Chapter 2
Chloe Rudolph stood on my front porch in yoga pants that looked painted onto her body and a sports bra that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
Her blonde hair was pulled back in one of those effortlessly messy ponytails that probably took forty-five minutes to perfect, and she was clutching a manila folder against her chest like it contained state secrets.
"Julianne! Oh my God, I'm so sorry to bother you on a weekend." She did that thing with her eyes, widening them until she looked like a startled doe. Innocent. Helpless. Completely full of shit. "Is Lewis here? I have some urgent documents that need his signature before Monday."
I leaned against the doorframe, still in my robe, coffee cup warming my palm. "It's Saturday, Chloe. Surely it can wait."
"I wish it could, I really do." She bit her lower lip in a way that was clearly practiced. "But Mr. Patinson specifically said these needed to be signed by end of weekend, and I just came from hot yoga and I thought, well, Lewis's house is right on my way home, so..."
We lived in Holly Heights. The yoga studio she frequented, according to the stories she constantly told Lewis, was downtown. Our neighborhood was approximately twenty minutes in the opposite direction of anywhere she could possibly call home on her assistant's salary.
"Right on your way," I repeated flatly.
"Jules? Who's at the door?" Lewis appeared behind me, and I felt his hand settle on my lower back. Possessive. Casual. Like he was staking a claim.
Chloe's face transformed. The helpless doe routine cranked up to eleven, her whole body seeming to soften and brighten at the same time. "Lewis! I'm so sorry to interrupt your morning. I know how precious your weekends are with your wife."
The way she said wife made it sound like a terminal diagnosis.
"Chloe, hey." Lewis stepped around me, and I watched his posture change. Straighter. Broader. Sucking in his gut just slightly, the way men do when they want to impress. "What's going on?"
"The Patinson contracts." She held out the folder, making sure to stretch her arm in a way that emphasized the curve of her waist, the flatness of her stomach.
"I know I could have emailed, but you mentioned you prefer to review physical copies for anything over fifty pages, and I just wanted to make sure you had everything you needed. "
He'd mentioned that to her. In what context, I wondered? Over coffee? During a late night at the office? While she perched on the edge of his desk in another outfit designed to make him look?
"That's really thoughtful of you." Lewis took the folder, flipping it open, and I saw Chloe's eyes flick to me with something that looked almost like triumph.
I took a sip of my coffee. Smiled. "Would you like to come in, Chloe? You look like you could use some water after all that hot yoga."
The invitation clearly surprised her. Good. I wasn't going to stand here on my own porch being made to feel like the intruder in my own marriage.
"Oh, I wouldn't want to impose..."
"Nonsense." I stepped back, gesturing her inside. "Any colleague of Lewis's is welcome in our home."
She walked past me, and I caught a whiff of her perfume. Something young and trendy, probably from one of those Instagram brands. It mixed with the smell of her sweat, not unpleasantly, and I hated that I noticed. Hated that I was cataloging her the way she was clearly cataloging me.
In my kitchen, Chloe looked around with poorly concealed assessment.
Taking in the marble countertops, the professional-grade appliances, the fresh flowers I'd picked up from the farmers market yesterday.
I saw her gaze linger on the wedding photo stuck to our refrigerator, the one from our vow renewal on our fifteenth anniversary.
"Your home is so... classic," she said, and somehow made it sound like an insult. "Very traditional. I love how you've committed to the aesthetic."
"Thank you." I poured her a glass of water from the filtered pitcher. "We've lived here for sixteen years. Raised a lot of memories in these rooms."
"Sixteen years in the same house." Chloe accepted the glass, her fingers brushing mine in a way that felt deliberate. "Wow. I can't imagine staying anywhere that long. I get restless if I'm in the same apartment for more than a year."
"That's youth for you," I said pleasantly. "Everything feels temporary when you haven't built anything permanent yet."
Her smile tightened almost imperceptibly. Point to me.
Lewis wandered in, still absorbed in the documents, and Chloe's attention immediately shifted. She leaned against the counter in a way that pushed her chest forward, the sports bra doing exactly what it was designed to do.
"So what do you think? Is everything in order?"
"Looks good." Lewis glanced up, and his eyes definitely dropped to her cleavage before snapping back to her face. I felt something cold settle in my stomach. "Really thorough work, Chloe. I appreciate you going the extra mile."
"I always go the extra mile for you." She said it looking directly at him, and the double meaning was so obvious it was practically neon. "Whatever you need, Lewis. Day or night. I'm here."
I set my coffee cup down harder than necessary. "That's quite a commitment to a job."
"Well, it's not just a job to me." Chloe finally looked at me, and for just a second, I saw something sharp and calculating behind those wide innocent eyes. "Lewis has been such an amazing mentor. He's taught me so much about what it takes to succeed. I feel like I owe him everything."
"How lovely." I kept my voice steady even as my pulse hammered in my throat. "Though I'm sure Lewis would tell you that you don't owe your boss anything beyond professional competence."
"Jules." There was a warning in Lewis's voice. A gentle rebuke that made me want to throw my coffee in his face. "Chloe's just expressing gratitude. It's nice to feel appreciated."
The implication hung there. It's nice to feel appreciated. Unlike at home. Unlike with you.
Chloe ducked her head in that fake-modest way she'd perfected.
"I should probably go. Let you two enjoy your Saturday.
" She paused, looking at my robe, my bare feet, my hair that I hadn't bothered to brush yet.
"It looks like you were having a relaxing morning.
I love that you're so comfortable just...
being natural. I could never leave the house without at least doing my brows. "
I refused to touch my face. Refused to give her the satisfaction.
"Confidence comes with age," I said. "You'll get there eventually."
Her smile went brittle. "I'll see you Monday, Lewis. And Julianne, it was so nice to see you again. That robe is gorgeous, by the way. Very... mature."
Lewis walked her to the door like a gentleman, and I stood in my kitchen listening to their voices murmur in the foyer. Low. Intimate. Punctuated by Chloe's tinkling laugh and Lewis's deeper chuckle.
When he came back, he was shaking his head with a fond expression that made my skin crawl.
"She's something else, isn't she?"
"She certainly is." I picked up my coffee, but it had gone cold. Like everything else in this kitchen. "Lewis, you have to see what she's doing."
"What, being dedicated?" He opened the refrigerator, scanning for something to eat. "Being enthusiastic about her career? God forbid a young woman shows initiative."
"That's not initiative. That's a calculated campaign.
" I moved closer to him, lowering my voice even though we were alone in our own home.
"She shows up here in her underwear with documents that could have been emailed.
She makes comments about my age every single time I see her.
She looks at you like she wants to climb you like a tree, and you just... you stand there and let her."
Lewis closed the refrigerator with a sigh. The long-suffering sigh of a man dealing with an irrational woman. I knew that sigh. I hated that sigh.
"Jules, honey, you're reading into things that aren't there.
" He cupped my face in his hands, and I felt the warmth of his palms against my cheeks.
Familiar. Comforting. Condescending. "Chloe is twenty-four years old.
She's a kid. Yes, she probably has a little crush.
It's flattering, honestly. But it doesn't mean anything. "
Flattering. There it was. The admission wrapped in dismissal.
"So you admit she has a crush on you."
"A harmless one." His thumbs stroked my cheekbones. "Jules, I married you. I've been with you for over two decades. Some girl batting her eyelashes at me doesn't change that."
"It's not just batting her eyelashes. She's inserting herself into our lives." I pulled back from his touch, needing the space to think clearly. "She's showing up at our home. She's texting you constantly. She's making me feel like a visitor in my own marriage."
"That's your insecurity talking, not reality."
The words hit like a slap. My insecurity. Like this was my problem. Like I was manufacturing drama out of thin air.
"My insecurity," I repeated slowly.
"I don't mean it like that." But he did.
I could see it in his eyes, the way he was already dismissing my concerns, filing them away under Julianne's Paranoid Jealousy.
"I just think you're letting her get under your skin, and she's not worth it.
You're sophisticated, intelligent, accomplished.
She's a glorified secretary with good hair. There's no competition here."
But there was. I could feel it every time she looked at him. Every time he smiled at her messages. Every time he defended her behavior instead of acknowledging that a twenty-four-year-old woman showing up at our house in her gym clothes on a Saturday morning was wildly inappropriate.
"I need you to set boundaries with her," I said quietly. "Real boundaries. Professional ones."
Lewis's jaw tightened. "I'm not going to punish an eager employee because my wife is feeling threatened. That's not fair to her, and it's frankly beneath you."
Beneath me. Like asking my husband to maintain appropriate distance from a woman who clearly wanted to fuck him was some kind of moral failing.
"Fine." I turned away, carrying my cold coffee to the sink. "Forget I said anything."
"Jules, come on. Don't be like that."
I dumped the coffee down the drain and watched the dark liquid swirl away. "I said forget it, Lewis. You've made your position clear."
He came up behind me, his hands settling on my shoulders. His lips brushed my ear, and despite everything, my body still responded. Still remembered years of touches just like this one.
"I love you," he murmured. "Only you. Let me prove it."
His hands slid down my arms, then around to the tie of my robe. I felt it loosen, felt the silk fall open, felt his fingers find my skin.
And I let him. Because I was tired of fighting. Because part of me still wanted to believe him. Because maybe if I was enough, if I was good enough, present enough, sexy enough, he'd stop looking at her like she was something new and exciting.
He made love to me on the kitchen counter, the same place Chloe had been leaning just minutes before. His mouth was hot on my neck, his hands urgent, and I wrapped myself around him and tried to convince myself this was proof.
Proof that I was still wanted. Still chosen. Still enough.
But when he came with a groan and collapsed against me, whispering my name like a prayer, I couldn't shake the image of her. Standing in my kitchen. Looking at my husband. Wearing that triumphant little smile.
This wasn't over. She wasn't going to stop.
And Lewis, my husband of twenty-two years, the man who'd just fucked me senseless on our kitchen counter, couldn't see it. Or wouldn't.
I wasn't sure which was worse.