5. Lena
LENA
I found parking two blocks from Adriatico and sat in the car for a full minute before I could make myself get out.
The center of the city gleamed around me, all glass towers and expensive storefronts lit up against the dark.
This was Theo's world. The buildings got taller here, the lights brighter, everything polished until it shone.
I didn't belong here. I belonged behind the hostess stand at the family restaurant, seating regulars who knew my name and asked about Maggie's special.
But Maggie had pushed me to come here tonight, to stop waiting for Theo to see me and to put myself where he couldn't miss me.
So I got out of the car. My heels hit the pavement, the ones I hadn't worn in months. They pinched. I locked the door and walked the two blocks to Adriatico, and every step felt like I was walking toward something I couldn't take back.
Adriatico sat on the corner like a jewel box. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed the dining room inside, all white tablecloths and low amber lighting. I'd been here once, maybe twice. Always on Theo's arm for some charity event or premiere, never just the two of us.
I pushed through the heavy glass door. The hostess looked up from her stand, all professional warmth and perfect posture.
"Good evening. Do you have a reservation?"
"I'm here to see Theo Marchand," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I'm his wife."
Her expression shifted immediately. "Of course, Mrs. Marchand. Mr. Marchand is in the private dining room with the investors this evening. I can?—"
"I'll find him," I said. "Thank you."
She hesitated, but she didn't stop me. I moved past her into the restaurant, past the main dining room where conversation hummed low and silverware clinked against china. The private rooms were at the back. I knew that much. Theo had mentioned it once, years ago, when Adriatico first opened.
My heart hammered against my ribs. God, I was nervous. My palms felt damp and I wiped them against my dress. I'd driven all the way here, walked two blocks in heels that pinched, and now I was actually doing what Maggie had pushed me to do. Putting myself in his world. Making him see me.
The hallway to the private rooms was quieter. Thick carpet muffled my footsteps. I passed a half-open door and caught a glimpse of a long table set for twenty, investors in suits nursing wine. Theo wasn't in there.
I kept walking. The next door stood open wider, and that's where I saw him.
Theo stood near the far wall, his back to me, his shoulders broad in the dark suit jacket he wore for these things.
He was talking to someone I couldn't see yet, his head tilted slightly the way it did when he was listening.
My chest tightened. He looked the same as he always did in this world—confident, capable, entirely at ease.
I took a step closer, and that's when I saw her.
Bianca Sterling stood in front of him. Close enough that the narrow space between them sent something sharp through my ribs, and I could see how she held herself—body angled toward his, easy and certain, like standing that close to him was exactly where she belonged.
She was smiling as she spoke, and Theo nodded.
I stopped where I was. My pulse kicked up, too fast, too loud in my ears.
Bianca reached up. Her hand moved to his collar, her fingers brushing the fabric there like she'd noticed something out of place. She straightened it—some invisible flaw I couldn't see from where I stood. It was a small gesture. Nothing, really. The kind of thing anyone might do.
But her hand didn't drop.
She kept it there, her fingers resting against his collar, against his chest, a beat longer than straightening anything required.
Her smile didn't change. She said something else, something I couldn't hear, and Theo said something back.
He didn't move her hand. He didn't step back.
He just stood there, easy and unbothered and completely unaware that his wife was watching from the doorway.
My stomach dropped.
It looked like affection. That's what it looked like. Her hand on him, lingering. The way she stood so close, close enough that if she leaned forward another inch their bodies would touch. The way he let her.
I made myself breathe. It was nothing. Of course it was nothing.
Bianca was his PR agent. She was always adjusting something, always managing his image, always in his space because that was her job.
Straightening a collar was exactly the kind of thing she would do.
Professional. Practical. It didn't mean anything.
Theo wasn't like that. He wouldn't. I knew him. I'd known him for twelve years, loved him for longer than that. He didn't cheat. He wasn't cruel. He was just busy, just distracted, just building something bigger than both of us and forgetting to look back.
But her hand was still on him.
I felt something crack open in my chest, something I'd been holding shut for weeks now, maybe months.
I'd told myself it was fine. I'd told myself he was working.
I'd told myself Bianca was just doing her job, that the way she looked at him didn't matter, that the way she'd smiled at me at the gala and made that comment about how sweet it was that I still came to these things was just small talk.
That the way she'd sat in my kitchen and asked Theo for his time while I stood there was just business.
I'd told myself a lot of things.
Theo laughed at something she said. The sound carried across the room, low and warm, the same laugh I used to hear in the old diner when we sat in those cracked vinyl booths and drank burnt coffee and planned a life together.
Bianca's hand finally dropped. She said something else and turned slightly, and I realized with a jolt that if she turned any farther she'd see me standing here in the hallway.
I stepped back, moving carefully into the shadow of the hallway.
My heel caught on the edge of the carpet and I steadied myself against the doorframe, one hand flat against the wood.
I held myself there, pressed into the shadows, barely breathing.
I'd driven across the city to be seen by my husband and I was hiding from him in a darkened hallway.
Neither of them turned. Neither of them saw me.
I couldn't do this.
I'd come all the way here to put myself in his world, to make him see me the way Maggie said I should.
But what would I say if I walked in there right now?
How could I interrupt while Bianca was standing that close, while she was speaking and he was listening like she was the only person in the room?
He wasn't looking for me. He was looking at Bianca, listening to whatever she was saying, standing there like her hand on his chest was the most natural thing in the world.
I turned away. The hallway stretched in front of me, thick carpet and warm light and framed photographs of Theo on the walls.
Theo with celebrities. Theo with food critics.
Theo with people whose names I recognized from magazines.
My throat felt tight, like something had lodged itself there and wouldn't move.
I walked back down the hallway, past the investors' room with its low hum of conversation, past the hostess stand where the woman glanced up and opened her mouth.
I didn't stop. I kept walking until I reached the main dining room, and then I stopped because my legs wouldn't carry me any farther.
There was a table near the window, small and round and set for two.
Empty. The white tablecloth gleamed under the amber lights.
It was the kind of table Theo and I might have sat at if we'd ever come here together, just the two of us, the way married people were supposed to.
If he'd ever called me up and said let's have dinner tonight, somewhere nice, just us.
If he'd ever looked at me the way he used to look at me back when we were planning his first restaurant and I was making hand-written menus because we couldn't afford to have them printed.
I sank into one of the chairs. My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against the white tablecloth and tried to steady my breathing, tried to think, tried to figure out what I was supposed to do now.
I looked down at my left hand.
Gold against my finger, the same ring Theo had put there twelve years ago when we promised each other everything. When he'd said I love you and I'd believed him. When I'd believed we'd always be the two people sitting in the diner after closing, sharing dreams over burnt coffee.
I stared at it. The band was smooth and plain, no stones, nothing fancy.
We hadn't had money for fancy back then.
We'd had each other. We'd had late nights and big dreams and the absolute certainty that we'd never end up like this—him in the back room with his PR agent's hand on his chest, me sitting alone at a table he didn't even know I was at.
My finger found the ring without me telling it to. I pressed down on the band, feeling the metal dig into my skin, feeling the weight of it that I'd stopped noticing years ago because it had just become part of me. Part of who I was. Theo's wife. The woman who waited.
I'd worn it every day for twelve years. Every single day.
It had been on my hand through every dinner I'd eaten alone, every night I'd waited for him to come home, every morning I'd woken up in our bed and reached for him and found empty sheets.
It had been on my hand at the gala when Bianca smiled at me and said that thing about how sweet I was.
It had been on my hand in my own kitchen when Bianca called and Theo committed to her immediately, the same night he'd given me a maybe about the diner.
It had been on my hand tonight when I drove into the city. When I walked past the hostess. When I stood in that hallway and watched Bianca's fingers rest against Theo's collar, against his chest, in the space that used to be mine.
I pulled at the ring. The gold slid over my knuckle, catching slightly where my skin had swollen around it after so many years of wearing it without ever taking it off.
Not once. Not even when I was cooking and the heat made my hands swell.
Not even when I was elbow-deep in dishwater at the restaurant.
Not even when I lay awake at two in the morning wondering when my husband was going to come home.
I pulled harder, and it came free.
The ring sat in my palm. Small. Light. Just a circle of gold that didn't mean what it used to mean, that maybe hadn't meant anything for a long time and I'd been too stubborn or too hopeful or too stupid to see it.
My hand felt strange without it. Naked. Wrong. Cold. I looked down at the pale band of skin where the ring had been, the place the sun had never touched in twelve years, and something inside me went very still.
I'd put myself in his world tonight. I'd done exactly what Maggie told me to do. And Theo hadn't even known I was there.
I set the ring on the table.
It made the smallest sound against the white cloth, a soft click of metal on wood underneath.
The gold gleamed under the restaurant's amber lights, bright and undeniable and impossible to miss.
It sat there in the center of the table like an answer to a question nobody had asked, like the last word in a conversation only one of us had been having.
I stared at it for a long moment. At the ring that was supposed to mean forever. At the promise we'd made that I'd kept and he'd forgotten.
Then I stood up.
My legs felt unsteady, but they held me. I smoothed down my dress, the one I'd put on because I thought maybe tonight would be different. Maybe tonight he'd see me. Maybe tonight we'd remember what we used to be.
I didn't look at the ring again. I didn't look toward the back hallway where Theo was still standing with Bianca, where he was still laughing, still listening, still completely unaware that I'd been here at all. That I'd driven across the city to reach him. That I'd left something behind.
I walked out of Adriatico the same way I'd come in. Past the tables full of people eating expensive food and drinking expensive wine. Past the hostess stand where the young woman looked up and called after me, "Mrs. Marchand, is everything all right?"
I didn't answer. I pushed through the heavy glass door and out into the cold night air.
The city gleamed around me, bright and indifferent. I walked the two blocks back to my car, and every step felt lighter somehow. Easier. Like I'd set something down that I'd been carrying for too long.
I unlocked the car and slid into the driver's seat. My left hand gripped the steering wheel and the bare finger where my wedding ring used to be felt like the loudest thing in the world. The most honest thing. The only thing that made sense.
I started the engine and pulled out into traffic, away from the glass towers and the expensive storefronts and the restaurant where my husband stood in a room I couldn't reach, living a life I wasn't part of.
The ring stayed behind.