BETSY

I woke to the sound of whispers.

Jumping to my feet, I wrapped my robe tight around me at the sudden onslaught of icy air. Rick wasn't here, but he wasn't supposed to be here anyway.

He was on the couch and, to my surprise, I heard him there all night. That slight snoring reverberating through the tense air. Until now.

There was another sound, and it wasn't the gentle rasp of breathing.

It was a voice.

Carefully, I cracked open the bedroom door and took a peek into the living room. When my eyes adjusted, I could see the outline of the kitchen on the right, and the back of the couch beyond.

A large shape paced in the darkness.

Another inspection showed that it was humanoid, and the intruder turned around, I saw the light of the phone catch his face. I sighed, relieved:

It was just Rick.

But, why would he be up at 5 in the morning?

I crept further out of the bedroom. My ears picked up a second voice, much fainter, over the drone of the air conditioning.

"You better get your act together," a woman scolded over the speaker of Rick's telephone.

He paced, distraught. "You said we could keep working on this, that you would stay here a few more days—what happened to that?"

"Life happened, Rick," the woman spat, her venom voice laced with something worse than disdain. "How did you think things would be?" When Rick started to answer, she cut him off.

"Did you really believe I would throw everything away for this?"

The coldness in her voice startled me, and I could see a change come over Rick. His voice fell to a whisper, and his eyes turned dark.

"Please, can't you reconsider—"

"Richard, the offer was never meant to stand forever."

I was close enough to see the moonlight catch his dark hair, and the abysmal sorrow etched into the creases of his face.

"Reconsider what?"

Rick turned to me at the sound of my voice. The phone slipped from his hand. "Betsy."

He looked as if he'd been caught with his pants down.

"Reconsider what?" I repeated, this time a demand more than a question.

Rick debated between reaching for the phone and turning his back to me. I didn't give him a chance to decide. Lunging faster than a heartbeat, I snatched the phone up from the ground and put it to my ear. I could barely hear the woman's voice over the sound of my own racing heart.

"—how do you expect me to work with you and tolerate all this crap, Rick?" She sighed angrily. Rick was motioning for me to give him back the phone, but with every step he took forward, I took one back. "Now what?" she said, when no one answered. "Are you mad at me—"

"Hello?"

The woman paused. "Hello? Who is this?" Another sigh. "Look, I was on the phone with Richard Chase. If you could be so kind as to transfer me back to him, I will gladly put a word in with your supervisor—"

"No," I said, the calmness in my voice masking the anger seething underneath. "You don't get to ask the questions here. Now, who the hell are you?"

"Victoria Pitchner," the woman answered, all the picture of cordiality. "You are not a secretary, I presume."

"No, I am Rick's wife." I grit my teeth. "However, I don't very much appreciate waking up to hearing my husband on the phone with his whore of a mistress."

Rick gave me a pleading look, "Betsy—"

"Shut up," I spat. I put the phone back to my ear in time to catch Victoria's last words.

"—mistress?" An incredulous laugh. "Mrs. Chase, I am engaging in nothing with your husband but a business deal. If we each make money out of it, it is because we are investing—" her voice hardened now "—but I do not appreciate being called a 'whore' by my associate's partner.

"Now," she continued, stopping me from spewing a vomit of apologies, "I ask that you will do me the favor of informing your husband that I will be terminating any further communications with him."

Rick, hearing something of that over the phone, snatched it from my hands. In my shock, I let him. My stomach was turning.

"What . . . what does that mean?" he stammered, trying to argue.

"It means, Richard," Victoria snapped, "that I am done doing business with you, in any shape or form."

The call died with a click. 

* * * 

He was beyond mortified. I knew that by the mere fact that he didn't yell at me. He was so far past any kind of anger, that all that was left was shock, and underneath that, a hysterical, boiling mass of panic.

And he couldn't compose himself enough to hide it.

"I have to go," he gasped, one hand reaching for his coat and the other for his keys.

"Why?" was all I could bring my numb body to ask.

"Why, what, Betsy?" he growled, releasing his tension with the bite in his tone. "Why did you have to go and interrupt a very important call with an associate—"

"Why did you cheat on me?" The words, as they left my mouth, snapped something in me. Hot tears came streaming down my cheeks. "Why won't you go to counseling? What the hell happened to us that one day you woke up and didn't love me anymore, so you decided to bring out a . . . a whore to take my place?"

My voice cracked as I finished, but I was met with steely resistance. Rick looked at me, weak and crying, like my words were butter knife clinking against his chainmail suit, and something very hard settled in the lines of his face.

"My dealings with Victoria are strictly for business, Betsy," he said, voice grave against the quiet of the morning. "Our marriage has always been another problem entirely."

He was already at the door. At that point, he just slammed it closed behind him.

My knees buckled and I fell to the floor. After an eternity frozen on the ground, my iced hands fumbled for the landline, fighting the terrible urge in me to dash myself against the rocks in the garden.

I had half-dialed Kat before a new thought occurred to me.

I could follow him.

Wherever Rick was going, it was probably to see his mistress. To find out the truth, all I would have to do would be follow him. I snatched my keys off the counter and went to the door. It took me three times to stick the key in the lock to close the front door—at least if the whore was coming here, now she wouldn't be able to get in—and ran to the car. The engine rumbled to life under my touch, and I was off, after my cheating bastard of a husband.

I didn't need to look at the GPS on his phone to know where he was going. He was on his way to Nimbus Hotel and Spa, and after running two red lights and narrowly avoiding an old woman crossing the street with her dog, I was two cars behind him. He had no idea.

The second ticked by as quick as my heartbeat drumming against my temples. He drew into the lot, and I parked a few rows behind him. He left his car in a huff, straightening his tie as he went, running his fingers through his hair.

He whipped through the revolving door and was halfway through the lobby before I could even get through the parking lot.

By the time I made it to the lobby, he had disappeared. I raced to the bored concierge by the desk, who raised his head as he saw me.

"Where did the man go?" I asked. "The man who was just here," I clarified, "the one in a hurry."

The concierge didn't look like he seemed to care. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I'm not at liberty to give out room numbers. They are confidential." He glanced over my shoulder as heels clicked across the marble.

I stepped aside as a woman set her things down. Just from a glance, I could tell she was enchanting, her chestnut locks and sea-glass eyes bewitched, and her long, manicured nails drummed against the counter, ready to ensnare any unsuspecting man with a caress.

"I would like a refund," she said.

The concierge flushed red. "Yes, ma'am," he stammered. "I need your ID and room number."

With a roll of her eyes, the woman pulled out her wallet. "Victoria Pitchner," she said. "Staying in room 216."

The concierge glanced my way, only to direct back to Victoria when she sighed in impatience.

"I have somewhere to be," she said through half-lidded eyes. "If you could make this quick—"

"Victoria?" I stepped forward, heart threatening to tear out of my chest.

Victoria turned to me, raising a delicate eyebrow. "Do I know you?"

I cleared my throat. "No—yes—well, it's complicated, really—"

Victoria waved a dismissive hand. "Whoever you are, I really don't have the time. I'm in the middle of tearing up a business deal. Are you almost finished?" She snapped at the concierge.

He flinched at her tone. "I need to see the card you charged the room to."

She handed it over with an iciness that threatened to kill.

"Victoria—Ms. Pitchner—"

"Mrs. Pitchner—" she corrected, glancing back at me. She made no show of hiding her annoyance with me.

"I just wanted to say I'm very sorry for the way I treated you on the phone—" her eyes widened imperceptibly as I spoke, then narrowed "—but my husband, Rick Chase, he had nothing to do with it. It's my fault. I'm paranoid. Please," I begged. "Don't break whatever deal you have with him."

Victoria's eyes softened. Her fingers stopped drumming against the counter. The concierge couldn't stop looking between us, trying to do the calculations for how such a collected woman could know the one dressed in a nightgown and on the brink of sobbing.

"Rick and I are in a tough place right now. I don't trust him, but I'm trying to. He's been seeing someone—or so I thought—but he's only been seeing you." I wiped tears from my eyes. "Why here, though?"

Victoria dismissed the concierge with a wave. "Your husband and I are negotiating an important trade deal. However, the deal is embargoed for the next four weeks and has been for the past few months. There will be a bit of rearranging at a few of his companies, and because of this, no one can know." Her green eyes warmed. "I'm sorry that you're having trouble with Rick. He really is a good man, even if he does have his troubles."

I chewed my lip. "It must be expensive to have to rent out a hotel room so often."

Victoria sighed, replacing her ID and credit card in her wallet. "And it looks like I'll need to come up for the next few months again. If I only had a nicer place to stay."

A thought occurred to me. "I might know of a place you can sublet for a little while. It's cheap, but right in the heart of town. I lived there myself," I added, sensing her reluctance.

Victoria pondered the proposal. She reached into her wallet and pulled out a card. "Here is my office number. I'm on my way back home now, but give me a call in a few days. I may or may not be interested," she said, a hint of a smile gracing her lips. "Depends on if your husband earns his way back into my good graces."

I tasted bile in my throat as I fingered the card. "That's my fault. Please, don't take it out on him. He works so hard—"

"As do I, Mrs. Chase," Victoria answered, voice hard. "And I do not appreciate having my time wasted."

"Give him one more chance. He doesn't deserve to lose this deal—"

Victoria's eyes flashed and I swallowed. "I can't dissolve our arrangement as quickly as I would have liked, Mrs. Chase, nor can I do without losing a substantial investment. However, that does not mean that you husband will get the same deal we have been working on. The terms have changed. When you get home, ask him to call me." She turned to walked away, luggage in one hand.

"He's not home," I said, almost a whisper. "He's here."

Victoria froze, but didn't turn to look at me. "I can't imagine why."