Chapter 11 - THE WOMAN FROM GUNTHER’S PAST LEFT HIS HOUSE AT TWO IN THE MORNING
At 2:13 on a Wednesday morning, Jacqueline Mercer walked out of Gunther Woods’s house wearing yesterday’s black dress.
The photographer across the street captured seven frames.
By 6:40, three tabloids had them.
By 7:15, Kayla had seen all seven.
She was standing in the staff kitchen at the rehabilitation center with a paper cup of coffee she had forgotten to drink.
The headline was predictable.
EX-MOB KING’S FORMER LOVER SPENDS NIGHT AT WOODS RESIDENCE
The article was worse.
Anonymous sources.
Speculation.
Old photographs of Jacqueline beside Gunther at charity galas.
A grainy picture from years earlier of Gunther’s hand at Jacqueline’s lower back.
And one sentence Kayla read twice.
Mercer was once believed to be the only woman powerful enough to hold Woods’s attention for more than a night.
“Kayla?”
She locked her phone.
Dr. Elias Ward stood in the doorway.
Thirty-six.
Divorced.
Director of clinical operations.
The kind of man who asked before entering rooms and remembered receptionists’ birthdays without needing an assistant to remind him.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
Elias glanced at the untouched coffee.
“That answer seems medically inaccurate.”
Kayla almost smiled.
“Bad sleep.”
He did not push.
Another reason she liked working with him.
Not romantically.
She had become careful about distinguishing those things.
Six months earlier, she might have called Gunther immediately.
Not now.
Because Gunther had spent years learning not to monitor her.
Not to question every male colleague.
Not to demand to know where she was.
Kayla refused to reward that progress by becoming what she had once feared from him.
So she worked.
At 10:20, Gunther texted.
Dinner tonight?
No explanation.
No mention of Jacqueline.
Kayla stared.
Then typed:
Late meeting. Maybe tomorrow.
Three dots appeared.
Stopped.
Returned.
Okay. Tomorrow.
That should have relieved her.
Instead, something twisted.
Why wasn’t he explaining?
Because maybe there was nothing to explain.
Or because he assumed she would not ask.
At 4:30, Elias and Kayla met with the parents of a twenty-two-year-old patient named Marcus who had lost both legs below the knee in a construction accident.
The insurer had denied additional inpatient rehabilitation.
Again.
Marcus’s mother cried quietly.
His father stared at the table.
Kayla spent forty minutes dismantling the denial line by line.
By six, the insurer reversed.
Marcus got another three weeks.
His mother hugged Kayla.
Then Elias hugged her too.
Briefly.
Professionally.
“You just saved us from three days of appeals.”
Kayla laughed against his shoulder.
Neither noticed the man standing across the lobby.
Gunther had come without warning.
He saw the hug.
Stopped.
Then watched Kayla step back smiling.
Something old moved inside him.
Possession.
Jealousy.
The instinct to identify Elias, pull his employment file, marital history, finances.
Gunther hated that the instinct still existed.
He turned away before Kayla saw him.
He did not ask Victor to investigate.
He did not call security.
He did not even ask Kayla who Elias was.
Progress sometimes felt exactly like losing.
At 8:10, Kayla reached home.
Gunther called.
She considered ignoring him.
Then answered.
“Hi.”
“You sound tired.”
“I am.”
Silence.
“Everything okay?”
Kayla almost laughed.
He was asking her.
She could ask him.
She should.
Instead she said, “Long day.”
“Who was the man?”
Her body went still.
“What?”
“At the center.”
There it was.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to bring dinner.”
“And instead you watched me?”
“No.”
She heard the immediate correction.
“I saw you through the lobby.”
“Then you left.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gunther looked across his empty kitchen.
Because I was jealous sounded ridiculous.
Because I was trying not to become the man who demands explanations sounded worse.
“He looked important to you.”
Kayla’s jaw tightened.
“So you decided not to ask.”
“I’m asking now.”
“His name is Elias Ward. He runs clinical operations.”
“Are you seeing him?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Gunther exhaled.
Kayla heard it.
That annoyed her.
“Now my question.”
He knew.
“Jacqueline was at your house.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“Until two in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gunther paused.
Too long.
Kayla felt something drop inside her.
“I can’t tell you everything yet.”
Wrong answer.
He knew the moment he said it.
Kayla became quiet.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No.”
Not hesitation.
Not defensiveness.
No.
Kayla believed him.
That should have solved it.
It didn’t.
“Did she stay overnight?”
“She came at eleven.”
“Left at two.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you without betraying something that isn’t mine to tell.”
There.
Not his secret.
Kayla understood the logic.
She still hated it.
“Okay.”
Gunther frowned.
“Okay?”
“You answered what I had the right to ask.”
That sentence bothered him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I believe you didn’t sleep with her.”
“But?”
“But I don’t like discovering women from your past were at your house through tabloids.”
“Fair.”
“And I especially don’t like that you saw me hug a coworker and walked away instead of coming inside.”
Gunther closed his eyes.
“I was trying not to interfere.”
“Sometimes respecting me means asking.”
He went quiet.
She continued.
“And sometimes asking isn’t control.”
Gunther stared at the floor.
“I don’t know the line yet.”
“I know.”
“That’s not excuse.”
“No.”
He almost smiled.
They were getting disturbingly good at that phrase.
Kayla sat on her couch.
“Tomorrow?”
“Dinner.”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell me about Jacqueline?”
“What I can.”
“Fine.”
Before hanging up, Gunther said, “Kayla.”
“Yes?”
“I was jealous.”
She blinked.
“That’s why I left.”
A tiny smile pulled at her mouth.
“Thank you for admitting it.”
“I hated him immediately.”
“He’s very nice.”
“That made it worse.”
Kayla laughed.
Gunther smiled alone in his kitchen.
For a moment, the misunderstanding shrank.
Neither of them knew it was about to become much worse.
Because across town, Jacqueline Mercer stood inside Victor Romano’s apartment.
Barefoot.
May you like
Holding a glass of water.
And wearing Victor’s shirt.
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