Chapter 1 - The Woman Across the Water
Adam Mercer had spent $18,000 on the weekend because he wanted to forget he still had a wife.
By Friday afternoon, he had almost succeeded.
Then he stepped onto the terrace of his private suite, looked across the glittering blue water, and saw Nora.
His wife.
Laughing.
Pregnant.
And standing beside her with one hand protectively hovering near the small of her back was Caleb Ross, the thirty-eight-year-old CEO whose face had appeared on the cover of nearly every business magazine Adam secretly hated reading.
For several seconds, Adam forgot the woman beside him existed.
“Adam?”
Lena Brooks lowered her champagne flute.
He didn’t answer.
His fingers had tightened so hard around his glass that his knuckles were white.
Across the lawn of Heron Ridge Resort in northern Michigan, Nora wore a pale blue sundress that moved softly in the afternoon breeze. Her blond hair was longer than Adam remembered. She was holding a lemonade in one hand and touching the unmistakable curve of her belly with the other.
She looked peaceful.
That was what struck him hardest.
Not devastated.
Not lonely.
Not waiting for him to come home.
Peaceful.
Caleb said something that made her laugh again.
Adam felt something cold move through his stomach.
“Who are you staring at?” Lena asked.
“No one.”
“That’s a very intense way to look at no one.”
Adam turned away too quickly.
Lena followed his gaze.
She was thirty-two, beautiful in the sharp, deliberate way that expensive people often were. Cream silk blouse. Diamond earrings. Perfect posture. The kind of woman who could walk into a conference room filled with fifty executives and make half of them sit straighter.
She had also been Adam’s mistress for eight months.
Their affair had begun before Adam moved out of the house he shared with Nora.
That part never appeared in the story Adam told friends.
In his version, the marriage had already been dead.
In his version, he and Lena had simply met at an unfortunate time.
In his version, everybody had been hurt, nobody had been guilty, and success had required difficult choices.
Adam was very good at versions.
He was a corporate attorney who had made his first million before thirty-five and his tenth before forty. His clients paid him to turn ugly facts into acceptable narratives.
For years, he had done the same thing with his own life.
Until now.
Lena looked across the grounds.
Her eyes stopped on Nora.
Then on Nora’s belly.
Then on Caleb.
Something changed in her expression.
“That’s her, isn’t it?”
Adam took a drink.
“Who?”
“Your wife.”
“Nora and I have been separated for fourteen months.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He said nothing.
Lena laughed once, but there was no amusement in it.
“You told me she barely leaves the house.”
“I never said that.”
“You said she wanted a quiet little life in the suburbs.”
“She did.”
“Well, she seems to have found a pretty nice suburb.”
Adam looked again despite himself.
Caleb had pulled out Nora’s chair at the lakeside café.
Such a meaningless gesture.
Such a stupid thing to notice.
Adam noticed anyway.
He remembered Nora asking him to have dinner at the table instead of over his laptop.
He remembered telling her he had a conference call.
He remembered her asking him to come to her mother’s memorial service early because she didn’t want to walk into the church alone.
He remembered arriving forty minutes late.
He remembered promising that things would calm down after the next deal.
There had always been another deal.
Then there had been Lena.
“She’s pregnant,” Lena said quietly.
Adam’s jaw tightened.
“I can see that.”
Lena looked at him.
May you like
“How pregnant?”
“How would I know?”
