Page 17 of Neglected By Her CEO Husband

Ellie gave me a hug and made me promise to help her pick out her gown for the show. I knew it was her way of making sure I went, but I appreciated it.

When I got home, the house was empty. As usual. I'd worried my pulling back from the role I usually would have taken with the investors' dinner would lead to a big blowup, but apparently, it had gone unnoticed.

Just like everything else for the past eight years.

10

DAMON

Emily had stopped using the chair across from my desk. She sat on the edge of it instead, hip against the wood, close. She'd lean over the printouts until her shoulder was on mine. When she made a point she put her hand on my arm, and the hand stayed a while after the point was made.

That was just Emily. She'd been like it since school, with everyone, the board, the bench techs. It didn't mean anything.

We'd been at the cohort since eight. The afternoon-readings problem had opened up into a full re-run of the numbers, and she moved through it quicker than my own people did. There was a rhythm to working with her I'd forgotten. She'd start a sentence and I'd finish it. I'd tap a figure and she was already three steps down the line of what had caused it.

"You still bite your pen when you don't believe a number," she said. "You did it through all of organic chem. Drove me insane." She nodded at my hand. The pen was already between my teeth, and I hadn't noticed putting it there. I took it out.

She'd known me before any of this. Sitting next to her, the old version of me turned back up without being asked for. She'd kicked her shoes off at some point and had one foot tucked under her. She was eating the pretzels out of my drawer without asking. It was easy, easier than the rest of my day, and I'd been in the building since before six without once wanting to leave it.

I put the pen down and went back to the data. The work was good. The rest was background.

Reese put his head in before noon with the investors' dinner binder under his arm.

"Sorry to interrupt. Thursday's seating. Somebody's draft has the Ardmonts next to the Browns again, and that's how we got the wine situation last year. I wanted to check it was deliberate before I move anyone."

"That's Maddie's wheelhouse," I said without looking up from the research in front of me. "Ask her."

"I tried. Texted her yesterday, and again this morning." He shifted the binder to his other arm. "She hasn't gotten back to me."

That stopped me. The investor dinner ran on Maddie. I didn't really know how it got made, only that it always did, finished and on time, every year, and I had never asked how. Most of my life outside work was like that. The house stayed warm without my help. The car was always at the curb. Maddie ran all of it from somewhere I'd never thought to look.

I'd watched her work one of these once, the first investor dinner after we married. A senator's wife said something to a board member's wife and the whole table went cold, and Maddie had a waiter between them with a fresh bottle before I'd even felt the temperature drop. She moved a place card. She laughed at the right moment. By the entrée the two women were trading recipes. I'd thought, that's a useful skill to have acquired through marriage. I never thought past useful.

"Move the Ardmonts," I said. "Anywhere. The Browns are top priority, their family is responsible for funding half the new line. I'll sort the rest." Reese nodded and went.

Maddie always answered. I picked up my phone and called her.

It rang out. I called again. Voicemail, her voice asking me to leave a message. I'd heard that recording maybe twice the whole marriage. She always picked up.

I didn't leave a message. I texted her instead. You're not answering Reese. Or me. Everything ok?

I watched the screen. No dots came up. Nothing came back.

Mark caught me in the hall near four. He clocked the phone face up in my hand and looked at me.

"You alright?"

"Maddie's not answering," I said, before I'd decided to say it.

Mark went still. "Since when does Maddie not answer the phone?"

"That's the question."

He didn't push it. He didn't have to.

By the end of the afternoon there was still nothing. I tried her once more between calls and got the recording again. I thought about ringing the house to ask if she was even home. I didn't. I wasn't ready to have someone go through my own house looking for my wife. But maybe it was time I went home early, just to make sure everything was alright.

"You've got a face." Emily was back with two coffees. She set one by my hand and watched me over the top of hers. "Everything alright?"