7. Elise
ELISE
I was standing at the kitchen island when the doorbell rang.
Graham had been gone an hour, called away by Petra for something at the gallery. I'd spent the time pretending I wasn't replaying yesterday's conversation in my head. The way he'd deferred when I asked him to paint something. The way Petra's name had him moving before he'd finished his coffee.
I wasn't expecting anyone.
Through the front window I could see Petra on the step, polished and perfect in cream silk and those heels she wore like armor. My stomach dropped. What was she doing here? Graham wasn't home. She had to know that. She'd called him away herself.
I opened the door. "Petra."
"Elise." She smiled, bright and easy, like we were friends who did this all the time. "I'm so sorry to just show up like this. I tried calling Graham but his phone's going straight to voicemail. Is he here?"
"He's at the gallery."
"Oh." She tilted her head, the picture of concern. The picture of surprise, like she hadn't known. "He left already? I thought we were meeting later this afternoon."
I felt something tighten in my chest, but I kept my face smooth. "He said you called about something urgent."
"Urgent?" She laughed, light and confused. "No, nothing like that. I just wanted to go over the Lindqvist contract before we send it. It can wait."
The floor shifted under me, but I didn't let it show. Ugh. Her smile crept under my skin, flustering me. She was lying. Or Graham had lied. I didn't know which one was worse.
"I'm sure he'll call you when he gets there," I said.
"Of course." She didn't move. Her gaze traveled past me into the house, casual, like she was cataloging what she saw. "Actually, since I'm here, do you have a minute? There's something I wanted to run by you. About the gala."
I should have said no. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to close the door, to tell her I was busy, to get her off my doorstep and out of my house. She didn't belong here. This was my house, the one place in Graham's world that was supposed to be mine.
But I was Graham's wife, and Petra was an investor, and I'd spent eleven years being gracious when I wanted to be anything but.
"Sure," I said. "Come in."
I led her to the living room, the one with the pale sofas and the art Graham had chosen without asking me.
The Rothko knock-off he'd bought at auction over my objections.
The steel sculpture I'd never liked. She settled into the chair by the window like she belonged there, crossing her legs and setting her bag beside her with the ease of someone who'd done it a hundred times before.
She hadn't. I would have remembered.
"Can I get you anything?" I asked. "Coffee? Water?"
"No, I'm fine. Thank you, Elise." She folded her hands in her lap, and for a moment she just looked at me. Studying me. Then she said, "I wanted to thank you, actually. For bringing me into the gallery. I know you were the one who vetted me, and I don't take that lightly."
"Graham makes his own decisions."
"Of course he does. But you're the one with the eye." She smiled again, warmer this time, and it made my skin prickle. "Everyone knows that. The collectors, the artists. They know you're the real talent in this marriage."
It should have felt good to hear. God, it should have felt good. But the way she said it—like a compliment wrapped around a blade—made my throat go tight. Like she was acknowledging something Graham should have acknowledged years ago, and we both knew he hadn't.
"I'm glad the partnership is working out," I said.
"It is. Graham's been wonderful. So generous with his time." She paused, just long enough for the silence to settle. Long enough for me to notice the pause. "Although I have to admit, I feel a little guilty. I know I've been keeping him late at the gallery. All those calls after hours."
There it was.
My pulse kicked up, but I kept my hands still in my lap. Folded. Calm. I would not let her see me react. "The gallery takes a lot of work."
"It does. And Graham's so dedicated." She looked down at her hands, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her skirt. The gesture looked practiced, like she'd rehearsed it. "I keep telling him he doesn't need to walk me through every piece in the studio, but he insists. He's very thorough."
Studio visits. Without me.
I knew about the studio. Graham took collectors there sometimes, showed them works in progress before they went to the gallery floor.
I'd been with him dozens of times. But lately—God, when was the last time he'd asked me to come?
When was the last time he'd mentioned Petra's name and studio in the same sentence?
"He likes to be hands-on," I said. My voice sounded normal. I didn't know how.
"He does." Petra met my eyes, and something flickered there, quick and sharp.
Satisfaction, maybe. Or victory. "I noticed that the other afternoon.
At the gallery. The way he—well." She stopped herself, shaking her head with a small, embarrassed laugh.
"I'm sure you saw. I felt terrible about it, actually.
We'd been going over the new acquisitions in his office, and the conversation was so good I didn't realize how long we'd been there.
Just the two of us. And then when I reached for him—" She paused, delicate.
Careful. "He didn't pull away. I thought maybe I'd overstepped. I know how it must have looked."
Heat flooded my face. Like an idiot, I flushed all the way to my hairline.
I remembered the embrace. I'd seen it from the doorway of his office, Petra's arms around him, Graham hugging her back, both of them smiling.
I'd told myself it was nothing. Gallery business.
A congratulatory moment between colleagues.
But she was describing it like it was something else entirely. Like it was intimate. Like she'd been worried I'd misunderstand.
"I'm sure it was fine," I said.
"I hope so." She smoothed her skirt again, that same nervous gesture that didn't look nervous at all. "The last thing I want is to cause any tension. Between you and Graham, I mean. You have such a strong marriage. Everyone can see that."
My jaw ached. I realized I was clenching it, my teeth grinding together hard enough to hurt. I forced myself to relax. To breathe. To be the gracious wife who didn't interrogate her husband's colleagues about what she saw through his office doorway.
"Was there something about the gala you wanted to discuss?" I asked.
"Oh." She blinked, like I'd pulled her out of a thought. Like she'd forgotten why she'd come. "Yes. Actually, I was hoping you could help me understand the seating arrangements. I noticed I'm at Graham's table, and I wasn't sure if that was intentional or if it was just how the numbers worked out."
At his table. Not our table. His.
The words landed like a punch. I'd planned the gala with him. I'd vetted the guest list, chosen the menu, arranged the auction lots. But apparently the table where I'd be sitting all night was Graham's table now.
"I haven't seen the seating chart yet," I said.
"Oh, well, maybe I got it wrong." She reached for her bag, making a show of looking for her phone, then stopped.
"You know what, I'll just ask Graham about it.
I'm sure I'm overthinking." She stood, smooth and graceful, and I stood with her.
"I should let you get back to your day. I'm sorry for barging in like this. "
"It's fine."
It wasn't fine. Nothing about this was fine.
She moved toward the door, and I followed her, my heart pounding so hard I thought she'd hear it. My pulse hammered in my throat, in my wrists, everywhere. At the threshold she turned back, her expression soft and concerned in a way that made me want to scream.
"Elise," she said quietly. "If I've done anything to make you uncomfortable, please tell me. I'd hate to think I've caused any problems."
I looked at her, this woman I'd vetted myself, this woman I'd brought into Graham's gallery because I'd thought she was smart and serious and exactly the kind of investor we needed.
Her face was open, earnest, perfectly concerned.
And I knew—God, I knew—that every word out of her mouth had been chosen.
Placed. Designed to lead me exactly where she wanted me to go.
Late calls. Studio visits. The embrace at the gallery. She hadn't said the word, but she'd painted the picture so clearly I could see it in full color.
"You haven't," I said.
"Good." She squeezed my hand, brief and warm, her fingers cool against my skin. And then she was gone, heels clicking down the walk to her car.
I closed the door and stood in the entryway, my hand still on the knob.
The house felt different. Smaller. Like the walls had shifted in the fifteen minutes she'd been inside them. I pressed my palm flat against the door, trying to steady myself, but my hand was shaking.
Everything she'd said was true. I could check it.
The late calls were on Graham's phone—I'd heard it ring at eleven at night, seen Petra's name light up the screen.
The studio visits were real. I'd seen them in his calendar, appointments with Petra that he'd never mentioned.
The embrace had happened. I'd seen it myself from the half-open doorway of his office, Petra's arms around him, Graham hugging her back, both of them smiling.
None of it was a lie.
But the way she'd arranged it—the way she'd laid it out like pieces of a puzzle I was supposed to solve—that was the lie. She wanted me to see an affair. She wanted me to believe my husband was sleeping with her. She wanted me to imagine him touching her the way he used to touch me.
I wanted to call Graham. I wanted to ask him about the calls, about the studio, about why he'd left this morning when she'd said their meeting wasn't urgent.
I wanted to hear him explain it, to make it make sense, to tell me I was being ridiculous and paranoid and exactly the kind of suspicious wife I'd never wanted to be.
But I couldn't. Because what would I say?
Petra came by and implied you're having an affair, and even though I know she's lying, I can't stop thinking about it?
She mentioned the late calls and the studio visits and the way you held her in your office that afternoon, and now I can't get the image out of my head?
God, what was I even doing?
I pressed my palms to my face, trying to get a grip. My pulse was still racing, my skin flushed hot with anger and humiliation and something that felt dangerously close to fear. I was so nervous it vibrated beneath my skin, a live wire I couldn't shut off.
It could all be innocent. The calls could be about acquisitions. New collectors, new artists, opportunities that couldn't wait. The studio visits could be standard investor access. The embrace could be exactly what it looked like—a colleague congratulating another colleague on a deal well done.
It should be innocent.
But Petra's face when she'd described it, that flicker of something sharp and satisfied in her eyes, told me she knew exactly what she was doing.
She'd come to my house, sat in my living room, and planted a lie so carefully that I couldn't prove it was a lie at all.
Every fact was true. Every detail was real.
But the story she'd built from them was poison.
And she knew I'd seen the embrace. That was why she'd brought it up. Not to explain it. To remind me. To make sure I understood that she could have stepped back when she saw me in the doorway, but she'd reached for him instead. Into his arms.
I walked back to the kitchen and braced my hands on the island, staring at the cold coffee Graham had left behind. He'd been in a hurry. Petra had called, and he'd left without finishing his cup. Without kissing me goodbye.
I could check. I could pull his phone records, look at his calendar, ask him directly about every appointment he'd had with her in the last month.
I could verify every word she'd said and prove to myself it was nothing.
Just work. Just the gallery. Just the business of building something bigger than both of us.
Or I could be the wife who trusted her husband. The wife who didn't go through his phone or interrogate him about his schedule or let jealousy turn innocent phone calls into evidence of something ugly. The wife who believed him when he said he loved her and meant it when he promised forever.
I wanted to be that wife. I'd spent eleven years being that wife.
The one who didn't complain when he worked late.
The one who smiled at collectors and hosted dinners and let herself be introduced as the decorator while her actual picks hung on the walls.
The one who convinced herself that being called his assistant was what it cost to be married to the man building the biggest gallery in New York.
The one who painted in secret and pretended it didn't matter that nobody saw.
But standing there alone in our kitchen, with Petra's perfume still lingering in the air and her words still ringing in my ears, I knew something had shifted. She'd cracked something open, and I couldn't close it again. The doubt was there now, sitting in my chest like a stone.
I thought about Graham yesterday, deferring when I asked him to paint something for me.
The way his eyes had slid away from mine.
The way he'd said maybe later like it was a promise he had no intention of keeping.
I thought about Petra at the birthday dinner, her dig about the flowers.
About his mother's contempt. About eleven years of being unseen.
I thought about the way Petra had looked at me just before she left. That flicker of satisfaction. That knowing.
She'd lied. Not about the facts, but about why she'd come. She hadn't come to clear the air or explain the seating chart or thank me for bringing her into the gallery. She'd come to poison the well. To plant the seed. To make me doubt.
And it had worked.
I knew that. I knew I could check every single thing she'd said and find a reasonable explanation for all of it.
I knew Graham was probably at the gallery right now, signing the Lindqvist contract, thinking about artists and collectors and the business he'd built.
I knew Petra was a schemer, and this visit had been a performance, and I shouldn't let it get under my skin.
But it was already there. Under my skin, in my chest, wrapped around my throat like a hand I couldn't shake off.
I couldn't ask Graham. I couldn't confront Petra. I couldn't say the word that was sitting in my head, the conclusion she'd led me to without ever speaking it aloud. Because saying it would make it real. Asking would mean I suspected. Confronting would mean I'd let her win.
So I just stood there, in the quiet house, with my hand on the counter and my pulse hammering and the suspicion she'd planted growing roots I couldn't pull up.
I wanted it to be innocent. I wanted it so badly my chest ached with it.
But I couldn't put it down.