And then I saw them.
Stefan was already at the table. Leaning back in his chair, laughing at something, looking more relaxed than I’d seen him in months. But he wasn’t alone.
A woman sat across from him. In my seat.
She was stunning in that effortless way that made you hate yourself a little.
Dark hair swept up in a perfect chignon, high cheekbones, and a designer blouse.
She was leaning toward Stefan, one manicured hand resting on the table between them, close enough to touch him if she wanted to.
My stomach dropped.
Stefan looked up and spotted me, and his face broke into a smile like nothing was wrong. Like this was completely normal.
“You’re here, baby.” He stood and kissed my cheek, then pulled out the chair next to him. “Let me introduce you. This is Paula Clarke. She’s an old friend from med school. She was visiting a patient at the hospital and we thought we’d reconnect.”
Paula’s smile was bright and polished and didn’t quite reach her eyes. She extended her hand across the table, and I noticed her nails were perfect. Of course they were.
“You’re underselling our history, Stefan.” She turned that smile on me. “Nice to meet you, Danica.”
There was something about the way she said my name. Like she already knew everything about me and found it slightly disappointing.
“Nice to meet you too,” I said, settling into my chair. The one that wasn’t across from my husband. The one that put me on the outside of whatever this was.
A waiter appeared with menus, and Stefan ordered a bottle of wine without asking what I wanted. He and Paula had already been drinking, I realized. Two empty glasses sat between them, and a third was half-full in front of her.
“Paula’s a pediatric cardiac surgeon,” Stefan said, like he was presenting her resume. “She’s consulting on the transplant program here for the next year. Brilliant. Top of our class.”
A year. She’d be here for a year. Visiting a patient had quietly become a twelve-month assignment, and Stefan mentioned it like it was nothing.
“Second in our class,” Paula corrected with a little laugh. “Someone had to take first.”
“Only because I let you.”
“You let me?” She swatted his arm playfully. “Please. I earned that spot. Remember the Doyle case? You were sure it was mitral valve prolapse and I was the one who caught the septal defect.”
“One time.”
“One time that saved me from being your permanent second place.” She turned to me, still smiling. “Stefan hates losing. Even when we were dating, he couldn’t stand being wrong about anything.”
Dating.
The word landed in my chest like a stone dropped in still water. Stefan hadn’t mentioned they’d dated. He said “old friend.” He said “reconnect.” He didn’t say “ex-girlfriend.”
“You two dated?” I kept my voice light, casual, like this wasn’t news to me.
“Two years,” Paula said before Stefan could answer. “Med school sweethearts. We were inseparable. Everyone thought we’d get married, honestly.”
“Ancient history,” Stefan said, waving his hand dismissively. “We were kids.”
“We were twenty-six.” Paula’s eyes sparkled. “Hardly kids. Remember that weekend in Napa? The one where you tried to impress me by pretending you knew about wine?”
Stefan laughed, and it was genuine, warm in a way I hadn’t heard in months. “I told the sommelier we wanted something with a ‘robust tannin structure’ and he looked at me like I’d grown a second head.”
“And then you ordered the most expensive bottle on the menu to cover it up.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“It was nine thousand dollars. For one bottle.”
“Worth every penny. Now I spend three times more than that for a casual wine.”
They were lost in it now, the easy rhythm of shared memory, and I sat there watching like a spectator at someone else’s life. The waiter brought bread. I tore off a piece I didn’t want and watched the ice melt in my water glass.
“Oh, and the cadaver lab,” Paula said, barely containing her laughter. “Tell Danica about the cadaver lab.”
“No.” Stefan shook his head, but he was grinning. “Absolutely not.”
“He fainted.” Paula turned to me, delighted. “First day of gross anatomy. Stefan Salvatore, future surgical prodigy, passed out cold in front of the whole class.”
“I did not faint. I had low blood sugar.”
“You hit the floor so hard you bruised your hip.”
“The preservative chemicals were overwhelming.”
“You fainted, Stefan. Own it.”
It should have been funny. The right move was to laugh along, tease him, file it away as adorable ammunition for later. But all I could think about was the fact that Paula knew things about my husband that I didn’t. That she had two years of memories I would never be part of.
“So what happened after the cadaver lab?” I asked, and something in my voice must have been sharper than I intended, because they both looked at me. “I’m on the edge of my seat.”
Paula’s smile flickered, just for a second, before settling back into place. “Oh, nothing exciting. I dragged him to the cafeteria and made him eat a muffin. He was fine.”
“She saved my life,” Stefan said. “That blueberry muffin was the only thing standing between me and complete humiliation.”
“I’ve saved your life multiple times. Remember when you almost failed pathophysiology?”
“I wasn’t going to fail.”
“You were going to fail.”
“I was going to get a B minus.”
“In pathophysiology, that’s basically failing.”
Another hour of this. Stories I wasn’t part of, references I didn’t understand, laughter that didn’t include me.
Paula touched Stefan’s arm when she made a point.
Stefan refilled her wine before he refilled mine.
They finished each other’s sentences like muscle memory, like their brains were still tuned to the same frequency after all these years.
I ate my salmon and smiled at the appropriate moments and pretended not to notice when Paula’s foot brushed Stefan’s under the table. Or maybe it didn’t, and I was imagining things, and I was going crazy, and this was all completely normal.
It wasn’t until dessert that Stefan finally turned to me like he’d just remembered I existed.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking.” He draped his arm over the back of my chair, his hand resting warm on my shoulder. “Paula can help you with your fundraiser. She’s great with kids. Incredible, actually. I think you two would collaborate really well.”
My fundraiser. The children’s gala I’d been running for five years, the one thing that was completely mine, the reason I’d built a reputation in philanthropic circles that had nothing to do with being Stefan Salvatore’s wife.
Paula clasped her hands together. “I’d love to help. Stefan’s told me so much about it. It sounds like such important work.”
No. The word was right there on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t need help, didn’t want to collaborate, and I definitely didn’t want to watch my husband’s ex-girlfriend insert herself into the one part of my life that still felt like mine.
But the truth was, I was drowning. The move to LA had disrupted everything.
We’d run a smaller LA gala every year, so the hospital here knew me, but my volunteer network and most of my donor contacts were in New York, and my co-chair had stayed behind because she couldn’t relocate her family even after offering her a check to cover everything she needed to move.
I’d been trying to plan this year’s event alone, and the calls weren’t being returned and the venue had fallen through and I was running out of time.
And Stefan was looking at me with that expectant smile, like he’d just solved a problem I should be grateful for.
“That would be great,” I heard myself say. “I could use the help.”
Paula’s smile widened. “Wonderful. I’ll clear some time this week. We’ll make this the best gala yet. Can I also get your socials? I’ll give mine too.”
We. Like we were partners now. Like she was my friend and not the woman who’d spent two hours casually reminding me that she knew my husband before I did.
Stefan paid the check without looking at it while me and Paula exchanged social media profiles. Outside, the valet brought his car around, and Paula hugged him goodbye, the kind of hug that lasted two beats too long.
“So good to catch up,” she murmured against his shoulder. “We should do this more often.”
“Definitely.” Stefan pulled back, smiling. “I’ll see you at the hospital.”
“Every day for the next year.” She turned to me, her expression perfectly pleasant. “Danica. Looking forward to working together.”
“Me too.”
The words tasted like ash.
Stefan drove us home, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on my thigh like everything was normal. The city lights blurred past, and I watched them without really seeing, replaying the night in my head. Trying to figure out if I was being paranoid or if something was actually wrong.
“Paula’s great, isn’t she?” Stefan said.
“She seems nice.”
“She’s brilliant. One of the best surgeons I know. And she has connections everywhere. She can really help with your donor outreach.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He pulled up to our house, the Bel Air place I’d been to a dozen times before but never thought of as home. Six bedrooms, infinity pool, more empty space than two people could ever possibly fill. He put the car in park but didn’t turn off the engine.
“I have to head back to the hospital,” he said. “There’s a meeting with the new investors. They’re calling in from Tokyo and this is the only slot that works with the time difference.”
Of course there was. Always a meeting, a call, a deal that couldn’t wait. The business never slept, which meant Stefan never really came home.
“It’s almost eleven.”
“Shouldn’t be too long.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Don’t wait up.”
I got out of the car and watched him drive away, his taillights disappearing around the corner.
And then another car pulled out of the shadows. A silver Mercedes that had followed us up the hill from the restaurant and idled half a block back while he kissed me goodnight. It turned the same direction Stefan had gone, its headlights cutting through the darkness.
I knew that car. I’d seen it in the restaurant parking lot.
Paula’s car pulled out right behind his.
I stood there on the front steps of my empty house, in my red dress that hadn’t made him forget anything, and watched until both cars vanished into the night.