My Husband And His Wife

Chapter Six

The Miller gallery was a sprawling maze of glass and cold stone, filled with the hushed whispers of the city’s elite. I moved through the crowd like a ghost, my hand tucked into the crook of Larry’s arm. To everyone watching, we were the golden couple of the Sterling empire. But beneath my silk sleeves, my skin was crawling.

“Nara! It’s been far too long”, a voice called out.

I turned to see Sarah Whitmore, a prominent socialite whose family had deep ties to our law firm.

Beside her was a woman I didn’t recognize, sharply dressed, with eyes that seemed to cut through the room's artificial light.

“Sarah, how lovely to see you”, I said, offering the practiced smile I had mastered over the years.

“Nara, this is my cousin, Elena”, Sarah introduced. “She’s just moved back from the West Coast”.

The moment Elena’s eyes landed on Larry, the air in the room seemed thin. Her smile didn’t just falter; it vanished. She looked at him with a mix of suspicion and a deep, unsettling recognition.

“Have we met before?” Elena asked, her voice tight. “Perhaps in Los Angeles? You look exactly like someone I knew there about six years ago”.

Larry didn’t just stiffen; he turned to stone. His grip on my arm tightened almost painfully. “L.A.?” he chuckled, though the sound was hollow. “I’m afraid not. I’ve never spent any significant time in California. I’m a Midwest boy through and through”.

“This is Larry, my husband”, I added, stepping in to bridge the awkward silence. “Perhaps you saw him at the wedding? It was quite a large affair”.

Elena shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving Larry’s face. “No, I wasn’t at the wedding. I was out of the country. But I have a very good memory for faces. It’s quite uncanny”.

I watched Larry keenly. His eyes were darting towards the floor, and a bead of sweat had formed at his temple despite the cool air conditioning of the gallery. He looked like a man standing on a trap door.

“Well, you must have mistaken him for someone else”, I said, my voice dripping with a forced sweetness. “As I said, Larry has never been to L.A. Doppelgangers are everywhere these days?”

Elena apologized, though she still looked unconvinced. “I must have, besides the person I thought he was, bears another name. I’m sorry if I startled you”.

As soon as the woman moved toward the next exhibit, Larry exhaled a breath he seemed to have been holding for a lifetime. “Excuse me, babe. I need to go to the bathroom”.

I watched him go. He didn’t walk; he fled.

The moment he disappeared behind the heavy oak doors of the corridor, my phone gave a sharp, haptic pulse.

Call active.

I slipped my AirPod into my ear, letting my hair fall forward to hide the device. I turned toward a large, abstract painting, pretending to be deep in thought while the sound of Larry’s frantic breathing filled my head.

“Anna, we have a problem”, Larry hissed. The sound of a hand over the receiver didn’t muffle the panic in his voice. “I just ran into Elena. The first woman we took down in L.A. The one who lost the inheritance from her father’s estate”.

I felt the blood on my face. Taken down? Defrauded?

“What?” Anna’s voice was a jagged shriek. “Did she recognize you? Did she say your name?”

“She knew the face, but my name wasn’t Larry back then”, he snapped. “She asked if we’d met in L.A. I told her no. She’s suspicious, but she isn’t sure.

“What about Nara?” Anna pressed, her voice trembling. “If Nara finds out you were a professional grifter before you met her-“

"She didn’t suspect a thing," Larry interrupted, and I heard a sickening note of triumph return to his voice. He brushed an imaginary lint off his sleeve, a casual gesture that belied the weight of his words. "The fool actually defended me. Nara told the woman herself that I’d never been to the West Coast. She’s too naïve to even consider I might be lying to her. Honestly, Anna, she isn’t nearly as smart as people think she is. She’s just a pretty, empty-headed girl with a very large bank account."

I stood perfectly still. The word ‘fool’ echoed in my ears, ringing louder than the chatter of the gallery. I wasn’t hurt, I was hollow. My husband didn’t just want my money; he had a fundamental contempt for my existence.

“We need to talk”, Anna said. “We need to make sure that woman stays quiet”.

“I’ll handle it”, Larry said. “I’m going back out there now. I’ll keep her busy so she doesn’t have a chance to meet with Elena”.

The line went dead.

I took a deep breath, composed my features, and tucked the AirPod away just as Larry emerged. He looked refreshed, his mask back in place.

“Sorry for the wait, babe”, he said, reaching for my hand. “How about we get out of here? All these eyes are making me hungry”.

“I’d love to”, I said, my voice remarkably steady.

“Let’s go grab a bite”.

We ended up at a fancy diner on the edge of the district.

As Larry tucked into a steak, he seemed to have forgotten the encounter at the gallery entirely. He was laughing as he told me about a new project at the office.

“You know”, I said, swirling my wine in the glass, “I’m still thinking about that woman, Elena. It’s strange that she thought she knew you from L.A”.

Larry didn’t miss a beat. “Just a mistake, babe. Like you said-doppelgangers”.

“I suppose”, I mused, leaning forward. “But imagine if you did have a secret life in L.A. A whole other name, a whole other kind of past. It will be like a movie, wouldn’t it? The kind where the man turns out to be a professional con artist”.

Larry choked slightly on his wine, coughing into a napkin. “That’s… quite an imagination you have there, babe”.

“Is it?” I smiled, my eyes fixed on his. “I just think it’s fascinating how little we can truly know about the people we share a bed with. But then again, I’m just ‘naïve’ right? That’s what you always say”.

Larry’s smile faltered, a flicker of something-fear? Confusion?-crossing his face. “I never said you were naïve, babe. I said you were innocent. There’s a difference.

“Of course”, I said, taking a bite of my salad. Eat your steak, babe. We wouldn’t want it to get cold”.

The drive home was a study in suffocating tension. The rain had started to fall, a light drizzle that smeared the city lights against the windshield. Larry drove in silence, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He didn’t turn on the radio. He didn’t try to make conversation.

The air in the car was thick with the things we weren’t saying. I sat in the passenger seat, staring out at the passing buildings. I could feel him glancing at me every few minutes, trying to read my expression, trying to see if the “Fool” had finally caught on.

I kept my face neutral. I was no longer just a wife; I was a hunter. And the man sitting next to me was the prey.

As we pulled into the long, winding driveway of the Sterling estate, the house loomed ahead like a fortress. Larry killed the engine, but neither of us moved to get out.

“Babe?” he asked his voice low in the darkness of the car.

“Yes?”

“You’re… You’re okay, right? You seem a bit distant”.

I turned to him, the shadows of the rain-streaked window dancing across my face. “I’m perfectly fine, Babe. I’m just tired. It’s been a long day”.

I opened the door and stepped out into the rain, leaving him sitting in the dark.

I had the recordings, and most importantly, I had his arrogance. He thought I was an empty-headed girl.

That was the last mistake he would ever make.

I walked into the house, my heels clicking sharply on the marble floors. I reached my room and locked the door, leaning my back against the wood until I felt my heart rate begin to steady.

I didn’t call Mr. Sterling. Not yet. First, I needed to confirm the one thing Larry thought he had successfully buried. I needed to speak to the ghost from his past.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I found Sarah Whitmore’s name. My thumb hovered over the call button for a second. This was the point of no return. Oncei reached out to Elena, the ‘naïve’ Nara would be gone forever.

I pressed call.

“Nara? Is everything okay?” Sarah’s voice sounded surprised; it was late for a casual chat.

“Hi, Sarah. I’m so sorry to call this late”, I said, pacing the length of the rug. “I was just…I couldn’t stop thinking about what your cousin Elena said at the gallery today. About recognizing Larry”.

There was a brief silence on the other end. “Oh, that? She felt terrible about it, Nara. She was worried she’d offended you both”.

“Not at all’, I said, my voice smooth and convincingly curious. “In fact, I’m actually quite interested. Larry has a cousin who lived in L.A. years ago-someone he lost touch with-and he’s been wondering if Elena might have known him. It could mean a lot to him to reconnect.

“Oh, really? That’s wonderful!” Sarah sounded relieved. “Elena is only in town for a few days”.

“Do you think you could set up a meeting for us? Somewhere private?” I asked. “I’d love to take her to lunch tomorrow afternoon. Just the two of us, so I can get the details before I surprise Larry with the news”.

“I’ll talk to her right now”, Sarah promised. “I’m sure she’d be happy to help”.

“Thank you, Sarah. You have no idea how much this means to me”.

I hung up the phone and walked over to the window, looking out at the rain-soaked gardens. In the distance, I could see the light in Larry’s study turn on.

I touched the glass, feeling the cold seep into my fingertips. Larry thought he had changed his name and his identity to escape the ruins he left in Los Angeles. He thought I was just a “pretty, empty-headed girl with a large bank account”.

He was wrong. I was the daughter of Arthur Sterling, and I was about to show him that in the game of shadows, the one who stays quiet the longest is the one who wins.”See you tomorrow, Elena”, I whispered to the dark. “Let’s talk about the man you used to know”.