Page 4 of The Wife He Replaced
"I'm telling you what I saw.”
"And I'm telling you there's nothing to see. Tori is my co-founder. We spend twelve hours a day together. We have shorthand, we have inside jokes. That's what happens when you build something with someone. It doesn't mean anything."
"I didn't say it meant something."
"You said I look at her the way I used to look at you. What am I supposed to do with that?"
"Listen to it."
He exhaled through his nose. "I am listening. I'm telling you that what you're describing is a professional relationship that has a lot of trust in it, and I'm sorry if it felt uncomfortable tonight, but asking me to be less close to the person I run my company with because you're reading things into a dinner party is not reasonable."
Not reasonable.There it was. She'd walked into this conversation knowing it was a possible destination and here they were anyway, arrived in under five minutes. She’d described what she saw, with examples, and he’d translated her observations into a character flaw. She wasn't reporting. She wasreading things in. She wasn't perceptive. She wasoverthinking.
Madeleine looked at her hands. The lotion had dried. Her skin was clean and she could still feel the ghost of the hot water underneath.
"I'm not asking you to be less close to her. I'm asking you to hear me when I tell you that I spent the evening feeling like a guest in my own house."
"That's not fair."
"It's what happened."
"You planned the dinner. You chose the menu, the wine, the seating. You were the center of the whole evening."
"I was the infrastructure of the whole evening, Drew. There's a difference."
He stared at her. She could see him working through it, running her words through the same analytical framework he applied to everything:Is this a real problem or a perceived problem? Does this require action or reassurance?She knew which side he'd land on. She always knew.
"I think you're tired," he said. "You worked hard on tonight and you're reading too much into a normal situation. Tori respects you. She said your dinner was stunning."
"She said Ido thiswell. Like it's a skill. Like I'm the person who does the dinners."
"Youarethe person who does the dinners. You're incredible at it. That's a compliment."
Madeleine pulled the covers back and got into bed. She reached for the lamp on her side and paused with her fingers on the switch. In the yellow light, Drew's profile was sharp and familiar: the jaw she'd traced with her thumb on their wedding night, the brow that furrowed when he was solving problems, the mouth that used to find hers in the dark without being asked. She loved that profile. She had loved it for seven years. Loving it had never been the issue.
"I'm going to sleep," she said.
"Maddie.” He put his hand on her arm. His palm was warm, and the touch had the shape of an apology without containing one. "I love you. You know that. Tori is not a threat to us. I promise."
She turned off the lamp. In the dark, his hand stayed on her arm for a few more seconds before he shifted back to his laptop, the screen casting blue light across the ceiling.
She lay on her side and looked at the closet door, which she'd left open. She could see the edge of her black dress hanging there, the one she'd bought and tried on four times in a fitting room and worn tonight for a man who'd told the table it looked great and hadn't told her anything at all.
Tori is not a threat to us.
He'd said it with such certainty. With the absolute confidence of a man who believed his wife was permanent, who'd organized his life around the assumption that Madeleine would always be here, in this bed, in this penthouse, planning the dinners andclearing the plates and turning off the lamp. Who'd never once considered that the opposite might be true. That permanence was a choice, not a condition, and he hadn't been making it in months.
Madeleine closed her eyes and didn't sleep for a long time.
CHAPTER 3
MADELEINE
Madeleine had marriedDrew on a Saturday in October, in a converted mill outside of Philadelphia with copper beech trees lining the drive and the Wissahickon Creek running silver below the ceremony site. She'd worn her mother's veil. Drew had cried during his vows, which surprised everyone except Madeleine, who'd known he would because she'd seen the way his throat worked when he practiced them in the bathroom mirror the night before, thinking she was asleep.
That was the version of Drew she'd married. The one who practiced his vows in private, cried in public and drove her to Cape May on their third date because she'd mentioned, once, in passing, that she loved the sound of waves at night. The one whonoticed.
She thought about that version sometimes. Like a historian studying a primary source, trying to pinpoint the moment the document had been revised.
