The Wife He Never Knew

Chapter 5: Invitation

Eleanor slept in that morning.

Partly because she'd gone to bed so late. Partly because there was no morning market to rush to for the freshest vegetables, no four-dish, one-soup breakfast to have on the table before Julian woke up.

She made herself a packet of instant ramen and ate it happily. Once her stomach was full, she went to the bank, filled out a transfer slip, and wired ten million dollars to a name with a note attached: for medical expenses.

From the bank, she headed to Wren & Co. Coffee, where she'd arranged to meet Lauren Reyes for lunch.

After the wedding, in her effort to be the perfect Cross family housewife, Eleanor had all but cut ties with everyone she used to know. She hadn't seen Lauren, her best friend since high school, in three years.

Thinking back on those three lost years of her twenties, Eleanor genuinely wanted to flip herself off.

She took her reserved seat and waited.

Lauren now taught voice at one of the city's top training academies. Eleanor had a hunch the lunch invite was half reunion, half job-hunting intervention.

Sure enough, Lauren steered the conversation almost immediately toward her school's opening for a piano instructor.

"Lauren, I appreciate it," Eleanor said, waving a hand easily. "But I swore off ever touching a piano again. And I've already got a new job lined up."

"Oh?" Lauren perked up. "A jewelry design firm? That'd actually line up with your degree."

Eleanor waved again. "Wrong on two counts. I never finished my degree, and those firms all have education requirements I don't meet."

"There's barely any job left these days that doesn't need a degree!" Lauren huffed, then couldn't hold back her outrage on Eleanor's behalf. "Julian Cross is such scum. He cheated on you your entire marriage and you walked away with nothing. If it were me, I'd have shaken him down for every dollar he owed me for wasting my twenties."

Eleanor was fighting back a laugh when her phone buzzed with a new text.

"That's Julian, isn't it. Let me see it, I want to curse him out on your behalf."

Eleanor checked the screen. It wasn't from Julian.

While she typed a reply, she said, almost offhand, "I actually don't have proof he cheated, technically."

Whatever his body had or hadn't done, his heart clearly wasn't hers, and he'd been willing to throw away his own flesh and blood without blinking.

Thinking of the baby who'd lived two months inside her before dying at her own husband's hand, Eleanor's expression cooled.

"I just want him out of my life. I want to be done with all of it."

"So?"

"So I already applied for a new job."

She sent Lauren a link. Lauren, assuming she'd landed something impressive, clicked it,

"A juvenile detention center?"

Lauren's vision actually swam for a second. Eleanor beamed back at her.

Lauren's lunch break didn't stretch far enough to cover everything they wanted to say, and the two parted ways too soon. Eleanor headed home, but instead of going inside, she checked her mailbox and pulled out an envelope.

Then her phone buzzed again. This time, it really was Julian.

No caption. Just a photo, the floor of an office, littered with shredded paper.

In the general manager's office at Cross Group, Julian sat down slowly, one hand braced on the edge of his desk. Beside him lay the torn remains of the divorce agreement he'd just ripped apart.

"Mr. Cross, this is every stomach medication I could find" David started, voice unsteady. He hadn't even finished the sentence before Julian's arm swept the entire pile off the desk and onto the floor.

"None of it works. The more I take, the worse it gets."

Julian pressed a hand to his stomach, sweat beading on his forehead from the pain.

He hadn't had the herbal medicine in days, and his stomach had already been unsettled before today. Then he'd walked into the office and found the divorce papers Eleanor had sent over, and the pain had only sharpened.

David watched him, alarm building.

The herbal remedy Julian relied on came from an old-school practitioner's private formula. Only Eleanor knew the exact ratios, the heat, the timing, she was the only one who'd ever prepared it.

"Sir... should I call Ms. Hale?"

Julian's eyes cut to him, sharp.

"Who's Ms. Hale?"

"Eleanor," David stammered, thrown completely off guard.

It wasn't just David. Everyone around Julian referred to her that way, Ms. Hale.

It was only in that moment that Julian registered it: three years of marriage, and not once had anyone, including him, called her Mrs. Cross.

He picked up his phone, half-wanting to see how Eleanor would react to the photo of the shredded papers. No reply came.

Cassandra called instead.

By evening, Eleanor arrived alone at the grand Sterling Hall downtown.

She'd changed clothes, the blue Chanel-style suit was one of the better pieces she'd owned before the wedding, one of the few things still presentable.

The doorman gave her a polite smile. She returned it, reaching for her invitation in her handbag, when a voice she'd hoped never to hear again came from behind her.

"Ms. Hale. What a coincidence. What are you doing here?"

Eleanor turned to find Cassandra approaching, flanked by two friends.

Cassandra had clearly put real effort into tonight, a soft pink fairytale gown, that same blinding pink diamond necklace at her throat.

"Cassandra, who is this? A friend of yours?" one of them, Brooke Sanders, asked, giving Eleanor a slow once-over. "She's not actually here for the Fenwick & York celebration, is she?"

"No way," the other, Whitney Young, scoffed. "Fenwick & York is an international luxury house, invite-only, and only for people who matter. Look at what she's wearing. She's probably here to drop off a delivery."

Eleanor could tell instantly, from the way Cassandra's friends spoke, that they'd known exactly who she was the entire time.

"Brooke, Whitney, don't be too hard on her," Cassandra said, all earnest concern. "Julian told me she got married right before finishing college and has been a housewife for years, spent most of her life in an apron, never really goes anywhere but the grocery store. She probably hasn't had much exposure to fashion. Not like us, working at Fenwick & York."

"Wait, you work there?"

At Eleanor's look of surprise, Cassandra practically glowed, pulling out a business card and handing it over with a flourish.

"Cassandra's a rising star in jewelry design, even HR at Fenwick & York thinks the world of her!"

"You're a housewife. Do you even know what HR stands for?"

Between Brooke's and Whitney's overlapping jabs, Eleanor glanced down at the card in her hand.

Fenwick & York, Jewelry Design Department, Intern.

Cassandra clearly expected the card to crush her. Eleanor just smiled, unbothered.

"Sure. You're very impressive."

Brooke rolled her eyes hard. "What's with the fake calm? You're obviously eating yourself alive with jealousy."

As Eleanor turned to head inside, Whitney called after her, "Delivery's around the back!"

Cassandra hid a laugh behind her hand, shot a look at Brooke and Whitney, and the two of them closed ranks, physically shouldering Eleanor out of the way.

"See, invitation only." Brooke flashed hers at Cassandra and swept past, waving her forward.

Cassandra lifted the hem of her pink gown and glided in like visiting royalty.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but your entry is through the staff door," the doorman told her, stopping her short.

Cassandra's face fell, until Brooke and Whitney rushed to smooth it over. "She works for Fenwick & York!"

"That's right, better the staff door than not getting in at all, right?"

The three of them finally cleared a path. Eleanor walked back up to the main entrance, pulled the envelope from her bag, and handed it to the doorman.

His eyes lit up. His smile deepened into something far more respectful.

"Ms. Hale. Right this way."

Under the stunned stares of Cassandra and her friends, Eleanor swept through the VIP entrance and into the hall.