CHAPTER ONE
ELENA'S POV
The hospital smelled of bleach and burnt coffee.
I stood in the hallway in my slippers and sleep shirt, my phone still warm from the call.
Mrs. Hart? This is St. Brennan's. Your father has had a stroke.
Not Mrs. Blackwood. No one had ever called me that.
The floor tiles squeaked under my feet. Down the hall, a vending machine hummed and blinked a red sign: EXACT CHANGE ONLY. I stared at it because I could not stare at the doctor.
"There is a clot in his brain," he said, slowly, like I might shatter. "We can remove it, but we need to operate tonight."
"Then do it."
"The deposit is two hundred thousand dollars. His insurance covers only a small part of this procedure."
Through the glass, my father lay under a thin blue blanket. Thomas Hart, who had spent thirty years climbing other people's roofs. His right hand lay curled and still. That hand had taught me how to hold a pencil.
"I will get it," I said. "Give me a few hours."
I had forty-one dollars and a bank card that Adrian paid off every month.
But I had Adrian.
The Blackwood penthouse sat on the sixty-first floor, above Central Park South. Marble floors. Glass walls. A kitchen no one cooked in.
At one in the morning, he was in his study, because he was always in his study. White shirt, sleeves shoved to the elbow, tie hanging loose. Three screens threw blue light across his face.
He did not look up.
"Adrian."
"Not now, Elena."
"My father had a stroke."
His fingers stopped on the keys. That was something. He turned his chair and looked at me. His eyes were gray and steady, the way a locked door is steady.
"How bad?"
"He needs surgery tonight. It costs two hundred thousand dollars." My voice shook, so I pushed it lower. "I need you to pay for it. Please."
He stood and crossed to the window and shoved his hands into his pockets.
I knew that walk. It was how he said “no” before he said it.
"The board meets in six days," he said. "Richard has been buying shares through three shell companies. If he reaches forty percent, he takes everything I have."
"It is my father."
"I know whose father it is."
"Then you know I would never ask."
That was true. In three years I had asked him for almost nothing. I had cooked meals he ate standing up. I had smiled behind pillars at his parties. I had signed a paper that said no one could know I was his wife until his company was safe.
"Every dollar I have is locked up," he said. "If I pull out this much, Richard smells it. He sees weakness and he bites. And then your father's surgery will be the smallest thing we lose."
We.
He said it as if I had also grown up in that glass tower.
"You own a car worth more than the surgery," I said.
"Cars are not cash."
"Adrian."
"My assistant can look into hospital assistance programs on Monday."
"He could be dead on Monday."
Something flickered across his face. I wanted it to be shameful. I think it was only irritation.
"I can't," he said. "I'm sorry. I truly can't."
I nodded. I do not know why. I think my body wanted the moment to end.
"Okay," I said.
He came toward me and lifted a hand toward my cheek. I stepped back before he touched me.
His hand hung in the air, and then it dropped.
"You're upset," he said. "Go to the hospital. Sleep in the guest room if you need to. We'll talk when this is over."
Sleep in the guest room.
We had slept in separate rooms for eleven months. I had never told anyone that.
I turned and walked out.
In the front hall, his coat hung over the back of a chair. His phone lay on top of it, screen up.
I was not looking for it. I want that to be understood.
But the screen lit, and a name sat above a message.
Vivienne: Landed. Tell me you kept your promise.
Vivienne Laurent. The woman in the old magazine photos he kept in a locked drawer. I had found them once, looking for stamps, and slid them back exactly as I found them.
A second message arrived.
Vivienne: I can't wait to see what you got me.
I stood there, staring at the screen. My pulse knocked against my throat, hard and uneven.
Every dollar is locked up
Behind me, the study door clicked open.
I yanked my hand away from the phone just as the screen went dark. I do not know why I did that. I think I was afraid he would see my face, and I did not want him to read what was on it.
I had a father who needed two hundred thousand dollars.
And my husband had just found something he could still afford to buy.
