6. Sutton
— ? —
Sutton
I lasted two hours before I went back to the desk.
I told myself I needed to ask about restaurant recommendations, even though Spencer had given me a list that morning.
My body didn’t care what I told myself. I just needed to be near her again.
She was there when I walked into the lobby. Behind the desk, in her hotel uniform, her hair pulled back from her face. I watched her finish typing something, her fingers move across the keyboard, the small furrow between her eyebrows that meant she was concentrating.
She looked up when she heard my footsteps. I saw the moment she registered who I was.
“Mr. Lynch,” she said. “How can I help you?”
Her voice was cool. Polite. The voice she probably used on every guest who approached this desk.
“I had a question about the concierge services,” I said.
“The concierge desk is to your left,” she said. “They can help you with anything you need.”
“I’d rather ask you,” I said.
“I’m sure you would,” she said. “But I’m not a concierge.”
We looked at each other. The lobby hummed around us, guests coming and going, staff moving between stations.
None of them knew what they were watching. None of them knew that the woman behind the desk used to be my wife, used to steal my coffee in the morning, used to tell me she loved me in the dark when she thought I was already asleep.
“This the fastest anyone’s ever checked a man in just to be rid of him?” I asked.
Her mouth twitched. “We aim to please,” she said.
“You never used to aim,” I said. “You used to just hit.”
The twitch disappeared. Her whole body went still, her hands pausing on the keyboard, her chin lifting slightly. I watched her absorb the words, watched something flicker behind her eyes before she shut it down.
“Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Lynch?” she asked.
Her voice was colder now. I had pushed too hard. I always pushed too hard, or not hard enough. I had never learned how to reach her without breaking something in the process.
A guest approached the desk beside me. An older woman with too much luggage and a room number she couldn’t remember. Charlotte turned to her with a smile.
“Welcome back,” Charlotte said to the woman. “Let me look that up for you.”
The woman finally left with her room key. Charlotte turned back to her computer and started typing, not looking at me.
“I’m still here,” I said.
“I noticed,” she said. Her fingers kept moving across the keyboard. Her eyes stayed on the screen.
“We’re going to have to talk at some point,” I said.
“No,” she said. “We’re not.”
“Charlotte, you can’t just pretend I don’t exist,” I said.
“I’m not pretending you don’t exist,” she said. “I’m working. There’s a difference.”
“Then let’s talk after your shift,” I said. “Dinner. Drinks. Whatever you want.”
“What I want,” she said, finally looking up at me, “is for you to leave me alone.”
Her eyes were hard. Steady. There was no warmth in them, no softening, nothing that suggested she had ever felt anything for me at all.
“I can’t do that,” I said.
“Then that’s your problem,” she said. “Not mine.”
She turned to the next guest who had approached. I stood there for another moment, my hands curled at my sides, my chest tight with frustration and something that felt dangerously close to despair. Then I walked away before I could make it worse.
I found her again three hours later, in the hallway near the business center.
She was carrying a stack of folders, moving fast, her eyes straight ahead. I stepped into her path before I could stop myself. She stopped short, nearly colliding with me, and I saw the flash of irritation cross her face before she composed herself.
“Mr. Lynch,” she said. “Can I help you with something?”
She was close enough that I could smell her shampoo.
“How’s married life?” I asked.
The words came out bitter and sharp. I heard them leave my mouth and I hated myself for saying them, but I couldn’t take them back.
Her expression didn’t change. She just looked at me with those cool eyes, her grip tightening on the folders in her arms.
“How’s whatever it is you do?” she said.
“I run a company,” I said.
“You run out of meetings, I hear,” she said. “At least, that’s what you used to do. Leave early. Forget to call. Show up late with an excuse that didn’t quite cover it.”
She didn’t look glad she had hurt me.
“That’s not fair,” I said. My voice came out rough.
“Isn’t it?” she asked.
“I was trying to build something,” I said. “I was working toward a future for both of us.”
“Both of us,” she repeated. “That’s interesting. Because I remember sitting alone at a restaurant for two hours on opening night of a play I’d been wanting to see for months.”
My stomach dropped. I remembered. God, I remembered.
“I got dressed up,” she said. Her voice was flat, reciting facts. “I did my hair. I wore the dress you said you liked. I got to the restaurant early because I was excited. And I waited.”
“I know,” I said. “I know, I…”
“I called you three times,” she said. “You didn’t answer.
I thought maybe something had happened, maybe you’d been in an accident, maybe there was some emergency I didn’t know about.
So I kept waiting. I watched everyone else in that restaurant get their food, finish their meals, pay their checks, leave.
And I just sat there with an empty chair across from me, watching my phone. ”
I couldn’t speak. My throat was tight. My hands were shaking at my sides.
“You texted me at ten,” she said. “Three hours after we were supposed to meet. You said the meeting ran long and you forgot.”
“I remember. I’m sorry, I…”
“You forgot,” she said. “You forgot that I existed at all until ten o’clock at night when you finally looked at your phone.”
“I was an idiot,” I said. “I know I was an idiot. I should have been there. I should have…”
“You should have done a lot of things,” she said. “But you didn’t. And now you’re standing here asking me about my married life like you have any right to know.”
“I have the right to understand what happened,” I said.
“What happened is that I stopped waiting,” she said. “That’s all. I just stopped.”
She stepped around me and kept walking. I stood in the hallway and watched her go. My heart was pounding. My eyes were burning. I could still see her sitting alone at that restaurant table, watching her phone, waiting for me to remember that she mattered.
Spencer found me at the bar an hour later.
“You look like hell,” he said, sliding onto the stool beside me.
“Thanks,” I said. I didn’t look at him. I was staring at the bottles behind the bar, not really seeing them.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Too bad,” he said. “Because I’ve been watching you, and it’s affecting your ability to function.”
I picked up my drink and took a long swallow. Spencer ordered his own bourbon and waited for the bartender to pour it.
“You keep staring at her hands,” Spencer said.
My glass stopped halfway to my mouth.
“Every time she moves something across the counter,” Spencer said. “Every time she types on that keyboard. Your eyes go straight to her left hand. I’ve watched you do it six times today. What are you looking for?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“You’re looking for a ring,” Spencer said. “And you’re not finding one.”
I set my glass down. My hand was shaking slightly. I pressed it flat against the bar to steady it.
“She’s not wearing one,” I said. “She married that guy six months ago, and she’s not wearing his ring. She wore mine for two years and never once took it off.”
“Maybe she takes it off for work,” Spencer said.
“That’s what I keep telling myself,” I said.
“But you don’t believe it,” Spencer said.
I looked at him. At his calm face, his knowing eyes.
“I don’t know what I believe,” I said. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
“You’re going to walk into a wall if you keep this up,” Spencer said. “I mean that literally. Get it together.”
He finished his drink and clapped me on the shoulder and walked away. I sat at the bar and thought about Charlotte’s bare left hand.
Vivienne found me before I could go back to the desk.
She appeared at my elbow, silent and sudden. I had been walking toward the lobby, toward Charlotte, and Vivienne stepped into my path with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“There you are,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I was at the bar,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “You’re wanted upstairs. The investor call got moved up.”
“I don’t care about the call,” I said.
I tried to step around her. She moved with me, blocking my path, her hand coming up to rest on my arm.
“You should care,” she said. “It’s a significant account. And you’ve been distracted enough lately.”
I looked past her toward the front desk. Charlotte was helping a guest, her head bent over the computer. I watched her hands move across the keyboard. Bare. Ringless.
Vivienne followed my gaze. Her expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
“You don’t need the front desk,” Vivienne said. Her voice carried across the lobby, loud enough that Charlotte looked up. “You have me.”
Charlotte’s eyes met mine for just a second.
“You’re wanted upstairs,” Vivienne said again, her fingers tightening on my arm. “The call. Now.”
I went. Because I always went when Vivienne steered. Because that was the pattern we had built over three years. She managed and I followed and nothing ever got in the way of the schedule.
But I felt Charlotte’s eyes on my back as I walked toward the elevator. And I wondered, for the first time, whether letting Vivienne manage my life had cost me more than I knew.